Geography Archives: Africa

Dear People of Gaza, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for doing absolutely nothing in the last few months to stop your suffering. Although I cannot feel your pain, I have seen it on the news.  I’ve read that 1.5 million of you civilians endured weeks of being fired on and bombed with […]

See, also, Hajir Palaschi, “Interview with Shahla Lahiji on Women’s Presence in the Labor Market: No Vocation Must Be Prohibited for Women,” Trans. Yoshie Furuhashi, MRZine, 18 February 2008. The Iranian Revolution and its aftermath have generated many debates, one of which pertains to the effects on women’s labor force participation and employment patterns.  For […]

  As the financial crisis that erupted in 2007 unfolds in an economic cataclysm which, it is now clear, is unprecedented in the history of capitalism, world leaders without exception reveal themselves as politically and ideologically bankrupt in their efforts to bring it under control.  This is most obviously demonstrated by their insistence on the […]

23.02.2009 I hope you will understand that after everything I have been through I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to Britain.  Please forgive me if I make a simple statement through my lawyer.  I hope to be able to do better in days […]

  Since February 2003, Iran’s nuclear program has undergone what the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) itself admits to be the most intrusive inspection in its entire history.  After thousands of hours of inspections by some of the most experienced IAEA experts, the Agency has verified time and again that (1) there is no evidence […]

  Joel Kovel holds the Alger Hiss chair in social studies at Bard College and is the author of Overcoming Zionism among other titles.  He has recently been informed by the college that his contract will not be extended beyond July 1.  In the statement below, he argues that the termination is due to his […]

Introduction Over the last two months, cholera has broken out in a number of provinces in South Africa.  Thousands of people have been infected and over fifty people have already died.1  Initially, a number of politicians, including parliamentarians from the right-wing Democratic Alliance (DA), tried to blame Zimbabweans — who were fleeing the economic meltdown, […]

  The Middle East has always been a difficult challenge for Western human rights organizations, particularly those seeking influence or funding in the United States.  The pressure to go soft on US allies is in some respects reminiscent of Washington’s special pleading for Latin American terror regimes in the 1970s and 1980s.  In the case […]

Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian residing in Britain, said he was tortured after being sent to Morocco and Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. government.  Mohamed was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004 and all terrorism charges against him were dismissed last year.  Mohamed was a victim of extraordinary rendition, in which a person is abducted without […]

  After a decade of political polarization and international standoff, the debate on Zimbabwe has finally been opened up to a wider reading public, thanks to Mahmood Mamdani’s “Lessons of Zimbabwe,” appearing in the London Review of Books (04/12/2008).  Renowned scholars, within and without Africa, have broken their silence and have taken public positions.  The […]

  Sderot is a small city about 1km away from the Gaza border, well known because it has suffered many hits from the Qassam rockets that the Gaza resistance has been launching on and off for about 8 years.  When we think of residents living under the threat of missiles, hiding in bunkers, it’s quite […]

  The parliament broadened by the Djibouti peace process elected Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, chairman of the executive council of the Islamic Courts Union, as President of Somalia.  The Ethiopian occupation alone had failed to shore up the Transitional Federal Government, so Washington had to try a new tack.  Al Jazeera’s report, however, indicates trouble […]

  6 February 2009 The Congress of South African Trade Union is pleased to announce that its members, dock workers belonging to the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), achieved a victory last night when they stood firm by their decision not to offload the Johanna Russ, a ship that was carrying Israeli […]

Granted, the Somali political conundrum is multifaceted in nature.  And, one of these facets, indeed the most frequently cited element perpetuating Somalia’s violence and anarchy, is the lack of good leadership capable of ensuring good governance.  According to the official account, this very element is what toppled the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). The indicators of […]

In the last few weeks, following the recent military attack on Gaza, we have seen an increase in calls for boycott of Israeli institutions in general, and academic institutions in particular.  A general boycott strategy can be useful indeed in mobilizing solidarity with Palestinians and undermining support for Israeli war crimes internationally and within the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

  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 […]

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 […]