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Paul Jay: The title of your upcoming book, Syria’s Democratic Experiment, first of all, what is the experiment?  And then talk a little about how we got there. Joshua Landis: Well, the book really deals with a period at the time of independence — 1946, ’45, ’46 — in Syria, when the French left and […]

This just in from Bloomberg: The West African nation’s 2032 bonds issued a year ago jumped 7.7 percent to 55.438 cents on the dollar, the highest since Dec. 2, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.  The debt has rallied 14 percent in the past two days after Gbagbo troops surrendered. . . .  The country’s […]

In the weeks following the Fukushima accident, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear industry officials have been asserting that US nuclear plants are better prepared to withstand a catastrophic event like the March 11 earthquake and tsunami than Japanese plants because they have additional safety measures in place. According to internal NRC documents, however, there […]

A declaration by the Ecuadorian government that U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges is “persona non grata” and must leave Ecuador as soon as possible should not come as a surprise, Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said.  Weisbrot noted that the expulsion follows recent troubling revelations in cables released by Wikileaks […]

  Nik Theodore is Director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a leading theorist of the urban dimensions of neoliberal restructuring.  He has collaborated closely with the Right to the City Alliance, the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, and other groups that have been at the […]

Some leftists, at long last, are seen walking out on the Libyan rebels they once loved. . . . Hossam el-Hamalawy, 2 April 2011: This is catastrophic.  The biggest imperialist force on the planet, NATO, is bombing Libya “in the name of revolution,” CIA operatives are active on the ground, Western “military advisers” become visible […]

  For weeks TEPCO and the Japanese government have tried to assure us that the crisis at Fukushima is stabilising and that the situation is under control.  However, the recent decision to dump over 15,000 tonnes of highly radioactive water directly into the sea seems to suggest just the opposite.  TEPCO’s decision to further contaminate […]

  Juliano Mer-Khamis embodied the uncompromising struggle for freedom and for dignity.  With his brutal murder the Palestinian struggle has lost a brilliant, charismatic, and courageous fighter for justice and freedom.  Both parts of his life’s work were seamlessly joined.  His art was inseparable from his political commitment.  The dignity and humanity which his art […]

  In Bahrain as well as in the rest of the Gulf states, the Tunisian and Egyptian method just doesn’t work to attain even the minimum goal of the majority.  Calling for negotiation as the ITUC does below, needless to say, is no solution in this case since the Bahraini ruling class has full support […]

With respect to international law, in what ways does this intervention in Libya differ from those carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq? The intervention in Afghanistan, despite protestations to the contrary, was not authorized by the Security Council, whose relevant resolutions did not even mention Afghanistan, let alone authorize “all necessary means.”  That was because […]

Could it be that Syrian refinery workers thought it wise to warn imperialists not to descend on Syria to liberate their oil and jobs from them in the name of liberating them from Bashar? — Ed. Tartous, Syria, 29 March 2011 Cf. “Syria is the only significant crude oil producing country in the Eastern Mediterranean […]

The Benghazi council chose as its leader the colorless former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil.  Jalil’s brain is Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of the National Economic Development Board (NEDB).  A U.S. embassy cable from May 11, 2009 (09TRIPOLI386) describes Jibril as keen on a close relationship with the U.S. and eager “to create a […]

Excerpt from Marc Bousquet, “Introduction”: The Occupation Cookbook is a “manual” that describes the organization of the student occupation of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences that took place in the spring of 2009 and lasted for 35 days.  It was written for two reasons: to record what happened, and to present the particular […]

The economy added 216,000 jobs in March, pushing the overall unemployment rate down to 8.8 percent.  The growth was driven entirely by a 230,000 gain in the private sector, as the government sector lost jobs for the fifth consecutive month.  The employment-to-population ratio (EPOP) also edged up to 58.5 percent — the highest ratio since […]

Paul Jay: So, first of all, talk about what happened on Friday.  The protesters, the opposition, were hoping for a big turnout, and apparently they didn’t get it. Bassam Haddad: On Friday, a few hundred people, in some places more than a thousand, came out in protest, to continue the string of protests since last […]

  Bahraini government forces backed by Saudi troops have completely blocked access to several villages.  Reports say the military have set up checkpoints and deployed secret police around the village of Ma’ameer, to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the village.  Saudi and Bahraini troops have also fired tear gas to disperse protesters in the […]

The Syrian Communist Party (Unified) would like to reiterate what its newspaper An-Nour said on Wednesday, 23 March 2011: it is necessary to restore normal life to Dara’a Governorate, to effectively deal with the consequences of the deplorable events which took place last week, and to do the following while dealing with the problems: 1. […]

  The dark cloud hanging over the future of nuclear power because of the unfolding crisis in Japan may have a silver lining in China by increasing attention to reactor safety. Within days of the earthquake that crippled the nuclear plants in Japan, the Chinese government abruptly suspended approvals for new plant construction, suspended work […]

31 March 2011 As hundreds of union activists chanted, “Vote them out. Vote them out,” history was made yesterday as the majority of the members of the Ohio General Assembly voted in the most punishing and regressive anti-union, anti-middle class, anti-public worker bill this state has every seen. But you stood strong. > Late last […]

Bashar al-Assad is a lucky man.  Even the mother of the Angry Arab (himself no fan of the Syrian president) seems to like him: “As my mom says about him: he is the best educated among Arab leaders (many of whom are illiterate) and it shows.” — Ed. Beirut, Lebanon, 27.03.11 Cairo, Egypt, 31.03.11 Bucharest, […]