Archive | Commentary

Prabir Purkayastha: You have written a lot about electricity in South Africa particularly, and you also talked about how this concept of services being priced so the cost of service is recovered is actually starting a complete ideological change in the way infrastructure services are delivered.  So what do you think is the real crisis?   […]

  Trailer Interview with Peter Mettler Why did you make Petropolis? There are a lot of paths that led to this, going back already 20 years.  I’ve always been interested in the way we humans have the ability to create technology out of our given natural environments.  My impression is that the technologies we develop […]

  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 […]

The Case-Shiller 20-City index showed a decline for the sixth consecutive month in March, as 13 of the 20 cities reported a drop in prices.  The drop in the seasonally unadjusted index was 0.5 percent, bringing the annual rate of decline over the last quarter to 6.8 percent.  (The unadjusted index is preferred in the […]

  Today is the 21st day since the arrest of Ameer Makhoul at his home in Haifa, Israel, under the cover of darkness, by the International Crimes Investigation Unit and General Security Service (GSS or Shabak) officers.  The arrest was conducted in a brutal and terrifying manner.  Our house was raided, its contents ransacked, and […]

Despite talk of a moratorium, the Interior Department’s Minerals and Management Service is still granting waivers from environmental review for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including wells in very deep water.  Until last month, most of us never thought about the risk that one of those huge offshore rigs would explode in flames […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  See, also, Carlos Latuff, “Iran Is a THREAT to Peace.” | Print

  Abstract: Few would dispute that sovereign defaults entail significant economic costs, including, most notably, important output losses.  However, most of the evidence supporting this conventional wisdom, based on annual observations, suffers from serious measurement and identification problems.  To address these drawbacks, we examine the impact of default on growth by looking at quarterly data […]

“The sheen of Maoist political ideology seems to be wearing off . . . do we have an instance where Maoists have stopped mining operations in affected areas or have taken up the cause of the tribals for higher wages or better living and working conditions for them?  If they have done so sometimes, the […]

The efforts of Brazil and Turkey to find a negotiated solution to the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, which generated a negotiated agreement with Iran last week, must be seen in the context of a growing challenge to the international political order. That political order has been dominated by the United States, with Europe as […]

Until recently, the discussion on global imbalances focused on the current account deficit of the US and the current account surplus of China, making this a bilateral rather than a multilateral problem.  As a result, the process of rebalancing was seen as involving adjustments in either or both of these countries, and not so much […]

  Amy Goodman: As nuclear nonproliferation talks at the United Nations focus on the Middle East this week, we turn to new revelations about Israel’s nuclear weapons program and its close alliance with apartheid South Africa. Israeli President Shimon Peres has denied reports that he offered to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa when […]

  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 […]

Whether Operation Green Hunt actually exists or is, as P. Chidambaram insists, a figment of the media’s imagination, Monday’s deadly Maoist attack on a bus in Dantewada suggests it is the hunted that are doing most of the hunting. Over the past six weeks, the Maoists in Chhattisgarh have killed more than 90 policemen or […]

On May 24, Iranian representatives, accompanied by Brazilian and Turkish counterparts, met with the IAEA’s Director General, Yukiya Amano.  The purpose of the meeting was to present a letter to Amano — as called for in the May 17, 2010 Joint Declaration by Iran, Turkey, and Brazil — formally notifying the IAEA of the Islamic […]

When, in an Op Ed published in the New York Times in May 2009, we first criticized President Obama’s early decision to continue covert anti-Iranian programs he inherited from George W. Bush, some expressed disbelief that Obama would undermine his own rhetoric about engaging Tehran in a climate of mutual respect by conducting a dirty […]

Although a financial regulation bill is in the works, our economy continues to tank, and nobody can figure out what to do.  Except me, of course.  I have discovered that Western literature is a major cause of our economic crisis. You see, most people, as victims of various “liberal” arts programs, fail to notice how […]

  Abhisit is asking for suggestions from the public on how Thailand can move forward.  Perhaps “don’t overturn elections results” could be a start. Andrew Walker, Senior Fellow, Department of Political and Social Change, School of International, Political and Strategic Studies, Australian National University.  This note was first published in the New Mandala blog (hosted […]

Uncle Sam: The oil slick does have its economic upside.  Now ships can be supplied with fuel right out of the ocean. Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was published by Cambios en Cuba on 23 May 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com).  FYI: “In the […]

  Shabnam Hashmi is one of India’s leading social activists.  She heads the New Delhi-based human rights group ANHAD.  In this interview, she discusses various aspects of Muslim leadership in contemporary India. Q: Indian Muslims often complain that they lack effective and sincere leaders.  Why is this so? A: When India gained independence, the Indian […]