Geography Archives: Americas

Thursday, January 21 7:30 pm Brecht Forum 451 West Street (between Bank & Bethune Streets)New York Citybrechtforum.org/directions While the earthquake in Haiti has revealed the faultlines of United States intervention in the country since its founding in 1804, the relief efforts led by grassroots activists and organizations has opened up new political space for a […]

Jesse Freeston: . . . [T]he Heritage Foundation think tank responded within hours of the earthquake, with the demand that the US should use the crisis to its advantage.  They quickly took the post down, but a new one appeared soon after laying out four demands for US intervention in Haiti. Send the military. Appoint […]

  In June of 2004, I went to Haiti with two other members of the Haiti Action Committee.  We were there to investigate the effects of the political earthquake in which the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had been overthrown by a coup orchestrated by the United States, France and Canada. What we […]

Labor productivity soared in the United States in 2009.  According to the Transport Times of December 3, 2009, productivity increased by 6.4% in the second quarter and leaped by 8.1% in the third quarter. Labor costs fell at a 2.5% rate in the third quarter of 2009, capping the biggest 12-month drop in seven years. […]

[The author was in Port-au-Prince with a delegation when the January 12 earthquake struck the city.  Because of limited electricity and internet connection, he was unable to send this report out until he got back to New York the morning of January 18.  For an earlier report, see “Singing and Praying at Night in Port-au-Prince.”] […]

The news reported from Haiti describes a great chaos that was to be expected, given the exceptional situation created in the aftermath of the catastrophe. At first, a feeling of surprise, astonishment, and commotion set in. A desire to offer immediate assistance came up in the farthest corners of the Earth. What assistance should be […]

  Open and Collective Proposal: To Build a Transnational Network Since its beginning, edu-factory has tried to be a place of political discussion and communication, a site of the free circulation of knowledge and networking at the global level.  In the “double crisis” (i.e., the global economic crisis and the crisis of the university in […]

  There appear to be some rising tensions between countries leading the relief efforts in Haiti.  We know the US is sending in upwards of 10,000 troops to the country.  But since 2004, Brazil’s military has been the commanding force leading the Haiti UN peacekeeping mission, technically referred to as MINUSTAH.  Brazil has about 1,700 […]

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega says that the United States has taken advantage of the massive quake in Haiti and deployed troops in the country. “What is happening in Haiti seriously concerns me as US troops have already taken control of the airport,” Ortega said on Saturday. The Pentagon says it has deployed more than 10,000 […]

  Yesterday, I watched news of rescue efforts in Port-au-Prince.  Elite rescue teams, such as the one from Fairfax County, VA, were focusing primarily on the Montana Hotel and the headquarters of the UN “peacekeeping” force, MINUSTAH.  Anyone who knows Haiti knows that the Montana Hotel is the most lavish lodging your can find in […]

The news reported from Haiti describes a great chaos that was to be expected, given the exceptional situation created in the aftermath of the catastrophe. At first, a feeling of surprise, astonishment, and commotion set in.  A desire to offer immediate assistance came up in the farthest corners of the Earth.  What assistance should be […]

Haiti is facing one of its most severe challenges after a large earthquake rocked the capital yesterday destroying most government buildings and killing possibly thousands.  Now more than ever the people of Haiti need hope for the future and, as Haiti’s ambassador to Washington Raymond Joseph said yesterday on CNN, “we need unity to meet […]

The signs of recession are more noticeable to those who live here — restaurants and coffee shops have lost most of their customers, and construction has practically ground to a halt.  Emigration has soared. Latvia has set a world-historical record by losing more than 24 percent of its economy in just two years.  The International […]

Two days ago, at almost six o’clock in the evening Cuban time and when, given its geographical location, night had already fallen in Haiti, television stations began to broadcast the news that a violent earthquake — measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale — had severely struck Port-au-Prince.  The seismic phenomenon originated from a tectonic fault […]

Any large city in the world would have suffered extensive damage from an earthquake on the scale of the one that ravaged Haiti’s capital city on Tuesday afternoon, but it’s no accident that so much of Port-au-Prince now looks like a war zone.  Much of the devastation wreaked by this latest and most calamitous disaster […]

See the Oil Wars blog for a similar perspective on the contradictions of populist political economy (especially the difficulty of making a sensible trade-off between consumption and investment) in Venezuela.  How do you respond to the kind of perspective represented by Djavad Salehi-Isfahani (regarding Iran) and Oil Wars (regarding Venezuela)?  Thoughts on this question will […]

Dear Pat Robertson, I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out.  And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action.  But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it […]

N.B. The statement in the article below simply attributed to FETRAELEC President Angel Navas is actually one first published by Marea Socialista. — Ed. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the suspension of programmed power outages in the capital city on Wednesday, and asked for the resignation of his minister for electricity, citing errors in the […]

  In yet another demonstration of the (in)effectiveness of the Obama Administration’s quixotic quest to get China on board for what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used to call “crippling sanctions,” the Chinese foreign ministry announced that Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei, who has been representing Beijing at meetings of the P5+1 political directors regarding […]

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have pledged that the US will do all it can to help Haiti following the devastating earthquake.  But while getting assistance into Haiti right now is extremely difficult, there are two things the Obama Administration could do immediately to help Haiti that are entirely within its control.  It […]