This campaign film by Amnesty International and Mundi Romani drawing attention to the importance of women and the complexity of the Roma identity was released on 6 March 2009, in time for International Women’s Day. The campaign seeks to combat the escalating violence against the Roma people in Europe, including Hungary, which is threatening the […]
Archive | Commentary
Monthly Review Magazine
Who Am I?
Who Am I? / من انا؟ Observer / متفرجة Excerpts from the Book of Aswat / مقتطفات من كتاب أصوات Aswat / أصوات Aswat (Voices) is a group of Palestinian gay women, home to all lesbian, inter-sex, queer, transsexual, transgender, and bisexual women and women who are just beginning to question their sexual identities.
Feminist Organizing against the Gaza Conflict
Throughout the seemingly intractable Israel-Palestine conflict, civil society has been active in responding to crises and advocating for peace and justice. Kathambi Kinoti of the Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) interviewed Eilat Maoz, a general coordinator of the Coalition of Women for Peace, an Israeli organization that works for peace in Israel and […]
Interview with Eric Toussaint
Interview with Eric Toussaint, President of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM), in Havana. Obama Picked People Who Brought You This Crisis as His Advisers What is your opinion of Team Obama? Toussaint: Obama picked the very people who are responsible for this economic fiasco. Some hoped that Obama would appoint […]
Unemployment Jumps to 8.1 Percent as Job Loss Accelerates
The February employment report showed the labor market deteriorating at an even faster rate, with the unemployment rate rising from 7.6 percent to 8.1 in February. The economy lost 651,000 jobs in the month, but job loss for the prior two months was revised up as well. Job loss for the last three months is […]
The Reasons for Mobilization in Réunion
Jean-Hugues Ratenon is President of the “Agir Pou Nou Tout” [Act for All of Us] Association, which is part of the Collective of Trade Unions, Political Organizations, and Community Associations of Réunion (COSPAR), the organizer of the social movement. The prefect of Réunion announced, on Thursday, 5 March, a decrease in the price of […]
Closed Zone
שטח סגור | Closed Zone | منطقة مغلقة Despite declarations that it has “disengaged” from the Gaza Strip, Israel maintains control of the Strip’s overland border crossings, territorial waters, and air space. This includes substantial, albeit indirect, control of the Rafah Crossing. During the past 18 months, Israel tightened its closure of Gaza, almost completely […]
Social Change, the Women’s Rights Movement, and the Role of Islam
The implementation of Shari’a reinforced the patriarchal order and institutionalized gender inequality in post-revolutionary Iran. Nevertheless, the modernization of society has led to profound changes in the lives of Iranian women and in their attitudes regarding men’s authority. The modernization of women’s attitudes1 has in turn led to their mounting resistance or opposition against gendered […]
Suspend EU-Israel Association Agreement
We call on the EU to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement until Israel respects human rights and International Law. The EU is Israel’s biggest importer of goods, and its second biggest exporter. In 2006 the total traded between the EU and Israel amounted to 23.5 BILLION Euros. The EU-Israel Association Agreement forms the legal […]
Back to the Future: Bazaar Strikes, Three Decades after the Revolution
Gauging from the events in Iran’s bazaars, October 2008 had an uncanny resemblance to October 1978. During the Islamic revolution, bazaaris, responding to the ancien régime’s misconceived scheme to address rampant inflation by identifying and prosecuting alleged profiteers, had organized nationwide closures. Three decades later, bazaaris in Isfahan and subsequently in Mashhad, Shiraz, Tabriz, […]
Global Crisis: Economists’ Conference in Havana
The global economic crisis was the main protagonist on the first day of Globalización 2009, the 9th International Conference of Economists on Globalization and Problems of Development, presided over by First Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura; Dominican President Leonel Fernández Reyna; Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo Hernández; Nobel Laureates in economics Edmund Phelps […]
AFL-CIO Supports Nationalizing the Banks: But Who Will Control and Run Them?
The AFL-CIO has announced that it now supports nationalizing the nation’s banks rather than continuing to spend billions of dollars in repeated efforts to restore them to solvency. The American labor federation, which represents 10 million workers, released a draft statement expected to be approved by its executive council today stating, “We believe the debate […]
Amnesty NOW: How and Why
Most analysts agree that the chances of immigration reform in the first year or two of Obama’s administration are extremely slim. We can’t expect politicians and policymakers to take action. The change we want to see has to come from below. We can make it happen if we unite around a common goal: swift, practical, […]
Islamist-Leftist Cooperation in the Arab World
Throughout the Middle East, actors across the political spectrum cooperate in ways that were unprecedented before the democratic openings of the early 1990s. Even though few of these openings have advanced toward democracy, groups that had never previously worked together — indeed, some with long histories as rivals — now routinely cooperate in a […]
Industrializing amidst a Global Financial Crisis: Is It Possible?
The Center for Economic and Policy Research, Center of Concern and Heinrich Böll Foundation cordially invite you to: Industrializing Amidst a Global Financial Crisis: Is it Possible? with featured speakerHa-Joon Chang, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge and remarks byRogerio Studart, Alternate Executive Director for Brazil, World BankandMark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy […]
The Shift in Canadian Immigration Policy and Unheeded Lessons of the Live-in Caregiver Program
This paper posits there has been a significant shift in Canadian immigration policy over the past two years — a shift which has passed under the radar screens of most Canadians. Formerly based on the precepts of permanent residency and family reunification, from 2006, Canada’s immigration system began shifting to a model of temporary migration […]
American Nightmare
They used to tell me I was building a dream, and so I followed the mob, When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear, I was always there right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead, Why should I be standing in […]
Lines in the Sand: The Mad Activist Writes Gaza
Dear People of Gaza, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for doing absolutely nothing in the last few months to stop your suffering. Although I cannot feel your pain, I have seen it on the news. I’ve read that 1.5 million of you civilians endured weeks of being fired on and bombed with […]
Leftists Poised to Win Presidency in El Salvador: New Report Examines Implications
After 17 years since the end of El Salvador’s civil war, the leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) is poised to accomplish what its guerrilla predecessors never did: take over the national government. Reliable polls unanimously project that FMLN candidate Mauricio Funes will win the March 15 presidential elections. What all this means for […]
Obama, Iran, and Israel
The election of Barrak Obama to the office of president of the United States has generated tremendous elation and enthusiasm in the U.S. and around the world. The rise of Obama has been accompanied by the rise of hope and anticipation that a new and better world is about to begin. Some Obama enthusiasts have […]
