Archive | May, 2010

  • Obama on Iran: All Options Are on the Table

    Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print

  • Mexico: A New Slogan for the Drug War

      New Slogan Federal Government: So that drugs won’t get to your children . . . WE ARE KILLING THEM FOR YOU. José Hernández is a Mexican cartoonist.  This cartoon — drawn on 23 March 2010 in response to Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs, especially the deaths of Juárezyouth and Monterrey Tec students as its […]

  • The Oil Spill: BP, Obama, and Salazar

    Barack Obama was the top recipient of BP contributions in the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.  The Mineral Management Service’s “categorical exclusion” of BP’s Deepwater Horizon lease from environmental impact analysis, under the watch of Ken Salazar’s Interior Department, was first reported by the Washington Post yesterday.  The White House […]

  • Class Struggles and National Debts

    The political conflicts and street battles in Greece today foretell what is coming to many countries including the US.  The struggles are basically over what the government spends on and who pays the taxes.  In today’s class-divided societies, classes differ over what governments should do and who should pay the taxes.  Governments in such societies […]

  • About The War Before

    In 1968, Safiya Bukhari witnessed an NYPD officer harassing a Black Panther for selling the organization’s newspaper on a Harlem street corner.  The young pre-med student felt compelled to intervene in defense of the Panther’s First Amendment right; she ended up handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police car.  The War Before traces […]

  • Tricks of the Theatre

      The following statement by Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg was delivered outside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on May 3, 2010 where supporters of Fahad Hashmi have been gathering since last October to bear witness to the inhumane conditions of Fahad’s detention and to call for an end to the US […]

  • Targeting Iran’s Nuclear Program

    Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | | Print

  • BP

    Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 5 May 2010.  See, also, “Gulf Oil Spill — New Spill Calculation — Exxon Valdez Surpassed Today” (SkyTruth, 1 May 2010). | | Print

  • Israel’s Stasi Watch over Imams

    Job interviews for the position of imam at mosques in Israel are conducted not by senior clerics but by the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, a labor tribunal has revealed. Sheikh Ahmed Abu Ajwa, 36, is fighting the Shin Bet’s refusal to approve his appointment as an imam in a case that has lifted the […]

  • Partisan Songspiel: A Belgrade Story

    “Our struggle is not over.  Look for new partisans!” Director: Olga Egorova (Tsaplya); Assistant Directors: Vladan Jeremić, Rena Rädle, Dmitry Vilensky; Script and Stage Design: Vladan Jeremić, Tsaplya, Rena Rädle, Dmitry Vilensky; Music: Mikhail Krutik; Camera and Lighting: Artem Ignatov; Costume Design: Natalya Pershina (Gluklya); Choreography: Nina Gasteva; Editing and Post-Production: Tsaplya and Dmitry Vilensky. […]

  • Iran’s Challenge to the Nuclear Order

    Excerpt: Three nations in the Middle East dominate any present-day discussion of nuclear weapons, yet only one is subjected to an unprecedented degree of international scrutiny.  Two have nuclear weapons; the third does not.  Yet it is the third nation that is widely considered the threat to world peace and the target of ever increasing […]

  • Thailand: UDD’s Answer to Abhisit, 4th May

    Note: UDD = National United Front of Democracy against Dictatorship = Red Shirts. 1. UDD is happy to enter negotiations and the process of solving the crisis. 2. UDD wants to know the exact date of the dissolution of parliament since the election date is determined by the Election Commission, not the Prime Minister. 3. […]

  • Nepal: Scenes from the General Strike

    See, also, . | | Print

  • Mohamed ElBaradei on the Iranian Nuclear Issue

    As we follow the NPT Review Conference in New York and the enormous salience of the Iranian nuclear issue there, it is useful to consider some recent observations about the Iranian case by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s former Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei.  Baradei was in the Boston area last week, where, among other things, […]

  • Egypt: Workers Struggle for a Higher Minimum Wage

    Bahaa Saber holds up a loaf of bread Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian socialist, journalist, and photographer.  Visit his blog: .  The photographs above were first published on his blog on 3 May 2010 under a Creative Commons license.  Note: the minimum wage in Egypt has not been raised since 1984. | | Print

  • Egypt: Workers Demand More Pay, Clash with Police

    Under Egyptian law, people found guilty of inciting or organizing demonstrations without permission face jail terms of up to one year and hefty fines.  However, hundreds have gathered in downtown Cairo to protest against Egypt’s high unemployment rate and the government’s failure to increase the national minimum wage.  Workers’ groups say the government’s eagerness to […]

  • The Non-Proliferation Treaty Is an Intrinsically Unfair Treaty

    Ambassador Cabactulan, President of the Review Conference, Ambassador Sergio Duarte, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to congratulate you, Mr. President, for the chairmanship of this Conference.  You can count on my delegation’s best cooperation. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is an intrinsically unfair treaty, which divides the world between “haves” and “have-nots.”  […]

  • Thailand: What Prime Minister Abhisit Really Offered Today

    Thai Prime Minister Abhisit trumpeted that he was making an important initiative today to “solve” the political crisis.  He offered to dissolve parliament in September and hold elections on 14th November 2010.  Previously he had said that he would not dissolve parliament until December.  Yet even this offer was conditional on there being “peace in […]

  • Is the Washington Post Hyping the Iranian Nuclear “Threat” Once Again?

    Yet again, the Washington Post has published another highly inflammatory article on Iranian nuclear developments, “Iran’s Advances in Nuclear Technology Spark New Concerns about Weapons,” by Joby Warrick.  As we wrote, Warrick co-authored another recent story for the Washington Post on Iran’s nuclear program that “could easily have been run about Iraq back in 2002.” […]

  • Iraq Redux: Defectors, Terrorists, and Unnamed Officials in the Media’s Iran Coverage

    On April 25, the Washington Post had another piece on Iran, this time on the front page, that could easily have been run about Iraq back in 2002.  We have recently criticized the Post for relying on Green Movement partisans for ostensibly objective “analysis” about Iranian politics.  This front page article relies almost entirely on […]