Archive | Commentary

When promising ideas threaten to be sunk under the transatlantic waters. . . . On 28 October, a new German government took office.  A coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling conservative Christian Democratic/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) as junior partner replaced the Grand Coalition of conservatives (CDU/CSU) and social democrats […]

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the employment and unemployment data we released this morning. In October, the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, the highest rate since April 1983, and nonfarm payroll employment declined by 190,000.  Since the start of the recession, payroll employment has fallen […]

The constitutional president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, said the Tegucigalpa/San José agreement failed, along with what was thought to be the attempt to end the political crisis in this Central American country.  His declaration came after the unilateral formation of an alleged Government of Unity and Reconciliation by the de facto Honduran regime. Speaking to […]

Cf. Amnesty International, “Thirsting for Justice: Palestinian Access to Water Restricted” (27 October 2009). Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay. | | Print

Part 1: Eight Years and Counting The United States invasion and occupation of Afghanistan entered its ninth year in October, and the majority of Americans now tell opinion polls they want it to end.  So far the war has failed to achieve U.S. objectives, and it is likely the Obama Administration’s expansion of the fighting […]

In stark contrast to the surge of pro-LGBT activism, and legislative and legal progress in recent months, Maine voters overturned equal marriage rights on Election Day by a margin of 53 percent to 47 percent. Voter turnout of nearly 50 percent, local efforts by 8,000 volunteers — many of them straight — and a national […]

“We have no other word but crisis to describe it, really.  It’s very different than the economic crisis that we are now in, in the sense that even a very, very severe economic crisis, such as the one that has been present since late 2007 . . . still is, in many ways, a cyclical […]

Based in New Delhi, Zakia Nizami Soman is one of the founder members of the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan(BMMA), a movement of Muslim women across India struggling for their citizenship rights.  In this interview with Yoginder Sikand, she talks about the BMMA’s work and reflects on the daunting challenges facing Muslim women in India today. […]

Last Friday an agreement was reached between the de facto regime in Honduras, which took power in a military coup on 28 June, and the elected president Manuel Zelaya, for the restoration of democracy there. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton, in announcing what she called an historic agreement, said: “I cannot think of another […]

  “It’s beginning to increasingly look as if this urge to the 10% growth rate and democracy are mutually incompatible . . . because this growth has been based on . . . the displacement of millions of people off their land.  It’s based on extracting minerals and harnessing rivers in a way that is […]

Paper delivered at the plenary session of the 2009 National Conference of the Philippine Sociological Society held at the PSSC Building on 16 October 2009 Why does the ideology of neoliberalism still exercise such influence in the Philippines despite the challenges it has faced from both the Asian and now global financial crisis? This paper […]

Speaking to a delegation of American doctors visiting the Gaza Strip on October 29, Hamas Prime Minister Esmail Haniya acknowledged an “optimistic mood” in the region, thanks to the Obama Administration. He commended “Obama’s new language” and called for direct dialogue between Hamas and the US — words that sent shockwaves throughout the upper echelons […]

  “I thought as soon as we hit the ground, we would immediately start changing things and making it better for the people, but, during the entire time I was there, we rarely did any kind of humanitarian aid missions.  They have a lot of social issues that they are dealing with, like poverty and […]

It was as if some official, perhaps one of President Obama’s “czars,” like the Czar for Demolishing American Credibility, had orchestrated a systematic campaign to isolate the US from the rest of the world, make it a political laughingstock and, finally, render it a second-rate power capable of throwing around tremendous military weight but absolutely […]

  The Anthony Hyman Memorial Lecture, School of Oriental and African Studies University of London, 2009 I feel both honoured and gratified to be offering the 7th Anthony Hyman Memorial Lecture.  This gives me the opportunity to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to Tony for his unwavering support and friendship over the years.  When I […]

“What made Spence dangerous to the bourgeoisie was not that he was a proletarian nor that he had ideas opposed to private property but that he was both.” — Peter Linebaugh.2 ‘Poorest of the Poor’ and Politics It is always easy to criticize and dismiss an argument in its weakest formulation.  Attacking the policies of […]

  Jasmin Hristov.  Blood and Capital: The Paramilitarization of Colombia.   Ohio University Research in International Studies Series.  Athens: Ohio University Press, 2009. xxiii + 263 pp. 28.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-89680-267-4. Jasmin Hristov’s book is an exploration of the history and evolution of armed paramilitary forces in Colombia, focusing primarily on the past two decades.  […]

Court Refuses to Hold U.S. Officials Accountable for Complicity in Torture Abroad November 2, 2009, New York  — Today, a federal Court of Appeals dismissed Canadian citizen Maher Arar’s case against U.S. officials for their role in sending him to Syria to be tortured and interrogated for a year.  Arar is represented by the Center […]

Henry Kissinger said that diplomacy is the “art of restraining power.”  Obviously, the most influential ideologue on US foreign policy of the twenty-first century was referring to the necessity to “restrain the power” of other countries and governments in order to maintain the dominant world power of the United States.  Presidents in the style of […]

  To Candidate Member of the Politburo of the CC CPSU USSR Minister of Defense Comrade Dmitry Timofeevich Yazov Moscow, USSR Ministry of Defense The Afghan problem continues to attract attention in the sphere of international affairs.  It begins to cause a certain concern on the part of the Soviet people as well.  This is […]