Despite its criticism of Tehran’s handling of protesters, the EU shies away from a serious diplomatic conflict with Iran. Both the Swedish EU Council Presidency and individual EU member states will participate in the inauguration of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that, “given the circumstances surrounding the controversial reelection” of […]
Archive | August, 2009
Brazil Opposes Holding Elections in Honduras under De Facto Government
Brasilia, 4 August 2009, ABN — The government of Brazil rejected on Tuesday the idea of holding elections in Honduras under the de facto government headed by Roberto Micheletti, which was installed into power after the coup d’état on the 28th of June. That is the message sent by the principal international adviser to the […]
Uneven Development Is the Root of Many Crimes
Address to the United Nations General Assembly Thematic Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect, the United Nations, New York, 23 July 2009 The phrase, responsibility to protect, brings to my mind painful memories of lack of protection of many people who died of ethnic cleansing in Kenya earlier this year. The incidents of ethnic cleansing […]
Honduran Resistance to the World: Organize a Boycott against the Military-Business Dictatorship of Roberto Micheletti
June 28th of the this year when the Honduran population was preparing to participate in a popular opinion poll about the installation of a fourth ballot box in which it would decide whether or not to convoke a Constitutional Assembly, thousands of military soldiers kidnapped the Constitutional President of the Republic, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, […]
The End of Chimerica?
Like the star gazers who last week watched the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, diplomatic observers had a field day watching the penumbra of big power politics involving the United States, Russia and China, which constitutes one of the crucial phenomena of 21st-century world politics. It all began with United States Vice […]
The World Left and the Iranian Elections
The recent elections in Iran, and the subsequent challenges to their legitimacy, have been a matter of enormous internal conflict in Iran, and of seemingly endless debate in the rest of the world — a debate that threatens to linger for some time yet. One of its most fascinating consequences has been the deep divisions […]
Reply to the Campaign for Peace and Democracy
The Campaign for Peace and Democracy1 has chosen to interpret our “Riding the ‘Green Wave’” article2 as a “vitriolic and dishonest attack” on its authors, and an “offensive impugning of [their] integrity.” In fact, it is nothing of the sort. Instead, it is concerned with issues of central importance to the left in the United […]
“Come Over and Help Us”: A History of R2P
Address to the United Nations General Assembly Thematic Dialogue on the Responsibility to Protect, the United Nations, New York, 23 July 2009 The discussions about Responsibility to Protect (R2P), or its cousin “humanitarian intervention,” are regularly disturbed by the rattling of a skeleton in the closet: history, to the present moment. Throughout history, there have […]
Responsibility to Protect?
On July 23, a debate concerning the Responsibility to Protect took place in front of the General Assembly of the United Nations. The responsibility to protect (R2P) is a notion agreed to by world leaders in 2005 that holds States responsible for shielding their own populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and related crimes […]
Truth and Reconciliation for Iran
We are a group of university educators and antiwar activists with diverse political views who are based in Europe and North America. During the past few years we have been active in defending Iran’s national rights — particularly those relating to the peaceful use of nuclear energy — against the pervasive deception created by western […]
South Africa: A Nation in Protest, a Moment of Hope
July 31, 2009 It is Friday afternoon, and I am in the Johannesburg Oliver Tambo Airport preparing for my journey back to New York where I will arrive Saturday morning. I left South Africa and Swaziland at the beginning of July, only to return two weeks later to put together the project that I am […]
