PRAGOTI

After months of petty mindedness, crass oneupmanship and the impossibility of forming a national consensus government, a Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) leader has been elected to the role of prime ministership in Nepal in a two round process. UML chairman Jhalanath Khanal was supported by the Maoists in his bid to become the premier, marking an end to a tortuous process of electing a new prime minister after UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned as part of a three point formula worked out to extend the deadline for writing the Constitution by the Constituent Assembly. In many ways, a UML leader has been re-elected to power, but with a difference.

A sweeping wave of pro-democratization protests has engulfed various nations of the North African and Arab world. After the Tunisians were successful in their ouster of long time president Ben Ali and his associates, a score other nations have seen protests asking for the removal of long standing heads of state. Egypt is where the biggest theatre of protest is in progress. Pragoti shall get analytical content on these movements in the coming days. But for now, this blog post brings out content from relevant news sources to get a feel of the protests and actions underway. UPDATE: The Students' Federation of India has called for a protest demonstration in front of the Egyptian embassy on the 1st of February. Details inside post (below). UPDATE II - Prominent Marxist Vijay Prashad is interviewed by the website, Radical Notes. The link is provided below.

There are several changes witnessed in the last couple of years particularly in the post financial crisis phase that has had severely affected the power dynamics of the world.  The developed capitalist countries led primarily by the USA have gone down.

The irony of convening a climate change conference at a lavish resort built on reclaimed mangroves - one whose beach front had to be rejuvenated with sand dredged from the ocean for $70 million, was not completely lost on the delegates at the COP16 United Nations Climate Change Conference.