Archive | April, 2011

  It appears from Iranian Islamist blogs that the honeymoon between Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Islamic Republic’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is finally over.  Some reject Ahmadinejad in favor of the Supreme Leader while others show unwavering support for Ahmadinejad. It all started when President Ahmadinejad accepted the resignation of the Iranian Minister […]

  Nicolas Sarkozy: “Boys, these are the pillars that support authentic democracies!” Barack Obama: “Well said, Sarko!” José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero: “This is not Iraq . . . This is not Iraq . . . This is not Iraq . . . This is not Iraq . . .” Ferran Martín, born in Barcelona in […]

  Two relationships have long been key to the stability of the Syrian regime.  The first is an economic relationship: the regime puts back into national production just enough to create jobs and produce cheap national goods to keep the working population in steady or, better yet improving, living conditions.  The second is a political […]

“Here’s the Seat of the Embassy of Palestine” On Wednesday around 300 students, largely from Cairo University, held a march and protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo. To be honest, it was very weird marching without the Central Security Forces being around or cracking down.  At some point when we were standing […]

For the minimum necessary for a dignified life.  For the right to organize.  For an end to corruption. انضموا لنا: يوم 1 مايو عيد عمال مصر، بناة مصر Intifadat Intifadat is a collective of filmmakers in Egypt.  The collective won the 2011 Cairo Documentary Festival‘s Streaming the Revolution Award for three videos: “The Downfall of […]

This 2011 edition of “Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect” marks the 20th year the AFL-CIO has produced a report on the state of safety and health protections for America’s workers.

This year is historic for workers’ safety and health. It is the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, where 146 workers — most of them young immigrant women — were killed, trapped behind locked doors with no way to escape. This year is also the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the right of workers to safe jobs.

“Never did so many lie so much so wholesale” Monument to the Unknown Liar Washington, DC, 2011 This cartoon was first published in Ciudad CCS; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print

  “Come on, boys!  Let’s teach those Libyans everything we have learned in Iraq!” Ferran Martín, born in Barcelona in 1970, is a cartoonist, illustrator, web designer, and radio and TV screenwriter.  This cartoon was first published in La información on 18 March 2011; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Translation by Yoshie […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print

Statement of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Israel The Communist Party of Israel (CPI) welcomes the accord signed by representatives of the Fatah and Hamas movements, concerning the establishment of an interim unity government, and preparations for elections for the Presidency, the Parliament, and the Palestinian National Council within eight months. An […]

“To cap it all came the decision by the US administration to authorize the use of drones to kill Libyan men, women, and children, like in Afghanistan, thousands of kilometers from Western Europe, but this time against an Arab and African country, before the eyes of hundreds of millions of Europeans and no less than […]

Norman Gottwald belongs to a rare breed — an American Marxist biblical scholar.  More than one jarring juxtaposition in that epithet!  Unfortunately, he is less well known outside the relative small circle of biblical scholars than he should be.  In order to introduce him to a wider audience, let me say a little about his […]

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Chicago’s Daley Plaza on April 29, 2011 to demand an end to the oppression of the people of Bahrain “at the hands of the Bahraini military and the security forces provided by other states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).”  The action was heavily attended by representatives from Chicago area […]

Various observers have noted this week that China’s economy will be bigger than that of the United States in 2016.  This comes from the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) latest projections, which were made in its semi-annual April World Economic Outlook database.  Since 2016 is just a few years away, and it will be the first […]

This cartoon was first published in Ciudad CCS; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print

Over the last year GDP has not even grown fast enough to keep the unemployment rate constant. GDP growth fell from 3.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 1.8 percent in the first quarter as car sales advanced at a slower pace.  This slowed the rate of consumption growth from 4.0 to 2.7 […]

You may agree or not with Gaddafi’s political ideas, but no one has the right to question the existence of Libya as an independent state and member of the United Nations. The world has not yet reached the point which, in my view, is an essential condition for the survival of our human species: access by all the peoples to the material resources of this planet. There is no other in the Solar System that we know that has the most elemental conditions for life.

United Nations, April 27 (Xinhua) — Russia said here on Wednesday that the current situation in Syria, despite an increase in tension and confrontation, does not threaten international peace and security, but “a real threat to regional security . . . could arise from outside interference in Syria’s domestic situation.” Alexander Pankin, Russia’s deputy permanent […]

The statement of the Syrian Communist Party (Unified) on the urgency to stop violence immediately and to start comprehensive national dialogue O, the masses of our people! The bloody events that have taken place in some governorates of Syria for more than a month, especially in the last several days of this month, are heartbreaking, […]

This is an update of my April 7 post on cancers resulting from Chernobyl — this post includes more detailed information and a more recent estimate of the total radioactive dose from the Chernobyl accident. There is a lot of confusion about how many excess cancer deaths will likely result from the 1986 Chernobyl accident […]