Syrian Commando (2 August 2011): “Peaceful demonstration tools in #Hama #Syria for Ramadan http://t.co/FyPY1NM“ Eslam Jawaad (2 August 2011): “Father is Druze. Mother is Alawite. They raised me as Muslim. My wife is Sunni. Brother’s wife Christian. F#$k sectarianism. Pray for #Syria“ 3arabiSouri (2 August 2011): “Syrians r so grateful to our Libyan brothers, if […]
Archive | News
News updates or analysis.
Creative Cities
Josephine Berry Slater and Anthony Illes. No Room to Move: Radical Art and the Regenerate City. Mute Books. 124 pp. “Gentrification was already coming. The feta-cheese footprint.” — Stewart Home Broadway I Located on the historic drovers’ road that led from Essex to the slaughterhouses of Smithfield, Broadway Market in Hackney is one of the […]
Syria: What Is Going On in Hama?
Hama has suffered for the (at least) past three weeks from lawlessness and nearly complete absence of the entire state and its organs, and from control by groups of armed teenagers and criminals who (left without any other choice, in the opinion of the US and French ambassadors) actually erected roadblocks and expropriated the […]
Venezuelan Government Condemns Bombing of Libya’s State Television
Communiqué The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Comandante Hugo Chávez, in the name of the Venezuelan people and government, categorically condemns the illegal bombing perpetrated on Saturday, 30 July 2011 by the NATO military forces against the installations of the Jamahiriya, the Libyan state television. This barbaric act of the NATO constitutes the […]
On the Debt Ceiling Deal
The protracted negotiations over the debt ceiling, as well as the final package agreed to by President Obama and the congressional leadership, show what happens when a small minority is allowed to gain control over national debate. While polls consistently show that the vast majority of the public sees jobs as the main problem facing […]
Why Does the Guardian Ignore the Assassination of Peasant Activists in Venezuela?
Dear Guardian editors: We, the undersigned, ask why the Guardian has ignored one of Venezuela’s most serious human rights problems — the assassination of hundreds of peasant activists since 2001 by gunmen hired by wealthy land owners. On June 8, VenezuelaAnalysis.com reported a 10,000 person march on the National Assembly to demand justice for the […]
India: Saying No to Iranian Oil to Please America
“[A]n assessment of whether India is fully and actively participating in United States and international efforts to dissuade, isolate, and, if necessary, sanction and contain Iran for its efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons capability (including the capability to enrich uranium or reprocess nuclear fuel), and the means to […]
U.S. Sanctions and China’s Iran Policy
The Financial Times reports that Iran and China are “in talks about using a barter system to exchange Iranian oil for Chinese goods and services, as U.S. financial sanctions have blocked China from paying at least $20 billion for oil imports.” According to the story, Tehran and Beijing are now discussing how to “offset” the […]
Years of Service Award
Terry Everton is a cartoonist. Visit his blog Working Stiff Review at . | Print
Weak Consumption and Shrinking Government Slow GDP in Second Quarter
Consumption grew at just a 0.1 percent annual rate in the second quarter, while government spending shrank at a 1.1 percent rate, holding GDP growth to 1.3 percent in the quarter. This report also revised down first-quarter GDP growth to just 0.4 percent from a previously reported 1.9 percent. Together, these numbers indicate that the […]
Entangled in Neocolonialism: The Weight of Chains
An interview with documentary filmmaker Boris Malagurski Who in their right mind would actually want to be a colony? That is the question asked in the opening section of The Weight of Chains, the latest film directed by Boris Malagurski. His film demonstrates how the South Slavs emerged from centuries of colonial rule under the […]
Sense and Nonsense in the Balanced Budget Debate: A Socialist Response
The Republicans have successfully changed the main emphasis of the economic debate from job creation to deficit control. Why the urgency for balanced budgets? After all, this anemic “recovery” has set itself apart from all previous post-war turnarounds precisely by its manifest failure to generate jobs. Economic growth needs to considerably exceed 3% per […]
Ohio: Ballot Board Meeting on SB5
Dear friends: Secretary of State Jon Husted has called a meeting of the Ohio Ballot Board for Wednesday, August 3, 2011, at 10:00 a.m. in the Finan Finance Hearing Room of the Ohio Statehouse, to consider and certify the ballot language for three statewide issues appearing on the November ballot. Of particular interest, the board […]
From Lender of Last Resort to Global Currency?Sterling Lessons for the US Dollar
Financial crises are bad news for the status of the currency in which the turmoil is denominated, right? So the US-made financial crisis must be bad for the dollar, right? And especially so because of the expansive dollar monetary policy that has ensued, right? Ambiguity on What “Strong Currency” Means Several economists appear to […]
Open Letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, Regarding the Miners of the World
Dear Sydney Morning Herald, You did your readers and all working people a grave disservice today. By titling a column about hundreds of thousands of miners around the world going on strike for better working and living conditions a “strike contagion” — and thus associating actions by workers with germs, plague, and disease transmission — […]
The Debt Ceiling: A Guide for the Bewildered
It is very difficult to explain American politics to those who are not Americans and/or have not lived here long enough. Add to that the confusion over basic economic principles, and it becomes almost impossible to explain the debt-ceiling debate to rational people. As noted by James Galbraith, this is not a fiscal crisis, […]
Facing Up to the Real Cost of Carbon
Your house might not burn down next year. So you could probably save money by cancelling your fire insurance. That’s a “bargain” that few homeowners would accept. But it’s the same deal that politicians have accepted for us, when it comes to insurance against climate change. They have rejected sensible investments in efficiency and clean […]
Jamaica Remains Buried Under a Mountain of Debt, Despite Restructuring
As the eurozone authorities move closer to accepting the inevitable Greek debt default/restructuring, there are some who have pointed to the Jamaican debt restructuring of last year as a model. It’s hard to imagine a worse disaster for Greece. It is worth a closer look at what has been done to Jamaica, not only as […]
India: The Latest Employment Trends from the NSSO
No sooner were the results of the 66th Round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (relating to data collected in 2009-10) released, than they became the subject of great controversy. Surprisingly, the controversy was created not by critics of the government and its statistical system, but from within government circles! Some highly placed officials found […]
The Risk of Dismissal for Union Organizing and the Need to Modify the Process
Testimony before the National Labor Relations Board, 19 July 2011 I am here to briefly summarize the findings of two papers by my colleague Dr. John Schmitt, on the risk of dismissal in the course of a unionization drive. Dr. Schmitt, together with Ben Zipperer, used data on reinstatements from the National Labor Relations Board […]
