Note to New York Times Readers In his November 18th article “Some Organizers Protest Their Union’s Tactics,” the New York Times‘ Steven Greenhouse cites a couple of sentences from this letter and links to it. While it is good to see the New York Times examine important debates within the U.S. labor movement, for […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
The Impending Indian Government Offensive against the Adivasi Inhabited Hilly Regions: Statement of Concern and Protest by Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky and Others
Analytical Monthly Review On Monday, October 12th, it was reported that Manmohan Singh — despite the request of air chief marshal P. V. Naik to permit IAF personnel in helicopters to attack inhabitants of the hilly regions — had announced that the armed forces would not be deployed against the domestic left-wing opponents of the […]
Puerto Rico: Ready for the National Strike
Puerto Rico is getting ready for the national strike on Thursday, October 15. Since governor Luis Fortuño layed off about 17,000 government employees the first week of October, there has been tremendous mobilization from different sectors of the civil society: workers and members of trade unions, women, environmentalists, students, and professors, among others. There have […]
The Young Honduran Revolution
“What I want to know more than anything is how they began to be activists.” — Johannes Wilm Johannes Wilm is a revolutionary socialist activist, anthropologist, computer geek, trade unionist. . . . In this 90-minute documentary, Johannes Wilm interviews young Honduran activists against the coup, especially activists of such organizations as the Revolutionary […]
Mexican Government Seizes Power Plants, Liquidates Company, Fires Workers, Union in Jeopardy
Mexican Federal Police last night and early this morning seized the plants of the Central Light and Power Company of Mexico (LyF) which provides electricity to Mexico City and several states in central Mexico. The government of President Felipe Calderón also announced the liquidation of the company, the termination of the workers, and thereby the […]
A New Role for the IMF?
Rescued from a state of near-irrelevance by the world recession and an infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars (mostly from the U.S., Europe, and Japan), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now thinking of expanding its role into previously uncharted territory. In Istanbul for the fall meetings of the IMF, Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn […]
Occupying Afghanistan Is Making Things Worse
President Obama is coming under attack from the Right for his reluctance to grant the request of General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, for more U.S. troops. On the other side of the equation sits the majority of the American people, who are against sending more troops and in fact oppose […]
Honduran Resistance to EU: Declare Current Electoral Process Illegitimate
Erasto Reyes, trade unionist and representative of the Honduras Resistance Front returned this Wednesday to the European Parliament as part of his European solidarity visit. Reyes requested concrete support from the Parliament. In a press conference he declared that: “Parliament must denounce and vigorously condemn the coup which took place in Honduras. We ask […]
The End of Mahmud Abbas
A United Nations report commission, created after the 2008-2009 Gaza War, has released a thundering report that has ripped through the Palestinian and Arab street, threatening to bring down Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and his entire cabinet. Mandated to lead the mission was Richard Goldstone, the respected South African president of the United Nations Human […]
Measuring Progress
For some time now it has been clear that standard measurements of growth and development are inadequate and possibly even misleading. The problem of looking at only the aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) has been widely noted: its blindness to distributional issues and its inability to measure either the quality of life or the sustainability […]
Defenders of “True American Values”: The Communist Party in North Carolina
Gregory S. Taylor. The History of the North Carolina Communist Party. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2009. 258 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-57003-802-0. The History of the North Carolina Party by Gregory S. Taylor offers a window into the efforts of the North Carolina Communist Party (NCCP) and further dispels stereotypes that early […]
Obama Spurns Real Health Reformers . . . Again
In a brash move, the White House is again demonstrating the exclusion of those who advocate for real health reform. At the end of August, in response to the heated Town Halls and the opposition to health reform, Physicians for a National Health Program and the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care sent letters […]
Adiós Mercedes Sosa, the Voice of the Voiceless under Dictatorship
Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa, one of the most celebrated voices of Latin America, died on Sunday, 4 October 2009, at the age of 74 after a long illness, according to the announcement by the hospital where she had been under intensive care since 18 September 2009. Nicknamed “La Negra,” she won the hearts and minds […]
Beyond Sun and Dung
Rajendra Pachauri heads TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, based in New Delhi. An engineer of the railways in his early career, Pachauri went to the United States to earn a PhD in industrial engineering and another in economics, after which he returned to India in 1981 to work with TERI. In 1995, he joined […]
Speech Delivered by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, H.E. Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla
I wish to congratulate you on your election and reiterate to you our confidence on your capacity to unerringly conduct our works and deliberations. Likewise I would like to recognize the excellent work developed by Father Miguel D’Escoto, President of the recently concluded session. The ethical dimension and the political scope of his presidency, […]
October 24 Mobilizing Conference to Save Public Education
We have the power to stop the catastrophic budget cuts, fee hikes, and layoffs — but to save public education in California requires coordinating our actions on a statewide level. We invite all UC, CSU, CC, and K-12 students, workers, teachers, and their organizations across the state to participate in and collectively build the […]
Has President Obama Heard about Mohammad Othman?
I cannot tell you how many times I have been asked whether there is an Arab counterpart to Jewish Voice for Peace. The implicit false assumptions behind the question are clear: Palestinians are violent; Jews seek peace but there is no one peaceful on the other side of the equation. Tell President Obama: Keep Your […]
Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men
Maria Charles and David B. Grusky. Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men. Stanford University Press, 2004, 400 pp. $US 55.00 hardcover (0-8047-3634-0). There is a substantial body of literature showing that, across time periods and nations, men and women have tended to do different types of work. While many studies suggest that […]
Statement of Solidarity with the Palestinian General Strike
In the long tradition of Jewish working class involvement in and support for liberation struggles, IJAN-Labor stands in solidarity with the High Follow-up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel, the National Committee of Local Authorities, and all parties, movements and institutions of Palestinian civil society in Israel, who have called a general strike for […]
Key Facts to Keep in Mind While Opposing War against Iran
Representatives of Iran and six of the world’s most powerful countries are scheduled to meet this week in Geneva, one of a series of events that increasingly looks like a rerun of the build-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. As we prepare for a barrage of anti-Iranian media spin, it would be good […]
