Archive | Commentary

  Many of the students involved belong to the youth divisions of the different political parties from the opposition.  Since 2005, US government funding has gone towards training and advising youth leaders and student movements enabling them to enter the political arena. Many question whether the recent student protests against the Chavez Administration in Venezuela […]

February 4, 2010 President Barack Obama The White House Washington, DC Dear Mr. President, We are seven organizations that strongly support your commitment to a two-state peace between Israel and Palestine that will ensure Israel’s security, win Palestinian self-determination, and protect U.S. national security. As your administration works to launch a political process to achieve […]

In recent weeks, the Obama Administration has been enthusiastically spinning its progress in winning Russian support for prospective new sanctions on Iran.  We have cautioned that, while Russia may, in the end, support a new UNSC sanctions resolution, it will not support broad-based sanctions against major sectors of Iran’s economy or measures that would get […]

What’s in there is not a mote.  It’s a terrorist beam. Tomás Rafael Rodríguez Zayas (Tomy) is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published by Rebelión on 4 February 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

The restaurant industry is one of the largest and fastest growing private employers in the country.  But just as swinging doors often separate patrons from the kitchen, the working lives of 13.5 million restaurant workers — a largely non-union workforce — remain out of sight. In four cities, cooks, dishwashers, servers, hosts, and busers are […]

The Dynamite Prize in Economics, to be awarded to the three economists who contributed most to enabling the Global Financial Collapse (GFC), or more figuratively, to the three economists who contributed most to blowing up the global economy. Vote for three.  The candidates’ dossiers are below the ballot. View This Pollpolling Short List of Nominees […]

Among the many unfortunate features of capitalist history that tend to repeat themselves with depressing regularity is the conversion of crises of private activity in financial markets into fiscal crises of the state.  This is already happening once again, as the very expansion of public expenditure that was necessitated by the financial crisis (which itself […]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently claimed at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Germany has always called for transparency and cooperation with Iran, but unfortunately Iran has not responded.  Merkel also made it clear that her government will pursue unilateral economic sanctions in case China blocks an otherwise unanimous Security […]

The gap between annual incomes of the top 10 per cent of US citizens and what the other 90 per cent gets has been widening sharply for the last 30 years.  The nation’s economic development has been increasingly divisive.  Professor Emmanuel Saez of the University of California at Berkeley, a leading expert, summarizes the facts […]

The new secretary general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Muratbek Sansyzbayevich Imanaliev, said at a news conference in Beijing earlier this week that the conflict in Afghanistan and expanding the SCO’s members to include Iran and Pakistan were the top issues on the SCO’s agenda in 2010.  Certainly, these issues are likely to dominate […]

In 1983, the strategy of overthrowing inconvenient governments and calling it “democracy promotion” was born. Through the creation of a series of quasi-private “foundations”, such as Albert Einstein Institute (AEI), National Endowment for Democracy (NED), International Republican Institute (IRI), National Democratic Institute (NDI), Freedom House and later the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict (ICNC), Washington […]

Be part of history!  Celebrate Earth Day and attend the Peoples’ World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth’s Rights in Cochabamba, Bolivia.  World scientists, academics, lawyers, and representatives of governments that want to work with their citizens to save our planet will be in attendance.  (Conference is scheduled for April 20-22, 2010.) Before and […]

  Christos Kassimeris.  European Football in Black and White: Tackling Racism in Football.  Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008.  viii + 267 pp.  $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7391-1959-4; $29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7391-1960-0. Soccer fans held in thrall by the European Championships have no doubt observed the significant display of anti-racist statements and activities before, during, and after the […]

  In march 2010, the spring summit of the heads of state and governments of the European union will mark the 10 years of the Lisbon strategy, which frames the policies currently engaged in the Member States so as to “modernise” the national research and education system (primary, secondary and higher education, lifelong learning). The […]

The U.S.-led international operation to distribute food, water, and medical supplies in Port-au-Prince after earthquake of January 12 has drawn a good deal of criticism. In contrast, for the past 10 years the Ste. Claire parish in the Petite Place Cazeau (Ti Plas Kazo) neighborhood at the city’s northern edge has operated a very successful food program, started by the late Father Gérard Jean-Juste. This week I asked Margaret Trost, founder and director of the California-based What If? Foundation, to describe by email her experiences with this program in the past and in the current crisis. — DLW

The following message, published on Rod’s Blog / El Blog de Roderick Navarro on 7 January 2010, has been posted on numerous Web sites (especially in Persian translation) supporting the Green Wave in Iran, such as , , , .  Are Green Wave supporters who have welcomed this message aware of the character of the […]

The unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent in January, driven by a 0.4 percentage-point drop in the unemployment rate for women to 8.4 percent.  The unemployment rate for men fell 0.2 percentage points to 10.8 percent.  This drop came in spite of a reported loss of 20,000 jobs in the establishment survey. The improved employment […]

  The essential point of M. Shahid Alam‘s book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, comes clear upon opening the book to the inscription in the frontispiece.  From the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, the quote reads, “You have the light, but you have no humanity.  Seek humanity, for that is the goal.”  Alam, […]

  Tens of thousands of people used their right not to work for one day and supported the struggle of the Tekel workers in a general strike.  For Türk-İş President Kumlu it was a successful protest action withstanding the pressure of officials and employers. Turkish Confederation of Labour Unions (Türk-İş) President Mustafa Kumlu reckoned the […]