In support of the students of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) on strike against the $100 million budget cuts, elimination of tuition wavers, privatization, etc. . . . ¡Que vivan los estudiantes! Note: The indefinite strike declared on the Río Piedras campus is on its 15th day today. The one declared in the Mayagüez […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Hooman Majd’s Postcard from Tehran
Author and analyst Hooman Majd traveled to Iran last month and has published an initial report from his travels, “Postcard from Tehran,” in ForeignPolicy.com. Hooman makes a number of important points in his article, which largely reinforce our analysis of Iranian politics since the Islamic Republic’s June 12, 2009 presidential election and of U.S/Western policy […]
The Mural Speaks
The Rachel Corrie Foundation andBreak the Silence Mural Project co‐presentThe Mural Speaks Come celebrate the completion of this dynamic, interactive mural at a free event at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, May 8 at the Labor Temple building, corner of State and Capitol, downtown Olympia. The Mural Speaks event is more than a mural commemoration; it’s a […]
Lula and Erdoğan Go to Tehran: Alternative Perspectives on Their Diplomatic Prospects
Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will travel to Iran this weekend, ostensibly to attend the G-15 summit meeting that opens in Tehran on Monday. But Lula’s trip is attracting enormous international attention because the Brazilian leader will use his visit to try, in collaboration with Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to broker […]
Mexico: A New Slogan for the Drug War
New Slogan Federal Government: So that drugs won’t get to your children . . . WE ARE KILLING THEM FOR YOU. José Hernández is a Mexican cartoonist. This cartoon — drawn on 23 March 2010 in response to Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs, especially the deaths of Juárezyouth and Monterrey Tec students as its […]
BP: The Worst Safety and Environmental Record of All Oil Companies Operating in the United States
BP is a London-based oil company with the worst safety and environmental record of any oil company operating in America. In just the last few years, BP has pled guilty to two crimes and paid over $730 million in fines and settlements to the US government, state governments, and civil lawsuit judgments for environmental […]
Bolivia: Evo Sticks to 5% Wage Increase; COB Threatens to Blockade Streets
Wages: the president calls for rationality while workers foresee an indefinite strike. President Evo Morales stuck to the 5% wage increase, ruling out a possibility of revision. Meanwhile, the Bolivian Workers’ Center (COB) and manufacturing workers will discuss today the possibility of launching an indefinite general strike and street blockade to demand a higher […]
Tricks of the Theatre
The following statement by Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg was delivered outside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on May 3, 2010 where supporters of Fahad Hashmi have been gathering since last October to bear witness to the inhumane conditions of Fahad’s detention and to call for an end to the US […]
Israel’s Stasi Watch over Imams
Job interviews for the position of imam at mosques in Israel are conducted not by senior clerics but by the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police, a labor tribunal has revealed. Sheikh Ahmed Abu Ajwa, 36, is fighting the Shin Bet’s refusal to approve his appointment as an imam in a case that has lifted the […]
Mohamed ElBaradei on the Iranian Nuclear Issue
As we follow the NPT Review Conference in New York and the enormous salience of the Iranian nuclear issue there, it is useful to consider some recent observations about the Iranian case by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s former Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei. Baradei was in the Boston area last week, where, among other things, […]
The Non-Proliferation Treaty Is an Intrinsically Unfair Treaty
Ambassador Cabactulan, President of the Review Conference, Ambassador Sergio Duarte, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to congratulate you, Mr. President, for the chairmanship of this Conference. You can count on my delegation’s best cooperation. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is an intrinsically unfair treaty, which divides the world between “haves” and “have-nots.” […]
Iran’s Challenge to the Nuclear Order
Excerpt: Three nations in the Middle East dominate any present-day discussion of nuclear weapons, yet only one is subjected to an unprecedented degree of international scrutiny. Two have nuclear weapons; the third does not. Yet it is the third nation that is widely considered the threat to world peace and the target of ever increasing […]
Is the Washington Post Hyping the Iranian Nuclear “Threat” Once Again?
Yet again, the Washington Post has published another highly inflammatory article on Iranian nuclear developments, “Iran’s Advances in Nuclear Technology Spark New Concerns about Weapons,” by Joby Warrick. As we wrote, Warrick co-authored another recent story for the Washington Post on Iran’s nuclear program that “could easily have been run about Iraq back in 2002.” […]
Threatening Iran Is Wrong
The antiwar movement everywhere should be extremely alarmed about the Obama Administration’s declaration in April that Washington can target Iran with nuclear weapons. Although vague “all options are on the table” warnings were also issued under George W. Bush, now the threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran is enshrined in the revised […]
Feeling the Hate in New York
Midtown Manhattan, 25 April 2010 Dov Hikind, NY State Assemblyman (D-Brooklyn): “From day one, this president proved that he was not Barack Obama, but Barack Hussein Obama.” Audience (carrying signs reading “Racism. Sexism. Apartheid. Stop Shariah Islam” among other signs): “Boo!” Demonstrator: “He’s a Nazi!” * * * Demonstrator: “This government is pressuring Israel right […]
Cuba: Viva May Day!
Speech by Salvador Valdés Mesa, General Secretary of the Central Organization of Cuban Workers (CTC) and member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers, Compañeros of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, […]
Nepal: Maoists Call General Strike
The government will fall or the people will rise. Thousands have already arrived in Kathmandu, occupying the private schools shut down by Maoist students last week. 500,000 villagers are expected to join the workers and students in the city. The Nepal Army is on alert, the People’s Liberation Army is, too. The people are coming […]
The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. New Afrikaners
Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture, Palestine Center, Washington, D.C., 29 April 2010 It is a great honor to be here at the Palestine Center to give the Sharabi Memorial Lecture. I would like to thank Yousef Munnayer, the executive director of the Jerusalem Fund, for inviting me, and all of you for coming out […]
Why Are the US and Israel Threatening Iran? And Who Really Rules the World?
Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 while at the same time sending more troops to the Afghanistan War. What has become of the promise of “change”? I am one of the few who are not disillusioned, because I had no expectations. I had written about Obama’s positions and prospects even before […]
What “Populist Uprising?” Part 2: Further Reflections on an “Astroturf Movement”
The much-ballyhooed Tea Party “movement” that has arisen to absurdly accuse the corporate and imperial Barack Obama administration with “socialism,” “favoring the poor,” and other “radical leftist” crimes claims to be a decentralized, independent, “grassroots,” and popular/populist uprising against concentrated power. Contrary to that claim, Part 1 of our report presented recent polling data showing […]
