Archive | Commentary

LA PAZ, 11 August (IPS) — A storm of opposition broke out in Bolivia against President Evo Morales, whose mandate was resoundingly ratified by more than 63 percent of the votes in the referendum according to the consensus of exit polls broadcast by the major television networks in the country. Bolivia has been shaken by […]

Celebrated Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish died on 9 August 2008, at the age of 67, after open-heart surgery.   Here is a video of his most famous poem “Identity Card” (published in 1964): A poet of exile par excellence, Darwish died in exile.   The village of his birth in western Galilee, al-Birwa (whose Arabic […]

  This is Vanunu Mordechai from East Jerusalem. I’m the man who exposed Israel’s atomic secretes 22 years ago, in 1986, sentenced to 18 years in prison. Now, since my release in 2004, I have not been allowed to leave Israel. I’m still under Israel’s power, imprisoned in East Jerusalem. Today, I’m reading my message […]

The exit poll results ratified the mandate of President Morales and his Vice President García Linera and recalled three of the eight governors who were subjected to voting at the referendum. The exit poll results published by TV Bolivia give victory to Morales and García Linera with 61 percent of the votes. (Photo: TeleSUR) The […]

炎の記憶 原爆の残り火をキューバへ 炎の記憶 − 原爆の残り火をキューバへ (Memory of Fire: Bringing Embers of Hiroshima to Cuba) was produced by 広島ホームテレビ(Hiroshima Home TV) and first broadcast in 2007.  The documentary tells the story of Ernesto Che Guevara’s thoughts on Hiroshima and their relation to the Cuban Revolution’s commitment to humanism, for example, its humanitarian aid and protection of […]

The Israeli Coalition for a Middle East Free of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons demonstrated in a vigil to mark Hiroshima Day in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on 6 August. Their statement called for An international initiative to create a Middle East free of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, in a […]

Note on the Status of CCS within the University of KwaZulu-Natal On 30 July, the staff of the Centre for Civil Society and our host institution, the School of Development Studies (SDS), were summoned by Dean Donal McCracken, and told that as of 31 December 2008, CCS would be permanently closed, that Professor Patrick Bond […]

Efforts to beat the drums of war for an attack on Iran’s nuclear reactor facilities are promoted in both the USA and Israel scenes.  The recent New York Times opinion piece of July 18th, written by the Israeli historian Benny Morris, serves to consolidate those political forces.  The Jewish opposition here expresses our outrage in […]

The origins of the conflagration in June in Kashmir on forest land allocation for construction of facilities for the Amarnath yatra lie in open state promotion of the pilgrimage.  The yatra has caused considerable damage to the economy and ecology of the area.  The high-handed actions of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board only aggravated the […]

Cedric Johnson.  Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics.   University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Cedric Johnson‘s Revolutionaries to Race Leaders traces the ideological cooptation of one of the twentieth century’s most vibrant social movements.  The Black Nationalist resurgence of the 1960s and 1970s demanded nothing short of self-determination, […]

In another few days, I will sail on one of the Free Gaza movement boats from Cyprus to Gaza.  The mission is to break the Israeli siege, an absolutely illegal siege which has plunged a million and a half Palestinians into wretched conditions: imprisoned in their own homes, exposed to extreme military violence, deprived of […]

For the last several months Turkey has been immersed in a major political crisis as various sections of the Turkish ruling classes openly feud.  It has pitted the ruling, Islamic-influenced AKP government against sections of the Turkish military, political, and judicial elites.  It is also dispute over the direction of Turkish economic restructuring as well […]

  Thank you for the opportunity to speak.  I want to thank also our friends in Hokkaido for the excellent preparation for this symposium. When we heard the news of the G8 Summit taking place in Toyako, we thought that we should urge the government of Japan, as the only country that has been bombed […]

I am a Palestinian journalist from Gaza.  At the age of 17, I armed myself with a camera and a pen, committed to report accurately on events in Gaza.  I have filed reports as Israeli fighter jets bombed Gaza City.  I have interviewed mothers as they watched their children die in hospitals unequipped to serve […]

  “When we talk about a financial crisis, it’s really only a symptom. . . .  Financial adventurism is essentially what we have been witnessing for the last thirty or forty years, exploding from time to time in the form of financial crisis.  It’s really adventurist, speculative capital which has to find in some way […]

As much as we enjoy puns in titles, Stephen Zunes’ recent defense of Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) in the article “Sharp Attack Unwarranted,” doesn’t have much else going for it.  Zunes spends most of his time diverting attention from the real issues: the AEI’s role in imperial projects, a role which is politically […]

3 August 2008 — The Fundación Centro Internacional Miranda (CIM), in contribution to the necessary debate on how to build the kind of socialism we want, announces the publication of two important contributions to this debate: El camino al desarrollo humano: ¿capitalismo o socialismo? (The Road to Human Development: Capitalism or Socialism?) by Michael A. […]

  Over the last year, there has been an escalation in the political battles between the government of President Evo Morales and a conservative opposition, based primarily in the prefectures, or provinces.  The opposition groups have rallied around various issues but have recently begun to focus on “autonomy.”  Some of the details of this autonomy […]

Let me start my talk with a little story.  In 1958, Japan tried to export this first passenger car to the US market.  The company was Toyota, the car was called Toyopet.  And, as you can guess from the name, it was a very cheap, small subcompact car, more of a four-wheels-and-an-ashtray kind of thing, […]

Senator McCain, President Bush, and some of their oil industry friends are urging Americans to support overturning a 26-year ban on offshore drilling as a way to bring down gas prices.  Of course, it’s snake oil designed for what the Joe Lieberman campaign affectionately called “low information voters.” As Dean Baker and Nichole Szembrot of […]