Geography Archives: Americas

The merger would create an international union of one million metal workers and miners. The United Steelworkers (USW), which represents 850,000 workers in Canada, the Caribbean, and the United States, and the National Union of Miners and Metal Workers (SNTMMSRM), known as the Mineros, which represents 180,000 workers in Mexico, have announced plans to explore […]

In the film Guantanamera, the last by renowned Cuban director Tomás Gutierrez Alea, the Yoruba creation myth is presented as a metaphor for the difficulties of bringing about change.  In this myth, humans were at first immortal, but the result was that the old suffocated the young, and so death had to be created. Here […]

Maziar Behrooz.  Rebels with a Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran.  I.B. Tauris, 2000. The role of the left in the Iranian Revolution is complicated, what Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Žižek would call the ‘vanishing mediator’ of the event.  The fact that at their peak Iranian Marxists commanded the loyalty of millions, and […]

  This month, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a resolution to tighten sanctions on Iran, imposing a ban on arms sales and expanding a freeze on assets of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in response to the country’s uranium-enrichment activities, which Tehran says are for peaceful purposes but other countries contend are driven […]

The text below is an excerpt from “Imperialism and the Gulf War,” which was first published as the “Review of the Month” of the April 1991 issue of Monthly Review (42.11).  While the exact character of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party state is certainly debatable (“lack of government corruption”? — only relatively so in comparison to […]

The province of Alberta is well known as a climate-destroying behemoth.  The tar sands developments in the north of that province are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. Less well known are the ambitions of its neighbouring province, British Columbia.  It shares similar fossil fuel reserves and ambitions as Alberta. […]

H.R.2194 (the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2009) passed the Senate by a vote of 99-1 and the House by a vote of 408-8 (1 “present” and 16 “not voting”) yesterday. — Ed. The U.S. Congress, in its infinite wisdom, passed a new piece of legislation authorizing the President to impose so-called […]

Russia’s Iran Policy Since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic has worked hard to cultivate a strategic partnership with post-Soviet Russia.  Of course, for many Iranians, there is heavy historical “baggage” attached to relations with Russia/the Soviet Union.  But, from an Iranian perspective, Russia is […]

WHEN these lines are published tomorrow, Friday, in Granma newspaper, the 26th of July, a date on which we always recall with pride the honor of having resisted the onslaughts of the empire, will still be in the distance, despite it being only 32 days away. Those who determine every step of the worst enemy of […]

In terms of the total system, these [the dominant classes in the most advanced capitalist countries] are the classes which have the power of initiative: they are, so to speak, the independent variables.  The behavior of other classes — including the subordinate classes in the dominant countries as well as both the dominant and the […]

Stephen Sackur provides a misleading and one-sided picture of Venezuela after a brief visit there, during which he interviewed President Hugo Chávez (“A Chat with Chávez — Oliver Stone’s New Lead Tells All,” 14 June).  I am the co-writer of Oliver Stone’s forthcoming documentary on Chávez, South of the Border, and was present throughout the […]

  Paul Jay: So, what happened in the Colombian elections on Sunday? . . . Before the runoff election, the last time you and I talked, which is I guess just over a month ago, the other candidate, Mockus, looked like [trending up] — in fact, I think the headline of our story was “Upset […]

  Despite what the experts of barefoot diplomacy1 never stop repeating, there is nothing even remotely anti-American in the Brazilian position on Iran: our motives, unlike those of the bullying trio (USA, France, United Kingdom), are clear, transparent and openly stated several times. We support the peaceful development of nuclear energy.  We do not believe […]

When Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela met at the beginning of the month, it appeared that relations between the US and Bolivia were on the verge of being normalized following an 18-month diplomatic chill.  Choquehuanca announced to the press that “the two sides are 99% done with […]

The global financial crisis that began in 2007 was clearly about money, credit, and finance.  For mainstream economists and politicians — from neoliberals like John B. Taylor at Stanford and Tony Abbott, through pragmatists like Barack Obama and Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, to Keynesians and social democrats like Paul Krugman at Princeton and John […]

  Marzieh Hashemi: American geologists say Afghanistan is filled with minerals, from iron ore, lithium, to gold and much more.  The values of the minerals are said to be estimated at around a trillion dollars. . . .  Would a mineral-rich Afghanistan affect the way that the United States is running its war machine there? […]

  Listen to Amy Goodman’s interview with Oliver Stone and Tariq Ali: Oliver Stone: So, Chávez was sort of a natural [as a subject for his work] because he is such a demonized, polarizing figure, but when I met him, it was not at all what I thought, you know, what we made him out […]

A cartoon mocking “Green Wave” leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi, drawn by an Iranian cartoonist in exile Nikahang Kowsar, has reportedly been withdrawn from Rooz Online: Mir-Hossein Mousavi penning his Statement No. 300 in Khordad 1399/June 2020 Golnaz Esfandiari of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty writes that “Kowsar . . . a contributor to Rooz, confirmed the removal […]

  In Oakland, California, an Israeli ship was blocked by protesters for the first time in history.  700-1,000 protesters blocked three different gates at 5:30 A.M. keeping dockworkers from unloading the Israeli cargo.  ILWU members refused to cross picketline — citing “health & safety” provisions of their contract.  Management demanded “instant arbitration.”  The arbitrator took […]

  In Cauca, Colombia is still at war.  You find trenches in every corner, tanks, Blackhawk helicopters and lots of soldiers.  Fighting takes place here almost every day and people have gotten used to it.  More than that, they are certain that on election day there will be attacks. But in spite of all that […]