Archive | Commentary

  • TeleSur Demands Immediate Release and Physical Safety of Journalist David Segarra Captured during Israeli Attack

    TeleSur Communiqué TeleSur demands, in the strongest terms, the immediate release of its collaborator David Segarra, captured after the Israeli military attack and massacre on a humanitarian fleet headed for Gaza. We exhort the civil and military authorities of Israel to safeguard his physical safety and all his rights. With other colleagues, David Segarra joined […]

  • Protest Israeli Murders of Freedom Flotilla Activists

    International Solidarity Movement 31 May 2010, Free Gaza Movement Israel Murders at Least 10 Unarmed Civilians on Aid Flotilla to Gaza, Dozens Injured (Cyprus, June 1, 2010, 6:30AM local) — Under darkness of night, Israeli commandos from at least 14 warships and military helicopters boarded the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began shooting.  According […]

  • Israel Attacks Turkish Free Gaza Ship: 16 Killed, According to Israeli Army Radio

    30 May 2010 — According to Turkish news sources (CNN Turk, Hürriyet, Milliyet, NTV, and many others), Israeli soldiers stormed the Turkish Free Gaza ship Mavi Marmara belonging to İnsani Yardım Vakfı (Humanitarian Aid Foundation), killing at least 2 and wounding over 30 on board.  The Turkish government has set up a crisis room while […]

  • Regarding the Use of Force by the Israeli Defense Forces Against the Humanitarian Aid Fleet to Gaza

    We protest in the strongest terms the use of force by the Israeli Defense Forces against the civilians from many countries who want to transport humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza, and among whom there are women and children, which, according to the initial information available, resulted in the death of 2 persons and […]

  • Israel: Protest in Arab Town of Um el-Fahem against Israeli Attack on Freedom Flotilla

    A mass rally has been held in Um el-Fahem today in condemnation of the Israeli pirate attack on the freedom flotilla.  Former Mayor of Um el-Fahem Raed Salah was on board the Mavi Marmara during the attack, in which nearly 20 activists are said to have been killed by the IDF. For more information, visit […]

  • Egypt: Can the Muslim Brotherhood Say “Down with Mubarak”?

    I can almost swear this is the first time I hear the Muslim Brothers chanting publicly, “Down with Mubarak!” Nyahahaha . . . the cowards.  During the evening Palestine protest in Ramses, whenever the Socialists chanted “Down with Mubarak,” followed by young MBs, you can see in the video MB organizers waving “No,” trying to […]

  • Israel’s Attack on the Turkish Ships Complicates China’s Balancing Act on Iran and the United States

    President Obama’s already diminishing chances to “steamroll” the Iran-Turkey-Brazil Joint Declaration by ramming new sanctions against the Islamic Republic through the United Nations Security Council during the next few weeks got even smaller this morning, when Israeli naval commandos stormed Turkish-flagged ships in international waters off Gaza, killing at least 16 people in the process. […]

  • Thailand: NGO-COD Shows Scandalous Double Standards over the Violent Crackdown

    The Thai NGO Coordinating committee (NGO-COD) issued a statement on 20th May 2010 about the violence in Bangkok.  The statement blamed both the government and the UDD Red Shirts for the deaths.  This is despite the fact that the UDD protestors were unarmed and the government used tanks, snipers and weapons of war against the […]

  • Time for OTA

    When the Republican Gingrich devolution took over Congress in 1995, it stripped the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of all its funding and left it a shell with no experts to advise committees and members of Congress.  Whereupon Congress was plunged into a dark age regarding decisions about trillions of national security, offshore oil […]

  • India and Pakistan: Labor, Democratization, and Development

      Christopher Candland.  Labor, Democratization and Development in India and Pakistan.  London: Routledge, 2007.  216 pages. This book, by Christopher Candland, sets out to provide a documented analytical and empirical study of the linkages between organized labor, development, and democratization in India and Pakistan from the colonial period till date.  It attempts to explain why […]

  • Gaza: Live from the Freedom Flotilla

      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  

  • Rock

    Rock! Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 28 May 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

  • Rwandan Arrest of U.S. Lawyer Motivated by Politics

    Professor Peter Erlinder, noted criminal defense lawyer and past president of the National Lawyers Guild, was arrested Friday morning in Rwanda for “genocide ideology.”  Erlinder’s representation of high-profile defendants before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has incurred the wrath of government officials, who have charged him with “negation of the Tutsi genocide” for […]

  • Arab Domestic Affairs

    “We will not allow any country to interfere in our domestic affairs.”(But see who’s swimming in the fishbowl that is the “Arab world.” . . .) Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon, first published by Al Jazeera, illustrates an interview with Bahady by eHasakeh (16 March 2010); it is reproduced here for non-profit […]

  • Breaking the Blockade of Silence: L.A. Art and Advocacy for the Cuban 5

    How do you break through the twelve-year blockade of silence that has kept five Cuban political prisoners invisible to the American public?  How can art transcend U.S. prison walls and present the truth about these men, locked up in five distant prisons scattered across the United States, to a Los Angeles community?  On May 22nd […]

  • Only 2 Dems against $60B for AfPak War

    The vote to send another $60B of taxpayers’ money to pay for Obama’s AfPak occupation was 67-28-5.  But almost all the no votes were conservative Republicans.  Only two Democrats, Feingold (WI) and Wyden (OR), voted against.  Three Republicans and Lincoln (AR) and McCaskill (MO) did not vote. To their shame, the other 15 Dems and […]

  • Empire against Democracy

      After the Second World War, from which the Allied forces emerged victorious, the government of the United States sought to make the most of its military victory.  It structured the Assembly of the United Nations to be led by a Security Council composed of the seven most powerful countries, with veto power over decisions […]

  • Palestinian Refugees

    The imposition of a Jewish state on Palestine in 1948 created a colossal contingent of refugees (currently estimated by the UN to be over 4.5 million).  The Palestinian families who were not simply killed by Zionist terrorist groups like Irgun and Haganah had to flee to neighboring countries such as Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, where […]

  • Arizona: Grassroots Organizing to Repeal All Anti-Immigrant Laws

      Joel Olson is a member of the Repeal Coalition in Flagstaff, Arizona.  Repeal spearheaded the grassroots mobilization that successfully pressured the Flagstaff City Council to pass an injunction threatening a lawsuit against the state for its anti-immigrant law SB 1070. SB 1070 has clearly reignited the immigrant rights movement.  What is SB 1070 and […]

  • CRED: A New Model of Climate and Development

      The climate policy debate has largely shifted from science to economics.  There is a well-developed consensus, at least in broad outlines, about the physical science of climate change and its likely implications.  That consensus is embodied in massive general circulation models (GCMs) that provide detailed projections of average temperatures, precipitation, weather patterns, and sea-level […]