To the attention of the Press and the Public: As it is known, last Saturday a protest took place outside Tottenham police station in order to attain answers or explanations as to how and why Mark Duggan, a father of four, was killed by the police on Thursday 4th August. The events were unleashed as […]
Archive | News
News updates or analysis.
Order within the Chaos
A Soviet diplomat visiting the US once expressed incredulity toward the political content of mainstream newspapers there. In the USSR, he explained to his American interlocutors, it is necessary to threaten members of the press with torture in order to make them toe the correct political line. In the United States, however, you effect a […]
Who Is Reading Syrian Opposition Web Sites?
E.g., Syrian Revolution 2011 Fidaaldin Al-Sayed Issa, the Swedish administrator of the Syrian Revolution 2011 Facebook page (11 May 2011): “We have analyzed the IP addresses of our users and about 35% are Syrian residing in Syria, 50% are from the Syrian Diaspora around the world and the remaining 15% are other Arabs in other […]
Happy Birthday, Comandante!
Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela. His cartoons frequently appear in Aporrea and Rebelión among other sites. var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print
The Race with Iran: Saudi Arabia’s Sectarian Card
Four months ago, we returned from a trip to the Middle East and wrote that “the main question engaging people with respect to the Arab Spring is no longer, ‘who’s next,’ but rather how far will Saudi Arabia go in pushing a ‘counter-revolutionary agenda’ across the [region].” Since then, something of a discussion, if not […]
Why Does the New York Times Think It’s So Cool to Beat Up on Seniors?
The New York Times decided to have a special dialogue around a letter to the editor that called on President Obama to take “decisive action” on the economy. Remarkably, only one item on the list of decisive actions, investing in infrastructure, would have any positive impact on jobs and even this would be limited. While […]
Memorandum on Libya Handed to British Consul-General in Cape Town by SACP and Allies
12th August 2011 The British Consul-General The British Consulate Riebeeck Street, CAPE TOWN Cc: All Media Houses Dear Sir, We, the leadership and members of the following organisations the SACP, ANC, COSATU, SANCO, ANCYL, YCL, ANCWL, MJC and PASOP and all democrats and peace loving peoples of the African continent, demand that you convey […]
Europe
“Poor Europe, so far from Latin America, so close to the United States.” Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela. His cartoons frequently appear in Aporrea and Rebelión among other sites. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). Cf. Moisis Litsis, “Latin American Lessons for the European Crisis: Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz” […]
What Sent the Stock Market Tumbling? It Wasn’t the S&P Downgrade
Time to beat up on really, really bad news reporting. The stock market doesn’t tell people why it does what it does. We have commentators who bloviate on what they think caused the market to rise or fall, but they don’t really know and they could be completely wrong. That is why it was incredibly […]
The Future of Arab Revolts: Interview with Samir Amin
The way Egyptian scholar and researcher Samir Amin sees it, nothing will be the same as before in the Arab world: protest movements will challenge both the internal social order of Arab countries and their places in the regional and global political chessboard. Hassane Zerrouky: How do you see what’s happening in the Arab […]
The Master Class
“. . . and they won’t stop till we all become slaves grateful to be able at least to eat, twice a day.” Juan Kalvellido is a Spanish cartoonist. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print
Libya — Lather, Rinse, Repeat — Syria: Liberal Imperialism and the Refusal to Learn
Two of my favorite quotes come into play here, one by the English poet, Alexander Pope, who explained that “some people will never learn anything . . . because they understand everything too soon,” and George Bernard Shaw, much more resigned and ironic in stating that “we learn from experience that men never learn anything […]
Compensate Victims of U.S. Chemical Warfare in Vietnam
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the start of the chemical warfare program in Vietnam without sufficient remedial action by the U.S. government. One of the most shameful legacies of the Vietnam War, Agent Orange continues to poison Vietnam and the people exposed to the chemicals, as well as their offspring. H.R. 2634, the Victims […]
Free Money for Some
Free money for capitalists in a financial crisis . . . but not for the rest of us, even starving children in a humanitarian crisis. . . Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. | Print
Panic on the Streets of London
I’m huddled in the front room with some shell-shocked friends, watching my city burn. The BBC is interchanging footage of blazing cars and running street battles in Hackney, of police horses lining up in Lewisham, of roiling infernos that were once shops and houses in Croydon and in Peckham. Last night, Enfield, Walthamstow, Brixton and […]
Productivity, Profits, and Job Growth
An AP article on the latest productivity data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was a bit confused on the relationship between productivity, profits, and job growth. The article noted the 0.3 percent decline in productivity reported for the second quarter. This followed a decline of 0.6 percent in the first quarter. It suggested […]
India’s ‘World Class’ Heist: What the Commonwealth Games Audit Shows
This has been a turbulent week in India. On August 5th, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India released its final report on the 2010 Commonwealth Games, placing it before the parliament. No one expected good news. The games, which were held in Delhi last October, have been under a cloud of corruption and […]
Obama’s Gift to Verizon: The Poison Pill in PPACA Used to Extract Concessions from Labor
Since Saturday night (August 6), 45,000 members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) have been on strike from Massachusetts to Virginia — in the largest private sector work stoppage in the last seven years. Health care cost shifting is high on the list of givebacks demanded […]
Saudi King Calls for Freedom in Syria
The King of Saudi Arabia calls for “freedom” in Syria . . . but where in Saudi Arabia is Khaled al-Johani? Saad Hajo is a Syrian cartoonist. This cartoon was first published in As-Safir on 9 August 2011; it is reproduced here for non-profit educational purposes. | Print
On the S&P Downgrade
The decision by Standard & Poor’s to downgrade U.S. government debt reflects its own failings as a credit rating agency. It says nothing about the creditworthiness of the U.S. government. The Treasury Department revealed that S&P’s decision was initially based on a $2 trillion error in accounting. However, even after this enormous error was corrected, […]
