Archive | Commentary

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.1 percent in November.  Over the last three months, headline inflation has run at an annualized rate of 1.8 percent, compared to 1.7 percent in the previous three.  Despite November’s more moderate 0.2 percent rise in energy prices, the last three months have seen a 14.8 percent annualized rate of […]

Surrounded by sharks in the financial market, the many-headed eurozone says: “I say we had better swim to the shore!” “No way!  We have to face them down!” “Come on!  It’s much better to cry: Help!” “Well, I think. . . .” Bernardo Vergara is a Spanish cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in Territorio Vergara […]

From the FWIW department, a video of an anti-war demonstration of 160 people in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, on 5 December 2010. One of the themes of the Shinjuku demo, as shown in this poster, was (to paraphrase rather than translate): “‘China Will Invade Japan’?  Are You Nuts?” In other words, the crazy Japanese right-wingers are […]

  Would you say that you’re among the pessimists who regard the five decades of African independence as five lost decades? I’m not a pessimist and I don’t think that these have been five lost decades.  I remain extremely critical, extremely severe with respect to African states, governments, and political classes, but I’m even more […]

Israeli police have been criticized over their treatment of hundreds of Palestinian children, some as young as seven, arrested and interrogated on suspicion of stone throwing in East Jerusalem. In the past year, criminal investigations have been opened against more than 1,200 Palestinian minors in Jerusalem on stone-throwing charges, according to police statistics gathered by […]

Who would demonstrate on a day like this?  Weatherwise it was the nastiest day of the year.  Berlin had been covered in snow for a week but on Saturday it thawed, the snow turned to slush and water, flooding sidewalks so that almost every step landed in a puddle, with more rain coming down to […]

  “The silent vigils started with the disappearance of Hasan Ocak, who was detained by police in Istanbul on March 21, 1995.  55 days later, his tortured body was uncovered in a graveyard for unidentified people.  Ocak’s family and friends led the first sit-down protest. . . .” Bijoyeta Das is an independent multimedia journalist […]

  Hooman Majd: Most average Americans, if they only follow the news on Iran the way it is presented, wouldn’t even know that there is a parliament, wouldn’t even know that there are three branches of government in Iran, like America: there’s the executive; there’s the legislative, which is the parliament; and there’s the judiciary.  […]

US diplomacy, WikiLeaked Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  This cartoon was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 10 December 2010.  | Print

In his essay, “Degrow or Die?” in the December/January 2011 Red Pepper magazine, John Bellamy Foster criticized degrowth advocates’ proposals for shorter working hours as not “dealing with the unemployment problem directly” and as not being viable on a broad scale unless they were part of a transition to “a post-capitalist (indeed socialist) society.”  In […]

  On Sunday, 12 December, the Iran Committee organized a demonstration in Amsterdam against “human rights violations” in Iran.  This committee was initiated by the Centre for Information and Documentation about Israel (CIDI), which is an influential pro-Israel lobby.  The leadership of this committee consists of right-wing politicians, Christian fundamentalists, anti-Muslim racists, and unfortunately a […]

  It is commonly reported in the international press, and widely believed, that the government of President Hugo Chávez controls the media in Venezuela.  For example, writing about Venezuela’s September elections for the National Assembly, the Washington Post‘s deputy editorial page editor and columnist, Jackson Diehl, referred to the Chávez “regime’s domination of the media. […]

  Reed Lindsay: It’s election day in Egypt, the second round of parliamentary balloting.  But in this working-class suburb of Cairo, few people seem to care. “There are no free and fair elections.  All the opposition parties withdrew.  A lot of us are unemployed.  So why should we vote?” “All we are seeing is corruption, […]

  “When you are in love with two persons at the same time. . . .” “I could have married the both of you if I were a man.” “Well, of course I wouldn’t have accepted your proposal while another woman named Ahmad was also involved. . . .” Written, edited, and directed by Saeed […]

  Listen to the interview with Samir Amin: Can you tell me very briefly what your book Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism? is about? The title of my book is indicative of the intention.  The title, in a provocative way, is Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism in Crisis?  As […]

Pedro Méndez Suárez is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was first published in Granma.  See, also, Meena Raman, “COP16: Cancunhagen Lets Rich Countries Off the Hook” (MRZine, 11 December 2010). | Print

Bolivian President Evo Morales, this Friday, promulgated the Law of Pensions whose content was, for the first time in the history of Bolivia, concretized by workers and representatives of social movements.  The Bolivian leader declared that the promulgation of this new law is evidence of the deepening of democracy in the nation. “What is most […]

  Pedro Méndez Suárez is a Cuban cartoonist.  This cartoon was published in CubaDebate on 30 November 2010; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes.  Cf. David Axe, “Secret U.S. Space Plane May Be Too Mysterious” (Wired, 18 November 2010); Brad Lendon, “U.S. Military Says They’ve Launched Largest Spy Satellite” (This Just In, CNN, […]

  Meena Raman: The developed countries have gained quite a bit [at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Cancún] because the proposals in there [in the COP16 Outcome] really take them off the hook in terms of doing the real kind of emission reduction they need to do and a lot of responsibility has […]

  Video by Ricardo Stuckert President Lula offered solidarity on Thursday (9 December) to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who was arrested this week after his group published cables written by American diplomats, and he criticized the Brazilian media for not defending the Australian activist and the freedom of expression.  “The guy was arrested, and yet […]