Esteban: Hello, this Tuesday’s action is a symbolic last-ditch stand, isn’t it? Olivier Besancenot: No!  It’s another stage toward the general strike which is beginning to happen.  On Tuesday night, strikes will be renewed, and there will be new demonstrations, as well as numerous blockades.  The question posed now is about blocking the economy […]

  The Venezuelan foreign minister characterizes as insolent the statement of the US State Department spokesperson who said that the US will closely watch Russia’s agreement to build a nuclear power plant in Venezuela.  The United States has no moral high ground to stand on, since the US is using nuclear energy for military purposes. […]

  Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003 Excerpt (Footnotes Omitted): Several incidents listed in this report, if investigated and judicially proven, point to circumstances and facts from […]

  From the Carondelet Palace, President Correa expressed his condemnation of the attitude of police.  He congratulated the people for their courage.  With such loyalty no one can defeat us, he said.  He thanked the world leaders and organizations that expressed their support for the government.  He declared that Ecuador will not submit to anyone. […]

  Imprisoned Palestinian leader Ahmad Sa’adat will be returning to court in mid-October 2010 challenging his isolation and the isolation of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons.  Write letters today and take action from October 5-15, 2010 in support of Palestinian prisoners’ struggle for freedom — demand an end to isolation! Ahmad Sa’adat, the General […]

Apparently, my skirt was too short for “West Beirut” according to my relative, who lives in “East Beirut.”  She was certain I would get harassed.  She did not delve deeply into the issue, but simply reiterated that the “type of people” who lived in “West Beirut” were not open-minded enough for short skirts and did […]

  This is a rejoinder that the slain CPI (Maoist) spokesperson had penned in response to B.G. Verghese’s article in Outlook. Reading B.G. Verghese’s article Daylight at the Thousand-Star Hotel in Outlook (May 3), one is stunned by the abysmal poverty of thought and colonial mindset of this renowned intellectual.  How is it that the […]

  The economic crisis is in essence a debt crisis.  For all the economic complexity involved in the details it is basically easy to understand.  There are way too many pieces of paper that supposedly entitle their holders to social wealth and there is not enough of that wealth to meet all those claims.  Debt […]

  Slavoj Žižek.  Living in the End Times.  Verso, 2010. Reading Žižek has always been as challenging as it is enjoyable, an experience of pleasure and pain that seems at times an intellectual correlate to the operation of objet petit a (little object a).  The concept of objet petit a has been a constant in […]

  As the United States government does what it can to halt Iran’s nuclear program, it may be suspected that it is seeking to build up its own nuclear industry, denying Iran the capacity to develop its own technology while pressuring it to open itself up for US technological export and to become dependent on […]

  27 June 2010 The U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) endorses and supports the call for Boycott of Arizona on account of its manifestly racist laws, HB1070 and SB 2281. SB1070 calls for police officers to require documentation from people to establish resident status.  The law essentially requires police […]

  The government’s credibility and strategy were battered by the overwhelming victory of the student strike which had paralyzed the entire University of Puerto Rico system and surprised everyone with its legal and technological mastery, its willingness to resist the police, and its model of direct democracy which made the national political institution look bad. […]

  The death of José Saramago represents an irreparable loss for Portugal, for the Portuguese people, for Portuguese culture. José Saramago’s intellectual, artistic, human, and civic stature makes him a major figure in our history. His vast, remarkable, and unique literary work — which was recognized through the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998 — […]

  Translator’s note: “Regarding the present upsurge of worker action in China, liberals have used their discursive power in the overseas media to frame the strike wave as a tale of workers’ struggle for ‘independent unions,’ as if this were a repetition of Solidarnosc.  What do Chinese workers want?  What is the direction of the […]

  “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 […]

  STUDY TOUR TO VENEZUELA: Food Sovereignty, Social Movements and Social Change July 19 to August 2, 2010 Please register asap! You are invited to participate in a two-week study tour to study food sovereignty, social movements, and social change in Venezuela, 19 July to 2 August, 2010.  The tour will examine issues of land […]

  Update “Israel Attacks Turkish Free Gaza Ship: 16 Killed, According to Israeli Army Radio.” For more information, visit <www.ihh.org.tr>, <www.witnessgaza.com>, and <www.freegaza.org>. | Print  

  New York — The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) demands the immediate release of its former president, Professor Peter Erlinder, whom Rwandan Police arrested early today on charges of “genocide ideology.”  He had traveled to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, on May 23, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.  Erlinder is […]

  In April 2010 more than 35,000 people from 140 countries gathered in Cochabamba, Bolivia and developed the historic Cochabamba People’s Accord, a consensus-based document reflecting substantive solutions to the climate crisis.  We, the undersigned organizations, both participated in and/or supported this historic process. Reflecting the voices of global civil society and the agreements reached […]

  People’s Union for Civil Liberties, 17 May 2010 PUCL strongly condemns the brutal killing of the innocent civilians traveling in a bus at Chingavaram on the Dantewada-Sukhma road in Chhattisgarh on 17 May 2010. Killing of innocent civilians is the most heinous crime against the humanity and has no justification whatsoever.  PUCL feels that […]