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The United States is planning to open a new military base in the Islas de la Bahía (Bay Islands) in Honduras, according to a report in the Honduran newspaper El Heraldo this Wednesday. The news emerged after the meeting between Honduran Defense Minister Marlon Pascual and the head of the US Sothern Command Douglas Fraser. […]

“Get Out of Bahrain Now!” Saudi Embassy, Washington, DC, 15 April 2011 For more information about this rally, visit the Web site of its coordinator the American Council for Freedom in Bahrain: .  Cf. “Washington, DC: Rally against Human Rights Abuses in Bahrain” (MRZine, 15 April 2011). | Print

We return from a recent trip to the region persuaded 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 Middle East?  Whether Saudi Arabia is really capable of coping with the momentous […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  Cf. “The Egyptian Health Ministry has said that more than 800 people were killed during the 18-day revolt that ended Mr. Mubarak’s rule” (David D. Kirkpatrick and Liam Stack, “Prosecutors Order Mubarak and Sons Held,” New York Times, 13 April 2011). | Print

The consumer price index rose 0.5 percent in March.  Over the last three months, headline inflation has run at a 6.1 percent annualized rate as food and, especially, energy prices have risen much faster than core prices.  Core inflation rose only 0.1 percent last month and at a 2.0 percent rate over the last three […]

The reconvening of the UN in late September and the possible recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders may be a crucial political moment in the struggle for Palestinian liberation — or not.  Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has characterized it as a looming “diplomatic tsunami” for Israel; Ali Abunimah, a prominent Palestinian-American […]

Weeks of highly publicized debates — some in Congress, more in the mass media — brought Republicans and Democrats to a budget deal.  To maximize public attention, they threatened a possible government shutdown.  Both parties said that large government deficits and accumulated debt were “serious problems.”  They agreed that solving them required only spending cuts, […]

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist.  | Print

  The Supreme Court has granted bail to civil rights activist Dr. Binayak Sen. Ilena Sen: This Part of Nightmare Is Over See, also, Jonathan Kennedy and Lawrence King, “The Conviction of Binayak Sen” (The Lancet, 16 April 2011); “Binayak Sen’s Mother Anasuya Sen: He Is Honest and Patriotic” (NDTV, 14 April 2011); PTI, “Supreme […]

Candlelight March in Solidarity with the People of Bahrain, 14.04.11 Funeral March for Saudi Torture Victim Mohammad Hassan al-Hayek, 14.04.11: “The People Want Human Rights” Jaroudiya and Awamiya Villagers Participate in the Central Qatif March, 14.04.11 The Message of the People of Qatif to the House of Saud, 15.04.11: “Friday, 22 April 2011 Will Be […]

  The murder of human rights activist, Vittorio Arrigoni, is a tragedy for his family, for those of us who knew him, and for the Palestinians who loved and admired him.  The Steering Committee of Freedom Flotilla 2 condemns this senseless murder and the people who are behind it.  They took the life of one […]

“Demand an end to the intimidation, torture and killing of peaceful protesters, human rights activists, and health and medical personnel in Bahrain at the hands of the Bahraini military and security forces provided by Saudi Arabia and other states.” — American Council for Freedom in Bahrain Washington, DC, 15 April 2011 For more information about […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its April 2011 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. In the last weeks we have had an illuminating example of how a thoroughly corrupt regime can manipulate a thoroughly pliable media.  One can hope that in time […]

Palestinians across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will join today in mourning slain activist Vittorio Arrigoni.  People will gather both in the Al Manara square in Ramallah and at Al Jundi al Majhoul, the unknown soldier park, in Gaza City.  Mourners will be received by the ISM and local popular committees and BDS […]

Executive Summary: This paper is the third installment in a series (the first and second editions were in 2001 and 2005) that traces a long-term growth failure in most of the world’s countries.  For the vast majority of the world’s low- and middle-income countries, there was a sharp slowdown in economic growth for the two […]

  International Solidarity Movement activist Vittorio Arrigoni was kidnapped in Gaza today.  News sources in the Gaza Strip say that the kidnappers are members of a Salafi group.  In a YouTube video, the group threatens to kill Arrigoni in 30 hours, counting from 11 AM in Gaza (10 AM in Italy), if the Hamas government […]

To hear the mainstream media tell it, America confronts a choice: Republican plans for cutting domestic spending or President Obama’s plans for cutting domestic spending.  That’s what they want us to think. You’d never know from the mainstream media that 80 Members of Congress have put forward an alternative to cuts in spending on domestic […]

A number of news reports by AFP, the Guardian, and other news agencies and outlets are suggesting that Syrian security forces were responsible for shooting nine Syrian soldiers, who were killed in Banyas on Sunday.  Some versions insist that they were shot for refusing orders to shoot at demonstrators. Considerable evidence suggests that this is […]

Today, our friend and colleague, Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and human rights defender working in the Gaza Strip, was kidnapped by Salafists, members of a very small extremist group in Gaza. Vittorio has been active in the Palestine cause for almost 10 years.  For the past two and a half years, he has been in […]

  Tuesday, April 12, 2011 Yassin Al-Hajj Saleh in the New York Times Of course, Saleh suffered from the brutality of the Syrian regime and I share many of his criticisms of the Syrian regime although I don’t share his decision to write about Syria in racist anti-Syrian (people) right-wing publications, like An-Nahar and Al-Hayat […]