please keep in mind as you prepare to pass sentence you may at some time be in need of a presidential pardon and I may, understandably, be reluctant to grant it. Dennis Brutus is a South African poet. Active against Apartheid, he was arrested in 1963 and imprisoned for 18 months on Robben Island. After […]
Geography Archives: Africa
Countries in the continent of Africa
Free Palestine! Isolate Apartheid Israel!South African Dock Workers Refuse to Handle Israeli Goods
COSATU and PSC launch Week of Action for Palestine supported by YCL and other progressive organisations In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by […]
Cries of Ghosts across Centuries
Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe! Woe! Woe! Towers that soared into clear blue are at blocks of stone settled into earth all gone, all shattered ground into scattered dust Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe! Woe! Woe! Now hordes of warring barbarians literate, skilled in killing […]
Chavismo: Christian, Anti-Nazi, Pro-Muslim, and Pro-Jewish
Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s Ambassador to the Organization of American States, speaks of numerous members of the Jewish community who have supported the struggles of peoples against imperialism and Zionism, and he rejects any attack against the Jewish people. Watching television footage of one of the necessary and legitimate protests against the Israeli Embassy in […]
What Did the Bush Administration Receive for Financing AFL-CIO’s Solidarity Center?
In 1997, the AFL-CIO established the American Center for International Labor Solidarity by merging its four regional institutions that had operated around the world. Solidarity Center stated its mission: “to help build a global labor movement by strengthening the economic and political power of workers around the world through effective, independent and democratic unions.” […]
More Zionist Than Israel? German Policy and Media on Gaza
The Gaza massacre, at least for the moment, is over — ended just before Barack Obama’s inauguration, so as not to cast an unwelcome cloud over his first hours as U.S. President. The initial Palestinian death toll is 1,300 . . . and expected to rise. (Four times that number were injured, and more wounded […]
Torture at Angola Prison
The torture of prisoners in US custody is not only found in military prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. If President Obama is serious about ending US support for torture, he can start here in Louisiana. The Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola is already notorious for a range of offenses, including keeping former Black Panthers […]
Farewell the Nightingales
“This is one local aspect* of a problem which is actually global.” — Dennis Brutus Farewell the Nightingales Walking the streets of the Shah’s Tehran I was conscious of lurking Savak — cries of tortured victims hung in the dusk even as I lingered over buttered long-grain rice in a dim bistro’s magic cave: That […]
Behind the Myths about Hamas
Most mainstream accounts of the Palestinian Hamas organization present it as a bunch of rabid fanatics, bent on violence and motivated by an irrational hatred of Jews and the state of Israel. This view is reflected both in the mainstream media and in many books published on the topic. When we separate propaganda from reality, […]
Thailand: Drop Lèse Majesté Charges against Giles Ji Ungpakorn
Academics, Intellectuals and Members of Parliament from around the World Call for Charges against Giles Ji Ungpakorn to be Dropped Academics from U.K, Canada, France, South Africa, Ireland, Australia, South Korea, Greece and the U.S.A., including those from Oxford University and SOAS London University, have signed an open letter calling for charges of lèse majesté, […]
The Coronation of the New Emperor
Around the world hundreds of millions of people witnessed the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States (US), or rather the coronation of the new “emperor.” Even at the bottom tip of Africa, it was difficult to escape the scenes of imperial grandeur that beamed across television sets. As was the case with […]
Amerika
“After throwing a shoe at the US Consulate in Durban today to wish the Bush regime good riddance, I remind myself that this sentiment of disgust has occurred repeatedly. In 1987, it was Reagan in the White House, tomorrow it will be Obama, but the problem is not the person, it is the system.” — […]
Continuing Gaza Protests, as Seen on Al Jazeera
and unseen on American TV. . . . Demos Call for Closure of US Embassy — Police and Protesters Clash, Awkar (North of Beirut), Lebanon, 19.01.09 Demos in Solidarity with Gaza in Cities of Australia — Sydney Demo, the Largest, Draws 20,000, 19.01.09 Tens of Thousands Protests in Solidarity with People of Gaza, Karachi, Pakistan, […]
Capitalism’s Burning House: Interview with John Bellamy Foster
WIN: According to a quotation by Jim Reid that you and Fred Magdoff included in your article entitled “Financial Implosion and Stagnation” (Monthly Review, December 2008), the U.S. financial sector has made around 1.2 Trillion ($1,200) of “excess” profits in the last decade relative to nominal GDP. How has the structure of the capital […]
La Lutta Benefit
Hi everyone, Hope all is well. On February 5 at Crash Mansion in NYC, La Lutta NMC is having a benefit to support our youth media literacy and Artist-In-Residence program. Our most recent youth Artist-in-Residence participants, Lynchy Lezeau and Briana Orr, traveled to South Africa in 2008 where they produced a documentary series on HIV/AIDS […]
UE General Executive Board Calls for End to Bloodshed in Gaza
16 January 2009 Meeting in Pittsburgh, January 15 and 16, UE‘s General Executive Board adopted a statement condemning the current war in the Gaza Strip. The union’s national leadership body reiterated the position adopted by delegates to UE’s 70th Convention in 2007, which called for “replacing the lopsided pro-Israel policy of the U.S. with a […]
South African Solidarity with Egyptian and Palestinian Peoples
Numerous protests against Israel’s apartheid and massacres in Gaza have been held in South Africa. One of the targets has been the Egyptian regime’s role in the siege of Gaza. — Ed. Memorandum To President Hosni Mubarak, president of the Arab Republic of Egypt 9 January 2009 We who have gathered today outside the Egyptian […]
Remembering Egypt
“Egypt is playing a tawdry role in the current agony of the Palestinians; but it is not new, sadly.” — Dennis Brutus Remembering Egypt Solitary I walked the sands beside the Pyramids hot soil beneath my feet: ageless the cloudless skies aeons above invisible stars: men laboured in dusty rags parched reeds wilted in shallows […]
British Jews Call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel
We the undersigned are all of Jewish origin. When we see the dead and bloodied bodies of young children, the cutting off of water, electricity and food, we are reminded of the siege of the Warsaw Ghetto. When Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, talked of putting Gazans “on a […]
Hamas: What It Is, What It Wants, and What Israel Makes of It
Israel’s stated reasons for its declaration of “all-out war” against the population of Gaza are the latest variation on a theme it put forward following the 2006 electoral victory of Hamas in Gaza. In February of that year Israel issued an official set of demands. Israel requires that Hamas recognize Israel’s permanent right to exist, […]
