Archive | June, 2010

  Brodwyn M. Fischer.  A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro.  Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.  xx + 464 pp.  $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8047-5290-9. From the 1920s to the 1950s, largely under the impetus of reforms associated with Getúlio Vargas (president, 1930-45, 1951-54), the Brazilian state expanded significantly and extended […]

The climate crisis and efforts to tackle it have witnessed unprecedented mobilisation of popular movements, NGOs, think tanks, experts, intellectuals and activists, as was evident at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen last December.  Of course, this “civil society” activism has embraced a very wide spectrum of opinion.  Amongst the most vociferous, at various gatherings as […]

  Whether in the media or in U.S. policy circles, the words “Middle East” and “South America” are rarely mentioned together in a positive light.  Reports of Middle Eastern terrorist cells allegedly operating in South America’s Tri-Border region or on Venezuela’s Margarita Island have appeared intermittently in the U.S. press since at least 2003.  These […]

As the United Nations Security Council moves toward a vote on a resolution imposing additional sanctions on Iran over its nuclear activities, China is being remarkably silent, at least in public.  In the wake of the announcement of the Iran-Turkey-Brazil Joint Declaration in Tehran on May 17 and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement in […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

  The Israeli Knesset’s House Committee met Monday (7 June) to recommend revoking the privileges of MK Hanin Zoabi.  The revocation would serve as punishment for Zoabi’s participation in last week’s Freedom Flotilla aid mission to Gaza, an act some in the Knesset are calling treason. Zoabi made history in February 2009, becoming the first […]

Meanwhile, thousands of Israelis took to the main streets of Tel Aviv to repudiate the military aggression against the humanitarian flotilla to Gaza.  “Jews and Arabs Refuse to Be Enemies” was the main theme of the demonstration.  Signs and placards demonstrated the solidarity of the Israeli people with the Palestinian community. This video was released […]

Ali Khamenei, Leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution: The Zionists made a miscalculation.  They made a mistake.  They made a big mistake.  This mistake has been repeated in recent years, again and again.  They made a mistake of attacking Lebanon.  They made a mistake of attacking Gaza.  And they made a mistake of attacking the aid […]

  Tens of thousands again come together to protest.  The captured and the dead (from the recent raid by Israeli commandos on an aid flotilla) have been returned (to Turkey), but the Turkish people are intent on continuing to make their voices heard.  And fuelling the fury is the news of the preliminary autopsy reports, […]

  “Israel does not need enemies: it has itself.  Or more precisely: it has its government,” writes The New Republic‘s Leon Wieseltier in a bitingly titled column, “Operation Make the World Hate Us: The Assault on the ‘Mavi Marmara’ Was Wrong, and a Gift to Israel’s Enemies.” It’s not just an Israeli government initiative.  Operation […]

  Anita McNaught: The last passengers from the Mavi Marmara arrive at a hospital in Turkey — two men, up to now too badly injured to fly out of Israel, their lives still hanging in the balance. . . .  Of the 24 injured brought to Ankara’s Ataturk Hospital, five remain in a critical condition. […]

The unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent in May, primarily as a result of 411,000 temporary Census jobs.  The Census hires pushed total job creation for May to 431,000; however, the addition of 20,000 non-Census jobs is down sharply from the 217,000 reported for April.  Excluding the temporary Census hires, the economy has generated 132,000 […]

Political theater now grips Greece.  As with ancient Greek plays, today’s drama also reaches and touches everyone else.  We sense Greece’s dilemmas becoming our own. Her rulers declare that a crisis now threatens Greece.  They blame it on the masses.  To overcome it, they must impose great suffering on the masses.  The rulers’ chorus intones […]

An act of piracy, war crime, blatant violation of international law, murder of unarmed civilians — each and every definition used by the international media is true, and altogether beside the point.  The murderous Israeli operation is, in fact, the expression of the new Israeli modus operandi.  And as such it is frightening. All over […]

United States of America (clutching weapons of mass destruction): We are here to negotiate from a constructive position. Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist.   This cartoon was published in Cambios en Cuba on 30 May 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

Gautam Navlakha: How many of us have dared raise fundamental issues about what the state has been doing since 1947, since the transfer of power?  There’s not a single year in the last 63 that we have had since the transfer of power when the state has not been engaged in a war in one […]

As central India’s forest belts are swept into an ever-intensifying state offensive and resulting civil war, there has been a strong convergence of left, liberal and progressive arguments on Operation Green Hunt.  This note argues that this ‘basic line’ is problematic.  The line can be summarised as: The conflict is rooted in resource grabbing by […]

Designed by Ciudad Futura, inspired by Antonio Pérez, “Piratas sionistas contra pistolas de pintura” (Rebelión, 1 June 2010) and Robert Booth, Kate Connolly, Tom Philips, and Helena Smith, “Gaza Flotilla Raid: ‘We Heard Gunfire — Then Our Ship Turned into Lake of Blood’” (Guardian, 2 June 2010). | Print

I was left with no alternative other than to write two “Reflections” on Iran and Korea, which explain the imminent danger of war with the use of nuclear weapons. I have also expressed the opinion that one of them could be overcome if China decided to veto the resolution that the United States is promoting […]

“We don’t have anything to be ashamed of.  We are the majority and it doesn’t matter what lies they say about us.” — At a rally defending the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla, Ben-Gurion University, 1 June 2010 Turkish Embassy, Tel Aviv, 3 June 2010 Tel Aviv University, 2 June 2010 Ben-Gurion University, 1 […]