Geography Archives: Asia

In a historic vote on 15 August 2008 in Kathmandu,  Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka Prachanda), chairman of the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M), was elected first Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, where now a “Maoist leads from the top of the world.”  Prachanda garnered 80% of the votes cast in the […]

Modern economic class struggle, the unremitting, sometimes hidden, sometimes open, fight between capitalists and workers that erupted in the 19th century and dominated the 20th, is taking on new forms and dimensions in the 21st century. The stakes of this continuing conflict are higher than they have ever been.  Every aspect of human life on […]

  The Japanese Communist Party is suddenly attracting many new members.  According to the party’s press release, the membership peaked at 500,000 in 1990 when it began its decline, and it has been hovering around 400,000 over the last ten years, but 9,000 have joined the party since the JCP central committee’s fifth general meeting […]

On August 15, Dave Pugh returned to the U.S. after spending three and a half weeks gathering information about the anti-displacement movement in India.  Pugh is a member of the Initiative Committee of the International Campaign Against Forced Displacement that was launched on June 19, 2008 at the Third International Assembly of the International League […]

Today’s critical labor struggles revolve around immigrants’ rights, while today’s struggles over immigrants’ rights are grounded in workplace and labor organizing.  Global, national, and local histories have woven these issues tightly together.  In the U.S. we are seeing the beginnings of a multifaceted movement which engages these dynamically linked histories. Twenty-five years ago, U.S. labor […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its August 2008 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. For those who recognise that there is an ecological crisis, a revolutionary Marxist perspective best sets out a practical view of our endangered surroundings.  This entire issue of […]

The world has been witness this month to a mini-war in the Caucasus, and the rhetoric has been passionate, if largely irrelevant.  Geopolitics is a gigantic series of two-player chess games, in which the players seek positional advantage.  In these games, it is crucial to know the current rules that govern the moves. Knights are […]

August 16, 2008 Yesterday I returned to the U.S. after spending three and a half weeks gathering information about the anti-displacement movement in India.  I traveled across five states in central and eastern India to the sites of projected industrial and mining projects and real estate developments.  I spoke with hundreds of villagers who are […]

  Part 1: “Winners and Losers in the New China” PAUL JAY: So my question is: that [1989-1990] was a very politically charged time.  The authorities felt  besieged.  Now people say things have relaxed, things have changed, to some extent.  How much have they changed?  In today’s China, could you still be arrested for making […]

Summary Paul Collier, in an attempt to bring development economics to a wider audience, has written a book that departs from what he calls the “grim apparatus of professional scholarship.”  The result is a book that is almost entirely unverifiable.  What is verifiable turns out to be an elaborate fiction.  Collier’s thesis is based upon […]

Russia’s response to the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia has been the central theme of the media for a week, and it’s scarcely noticed that the human tragedy in northwest Pakistan will probably be of no less great political significance.  On Friday, the ninth day of a punitive military expedition against Bajaur Agency in the […]

炎の記憶 原爆の残り火をキューバへ 炎の記憶 − 原爆の残り火をキューバへ (Memory of Fire: Bringing Embers of Hiroshima to Cuba) was produced by 広島ホームテレビ(Hiroshima Home TV) and first broadcast in 2007.  The documentary tells the story of Ernesto Che Guevara’s thoughts on Hiroshima and their relation to the Cuban Revolution’s commitment to humanism, for example, its humanitarian aid and protection of […]

The Israeli Coalition for a Middle East Free of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons demonstrated in a vigil to mark Hiroshima Day in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv on 6 August. Their statement called for An international initiative to create a Middle East free of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, in a […]

The origins of the conflagration in June in Kashmir on forest land allocation for construction of facilities for the Amarnath yatra lie in open state promotion of the pilgrimage.  The yatra has caused considerable damage to the economy and ecology of the area.  The high-handed actions of the Shri Amarnath Shrine Board only aggravated the […]

Cedric Johnson.  Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics.   University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Cedric Johnson‘s Revolutionaries to Race Leaders traces the ideological cooptation of one of the twentieth century’s most vibrant social movements.  The Black Nationalist resurgence of the 1960s and 1970s demanded nothing short of self-determination, […]

  Thank you for the opportunity to speak.  I want to thank also our friends in Hokkaido for the excellent preparation for this symposium. When we heard the news of the G8 Summit taking place in Toyako, we thought that we should urge the government of Japan, as the only country that has been bombed […]

For the last several months Turkey has been immersed in a major political crisis as various sections of the Turkish ruling classes openly feud.  It has pitted the ruling, Islamic-influenced AKP government against sections of the Turkish military, political, and judicial elites.  It is also dispute over the direction of Turkish economic restructuring as well […]

As much as we enjoy puns in titles, Stephen Zunes’ recent defense of Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution (AEI) in the article “Sharp Attack Unwarranted,” doesn’t have much else going for it.  Zunes spends most of his time diverting attention from the real issues: the AEI’s role in imperial projects, a role which is politically […]

I am a Palestinian journalist from Gaza.  At the age of 17, I armed myself with a camera and a pen, committed to report accurately on events in Gaza.  I have filed reports as Israeli fighter jets bombed Gaza City.  I have interviewed mothers as they watched their children die in hospitals unequipped to serve […]

Let me start my talk with a little story.  In 1958, Japan tried to export this first passenger car to the US market.  The company was Toyota, the car was called Toyopet.  And, as you can guess from the name, it was a very cheap, small subcompact car, more of a four-wheels-and-an-ashtray kind of thing, […]