The Mexican Preventive Police (PFP) are preparing to occupy the facilities of the Central Light and Power Company in Mexico City in an attempt to break the militant Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), according to a union press release. The union warns that the quasi-military occupation of the plants could come within a week. The […]
Geography Archives: Americas
South America, Central America, United States & Canada
Dismantling the Prisonhouse of Nations: A Socialist Prison Reform Proposal (SPRP)
The USA: Prisonhouse of Nations The United States deserves the title, the Prisonhouse of Nations:1 The US imprisons more of its citizens than any nation in the world. As of midyear 2008, over 2.3 million US citizens were behind bars and the prison population continues to expand as a result of the growing inequality and […]
Iran: Manufactured Nuclear Crisis ahead of Geneva Talks
This political crisis has more to do with manufactured “diplomatics” ahead of Thursday’s meeting in Geneva than with the facts. The revelation by President Barack Obama that Iran is constructing a “secret” nuclear fuel facility, a few days after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) received a letter from the Iranians declaring that a new […]
Iran, Etc.
Hooman Majd Answers the Nuclear Question Question: How do you respond to concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Majd: Stop worrying. Don’t learn to love the bomb, but stop worrying. First of all, Iran is so far away from having a nuclear weapon. I know there are all these reports, these alarmist reports: Iran has enough […]
Senate Finance Committee Rejects Any Public Option
The momentous decision to reject any public option by the Senate Finance Committee today underscores how completely private insurance companies dominate Congressional activity. The author of the bill for the committee, Liz Fowler, is herself a former VP of WellPoint, the nation’s largest private health insurer. This highlights the importance of the single payer, […]
Obama Plays Medvedev against Putin and Iran
“Medvedev-watching” graduated from pure science to applied science during the four-day visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to New York and Pittsburgh last week. The Western perception that the famous Prime Minister Vladimir Putin-Medvedev “tandem” in Moscow would inevitably transform and the Russian president would incrementally create his own power center in the Kremlin received […]
More Budget Belt-Tightening Means More Job Losses for States
In the current recession, state and local governments are struggling. As economic activity slumps and tax revenue dwindles, governments have fewer resources at their disposal. At the same time, there is growing demand for government services during hard economic times. As more people lose their jobs, there is a greater demand for unemployment benefits. As […]
Iranian Public on Current Issues
RELATIONS WITH THE US 1. Diplomatic Ties Six in ten Iranians favor restoring diplomatic relations with the US. An equal number favor unconditional negotiations between the countries. Many favor cooperation on dealing with the Taliban. Thirty years after the United States and Iran broke diplomatic relations, Iranians overwhelmingly support repairing that longstanding breach. Both governments […]
Honduras Coup Regime Suspends Constitutional Rights, Closes Media, Threatens Brazil: Will Obama Administration Break Its Silence?
Washington, D.C. – The Honduran de facto regime suspended constitutional guarantees to civil liberties, including freedom of assembly and freedom of the press, for 45 days on the eve of mass protests planned to mark the three-month anniversary since the coup d’etat against President Manuel Zelaya took place. The regime has also shut down Radio […]
Venezuela: Economic Crisis Sparks New Measures and Structures
Faced with the growing impact of the global economic crisis, Washington’s intentions to establish seven military bases in Colombia, and growing challenges in solving structural problems, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reaffirmed the need to build a new state. Chavez explained: “We have inherited a capitalist state that serves the interests of the bourgeoisie and is […]
Center for Constitutional Rights Calls for Judicial Review of All Evidence When State Secrets Invoked
Rights Group Critical of New DOJ Policy Promises September 23, 2009, New York — In response to news the Attorney General is establishing new policy on the question of the use of the state secrets privilege, the Center for Constitutional Rights issues the following statement: While CCR welcomes greater accountability in the Executive’s invocation of […]
Can Iran Beat Gasoline Sanctions?
Can Iran beat gasoline sanctions? The answer seems to be yes. On the front page of the Financial Times on 23 September 2009 (Javier Blas and Carola Hoyos, “Chinese Begin Petrol Supplies to Iran”): Chinese state companies this month began supplying petrol to Iran and now provide up to one-third of its imports in a […]
Cut Loose: State and Local Layoffs of Public Employees in the Current Recession
In the current recession, millions of Americans have lost their jobs. Unemployment has increased nationwide to levels not witnessed since the 1980s. Much of the job loss has occurred in private industries, but the public sector has also felt the sting of layoffs. Decreasing tax revenues and expanding budget deficits have forced public officials […]
UC Walkout
On Thursday, September 24, an unprecedented coalition of UC faculty, undergraduates, grad students, postdocs, lecturers, and staff will engage in a system-wide walkout. As UC Davis graduate students and lecturers concerned with the quality of all UC students’ education, we write to clarify the reasons for this walkout as we understand them. This summer, […]
Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan
Asia Society’s exhibition Hanging Fire: Contemporary Art from Pakistan (10 September 2009 through 3 January 2010) brings to New York some of Pakistan’s most significant, provocative, and influential artists in the first US museum survey exhibition of contemporary Pakistani art. Hanging Fire is curated by Salima Hashmi, one of the most influential and well-respected […]
The Long Partition
Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar. The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, Histories. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. xiv + 288 pp. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-13846-8; (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-51101-8. Over the last couple decades, histories of the partition of India and its consequences have proliferated. But Vazira Zamindar’s study stands […]
Save Black History from Developers
Dear friends, This is a national appeal for your help in the effort to save one of this country’s most important Black History sites — an effort that has now reached a critical stage. Richmond’s Shockoe Bottom was once the site of the second largest slave market in the United States. In the three decades […]
How Much Repression Will Hillary Clinton Support in Honduras?
Now that President Zelaya has returned to Honduras, the coup government — after first denying that he was there — has unleashed a wave of repression to prevent people from gathering support for their elected president. This is how U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the first phase of this new repression last night […]
Zelaya Reported Back in Honduras: Washington Will Have to Choose Sides, Says CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot
September 21, 2009 Washington, D.C. — President Manuel Zelaya’s reported return to Honduras would be a significant move and could force an end to the political crisis that followed the June 28 coup d’etat, Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said today. “This could be the moment of truth for […]
Haitian Narration
Laurent Dubois. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. 384 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-01304-9; $20.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-674-01826-6. Laurent Dubois’s Avengers of the New World builds on a body of Caribbean scholarship that has been torn between trying to place Haiti’s independence from France […]
