Archive | March, 2012

  Spring 2012.  Merkel and Sarkozy rush from summit meeting to summit meeting, in order to save the euro.  The yellow press smears the people of Greece.  The struggle over a solution to the crisis is intensifying dramatically: by early 2013, an authoritarian-neoliberal alliance of business lobby groups, the financial industry, the EU Commission, the […]

The filmed scenes of the massacre in Libya, starting to be seen, offend for their total absence of humanism and the crass lies that served as an excuse for invading and taking over the natural resources of that country. With more than 25,000 combat missions, NATO air forces backed up the monstrous crime. They stated […]

  In Iran, we have a saying: “Women are like tea . . . the hotter the water, the stronger they get.” Mahtab Mansour is a filmmaker based in Paris, France. | Print  

There are significant numbers of people in the wealthy countries who believe that the great issues of resource depletion and global environmental pollution are caused primarily by the huge number of people on the globe — currently about 7 billion — and that things will only get much worse with the anticipated increase to about […]

The world is increasingly misinformed amidst the chaos of events unfolding at pace never before imagined. Those of us who have lived a few more years and are avidly interested in information can testify to the extent of ignorance with which we confront events. While a growing number of people on the planet lack shelter, […]

Terror, political persecution, arbitrary detention, and militarization have long dominated Colombia.  State-mediated killings now run into the tens of thousands.  More than four million rural inhabitants have been displaced from sustenance-providing land.  In the face of seemingly endless suffering, however, there is now a better chance for peace in Colombia. Having recently announced that its […]

The 66-day hunger strike of Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan brought overdue attention to Israel’s practice of detaining Palestinians for lengthy periods without criminal charges.  It also brought attention to the same practice in other countries, including the United States, where, as Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald pointed out, indefinite detention is “now firmly in place” for […]

  We are calling for massive protests in Frankfurt this May against the crisis regime of the European Union.  We are activists representing a multitude of movements and struggles from different European countries and elsewhere, who have risen up in the past months and years to protest the assaults on our freedoms, jobs, and livelihoods […]

In recent weeks, there has been a notable shuffle in the positions of key external players in the Syrian crisis.  Momentum has quite suddenly shifted from an all-out onslaught against the Assad government to a quiet investigation of exit strategies. The clashes between government forces and opposition militias in Baba Amr were a clear tipping […]

On March 11, hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans headed to the polls in the first major contest between parties of the right and left since the leader of the latter, Mauricio Funes, was elected president three years ago. Like mid-term congressional elections in the U.S., voting for municipal officials and national legislators in El Salvador […]

This Reflection could be written today, tomorrow or any other day without the risk of being mistaken. Our species faces new problems. When 20 years ago I stated at the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro that a species was in danger of extinction, I had fewer reasons than […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

  Zahera Shalabi is the sister of Hana Shalabi, a 29-year-old woman from the village of Burqin in the Jenin district in Palestine.  On February 16, the Shalabis’ home was raided and Hana was arrested.  She has since been in Israeli prison under what is called Administrative Detention, held without charge or trial, like over […]

“Yugoslavia was in debt to the IMF. . . .  There was a conflict in the six republics of Yugoslavia: who is going to pay the debt?  Who is going to pay the debt was also a conflict between developed parts and undeveloped parts of Yugoslavia. . . . [In] this huge debate about who’s […]

  “We have staged a perfect war.  We’ve got everyone fighting, but very few now know exactly who is the enemy.” Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print  

On the evening of February 7, Michelle Rhee, former chancellor of DC public schools and the public face of the opaquely funded StudentsFirst, addressed an audience of some four thousand people at the Paramount Theater in Oakland.  The lecture was divided in three parts.  First, Rhee introduced herself and described her leadership of the DC […]

  There is an undeclared war going on in the United States that threatens the lynchpins of American intellectual freedom.  In a statement worthy of Cassandra, Noah Davis wrote in Business Insider last October,  “Amazon is coming for the book publishing industry.  And not just the e-book world, either.”  When titans battle, it is tempting […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print

After 37 days of the strike, the Bticino-Legrand workers’ demands were partially met and they returned to work.  But Islam and his co-workers still haven’t received fixed contracts.  And the management remains the same.  And the laws remain the same — in favor of investors.  Let us realize our right to work with honor.  Let […]

“I’m digging this freestyle frm @MistahFAB at Invisible Children, #Kony & US media Hype designed to steal nat resources.” — Davey D Mistah F.A.B. is an American rapper.  Follow him at .  Cf. “Do I have a better answer?  No, I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that you should support KONY 2012 just because it’s […]