Geography Archives: Americas

In a discussion of trade imbalances the Washington Post told readers that: “it was that risk — of a collapse in the value of the dollar and of U.S. government securities — that kept many economists up at night.”  Actually, competent economists were not terribly worried about this nearly impossible scenario. China and other countries […]

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides relates how Pericles, in the fifth century BC, imposed economic sanctions against the city of Megara, which had allied itself with Sparta.  Athens prohibited trade with this city state and sent a message: if Megara did not break its alliance with Sparta, it would be punished.  Megara […]

If I could think of any tactfully discreet and diplomatically clear way to describe the outcome of the 15th Extraordinary Session of the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government on Somalia without compromising the essence of my message, I would simply choose that approach.  Therefore, going crude is the appropriate way: As a […]

In the last five years, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has gone from being a media darling to generating more bad press for itself than any other labor organization.  Some of SEIU’s negative publicity is a product of right-wing union bashing.  But a huge amount is self-inflicted — the result of conflicts with other […]

It’s time to stop blaming BP — alone.  At least four other oil companies hired the same firm to write their plans for handling spills in the Gulf of Mexico.  They ended up with nearly identical plans, complete with thoughtful concern about impacts on walruses.  The CEO of ExxonMobil called it “unfortunate” and “embarrassing” that […]

The Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to the United States, Yousef Al-Otaiba, is in the news for comments he made yesterday at the Aspen Ideas Festival — comments in which he apparently expressed some measure of support for a U.S. military attack on Iranian nuclear targets.  We have known Yousef since before his […]

  Professor: The good news, class, is that the secret to understanding our country’s foreign policy is that there is no secret.  You simply have to understand that America strives to dominate the world for both economic and ideological reasons.  Once you understand that, much of the confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding our policy fades […]

  Justin Pemberton, dir.  The Nuclear Comeback.  DVD. New York: Icarus Films, 2007.  53 minutes. Are we on the brink of a nuclear revival?  Should we be?  The Nuclear Comeback, an absorbing documentary video, is titled declaratively but sprinkles question marks.  The Nuclear Comeback embarks on a tour of some of the high and low […]

Something unusual happened on June 18: an important figure on the U.S. political scene spoke sensibly and realistically about immigration. The occasion was a speech at the City Club of Cleveland, and the speaker was AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka.  The news wasn’t that labor was backing a rational, equitable reform of U.S. immigration laws; the […]

A few days ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Iran had sent Syria a “sophisticated radar system that could threaten Israel’s ability to launch a surprise attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities.”  The story cited reporting from “two Israeli officials, two U.S. officials and a Western intelligence source,” and was “confirmed . . . by […]

  Paul Jay: So, in talking to people in Israel, one thing I hear constantly is the fight here is about national identity, it’s about the defense of the Jewish state.  I don’t hear very much about economics of Israel or the economics of occupation.  So how does national identity relate to the economics here? […]

  As the United States government does what it can to halt Iran’s nuclear program, it may be suspected that it is seeking to build up its own nuclear industry, denying Iran the capacity to develop its own technology while pressuring it to open itself up for US technological export and to become dependent on […]

In his June 17 “review” of our book The Politics of Genocide, for Pambazuka News,1 Gerald Caplan, a Canadian writer who Kigali’s New Times described as a “leading authority on Genocide and its prevention,”2 focuses almost exclusively on the section we devote to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.3  Caplan says virtually nothing about […]

  Israeli intellectual Michel Warschawski said yesterday, at the European Social Forum in Istanbul, that he is certain that US President Barack Obama’s priority is a war against Iran.  Warschawski was taking part in a seminar on how the international Palestine solidarity movement can challenge Israeli impunity. Warschawski, founder of the Alternative Information Center in […]

  Gervasio Umpiérrez is a cartoonist based in Montevideo, Uruguay.  This cartoon was published in his blog on 28 June 2010, shortly after the second round of the Colombian presidential elections on 20 June 2010. | Print  

  27 June 2010 The U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) endorses and supports the call for Boycott of Arizona on account of its manifestly racist laws, HB1070 and SB 2281. SB1070 calls for police officers to require documentation from people to establish resident status.  The law essentially requires police […]

  Production, Camera, Post Production: Janeth Berrettini.  Dance: La Serpiente – Abdiel Villaseñor, Laura Martínez, Yesenia Rivera.  Music: Hermann Bühler.  Mexico/ Switzerland, 2005/2006. | Print  

  Act I In the second half of the 1990s, at the onset of his first term as Brazil’s president, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, or FHC for short, faced a dilemma.  To honor his recent conversion to the Washington Consensus, he had to get rid of State companies to make money to pay the interests on […]

Earlier this month, after the United Nations Security Council authorized new multilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic by adopting Resolution 1929, the member states of the European Union (EU) approved guidelines for expanding European sanctions against Iran.  Any new sanctions that the EU might apply against Iran on the basis of the new guidelines must […]

Under the Gold Standard the values of different currencies were fixed in terms of gold, which meant that the exchange rates between those currencies were fixed.  Exchange rate movements therefore could not be used to enlarge net exports and hence domestic employment.  At the same time governments were committed to the principle of “sound finance”, […]