Archive | August, 2009

13 August 2009, Washington, D. C. — The Obama administration has an obligation to demand that the de facto regime in Honduras stop ongoing political killings and other human rights abuses, Center for Economic and Policy Research Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said today.  Weisbrot noted that human rights observers and international media have documented the killings […]

The overall CPI was unchanged in July while the core index rose by 0.1 percent.  Over the last three months the overall index has increased at a 3.4 percent annual rate, driven by sharply higher energy prices in June.  It is down by 2.1 percent over the last year.  The core index has increased at […]

  “No matter where we come from, there should never be any support for the US or any outside forces intervening in any country, particularly in Iran.  There should be no sanctions.  Not only sanctions are not humane but are not effective even, for the purpose of people who are doing them. . . . […]

Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, whose daughter is married to a son of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is the President’s Chief of Staff.  Mr. Mashaei is known for actions that have appalled certain conservative quarters of the Iranian political establishment, such as attending a ceremony in Turkey where women danced and hosting a ceremony in Tehran where women drumming […]

  In the Summer of 1984, under the oversight of U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, I was deported from Honduras with five other Americans for meeting with union representatives who wanted to tell us about the murders and disappearances of their leaders. At the time, the poor nation was known as “the aircraft carrier USS Honduras” […]

The repression is escalating.  Crackdowns are occurring in San Pedro Sula as well as Tegucigalpa. Micheletti decreta de nuevo el toque de quedaVergonzosa intimidación policial y militar en el STIBYS Our delegation is accounted for and unharmed.  They are now accompanying Honduran human rights workers and sending alarming reports.  Police and military are rounding up […]

The military coup carried out by masked soldiers in the early hours of June 28against the democratically elected President of Honduras, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, was a bandit act with differing messages intended for different audiences. One such audience is the oligarchical groupings throughout the hemisphere, who will be emboldened by Washington’s tacit tolerance of […]

During recent weeks, the current president of the United States has insisted in demonstrating that the crisis is abating as a result of his efforts to confront the serious problem that the United States and the world inherited from his predecessor.

“Amnesty” has become one of the dirtiest words in U.S. politics.  Immigration opponents use it to attack any plan — however restrictive and punitive — to regularize the status of the more than 11 million undocumented immigrants in the country.  Immigration advocates avoid the word, substituting euphemisms like “a path to citizenship.” Amnesty’s big problem […]

This year’s Postal Press Association Editors Conference was abuzz with discussion of the Postal Service’s threats to close hundreds of’ stations.  Virtually every editor present knew of one or more stations at risk in her or his own jurisdiction.  The wolf which has loomed at the APWU‘s door for years — plant closings, job losses, […]

  As members of the Board of Iranians For Peace (IFP), we are deeply concerned about the events following June 12 election in Iran particularly the street violence, loss of life, and widespread arrests.  One of the detainees, Dr Bijan Khajehpour Khoei, is a supporter of the IFP. We appeal to the Iranian authorities to […]

John Bellamy Foster.  The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet.  New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009.  328 pp. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels famously urged the world’s workers to unite because they had a world to win, and nothing to lose but their chains.  Today, the reality of climate change and worsening environmental breakdowns […]

There were great hopes in Latin America when President Obama was elected.  U.S. standing in the region had reached a low point under George W. Bush, and all of the hemisphere’s left-leaning governments expressed optimism that Obama would go in a different direction. These hopes have been dashed.  President Obama has continued the Bush policies […]

  February 2009 marked 10 years since Hugo Chavez took office, following a landslide election victory, and launched his revolution to bring radical change to Venezuela.  While wildly popular with many in the country, Chavez’s policies and his outspoken criticisms of the U.S. government have made him powerful enemies, both at home and abroad, especially […]

The Orange Revolution in Ukraine, which began with a dispute over the 21 November 2004 run-off vote between the leading presidential candidates, ended by installing Viktor Yushchenko, the Western favorite who cried fraud, into presidency on 23 January 2005.  Ian Traynor of the Guardian put the price tag of the Orange Revolution at about $14 […]

  اعتراف می کنم Mana Neyestani, born in Tehran in 1973, is an Iranian cartoonist.  He is Azeri himself, but his 12 May 2006 cartoon depicting a cockroach that appeared to speak in Azeri led to riots of Azeris in Iran, which in turn got him arrested.  A collection of his cartoons commenting on the […]

  In the Beginning I am a child of the cold war.  I was born in 1940, was an adolescent in the 1950s, and devoid of political consciousness when President Eisenhower warned of the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex” in 1960.   I was modestly inspired by the young President Kennedy’s […]

  Martin Savidge: What do you think will happen if the United States were to try to impose gasoline sanctions on Iran? Trita Parsi: I think, first of all, it’s going be very difficult to impose effective gasoline sanctions on Iran because you would have to get the cooperation of all the countries in the […]

Every week, Marcia Carroll collects examples of privatization (that is, corporatization of the peoples’ assets).  Looking at her website, Privatizationwatch.org, will either make you laugh helplessly or make your blood boil. The “off the wall” giveaways at bargain-basement prices of what you and other Americans own eclipses imagination.  The latest escapes from responsible government are […]

  On Tuesday, July 21st, the United Nations Development Program launched its 5th Arab Human Development Report (AHDR).  The independently prepared report was not presented to the public prior to its publication, but criticism began to surface even before it was released, both from researchers involved in the report and from observers. Wujohat Nazar (Perspectives) […]