In his column, the Washington Post‘s David Ignatius presents an important piece of reporting about the Obama Administration’s approach to Iran and the Palestinian issue. David opens his column by citing “two top administration officials” as telling him that President Obama is seriously considering putting forward an American plan for a two-state solution to the […]
Geography Archives: Asia
Countries in the continent of Asia
India: Maoists Keen on Mutual Ceasefire with Government
The Communist Party of India (Maoist) is not willing unilaterally to “abjure violence” as Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram wants them to but is prepared to accept a mutual ceasefire with the security forces across the country, Azad, spokesman for the banned group, has told The Hindu in an exclusive interview. This newspaper was invited […]
Is Iran Now a Nuclear Target for the United States?
Today — Tuesday, April 6, 2010 — the Obama Administration will proclaim, as a matter of declaratory policy, that the United States claims the prerogative to use nuclear weapons against the Islamic Republic of Iran, even as Iran remains a non-nuclear-weapons state. The Administration will make this declaration as part of its much anticipated Nuclear […]
Greater Equity through Redistribution: What Can the Targeting of Subsidies Do in Iran?
The Fifth Five-Year Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1389-93, 2010-14), still under review by the parliament, has a clear goal for reducing inequality in five years — a Gini index of 0.35 for income. This is a substantial reduction from the high level of inequality that has plagued Iran in recent years. The […]
The Marxism of Samir Amin
An interview with Egyptian economist Samir Amin: his latest book reiterates his search for alternatives to surpass capitalism, which he describes as “a historical parenthesis”; meanwhile, processes of migration are building a planet of slums. “Memoirs of an Independent Marxist”: that is the subtitle of A Life Looking Forward (Zed Books, 2006), the latest […]
On the Nature and Implications of the Expanding Presence of India and China for Developing Asia
Prabhat Patnaik: I think there is an important difference, it seems to me, between the situation in the case of the advanced capitalist countries, or even the case of Japan, on the one hand, and in the case of countries like India and possibly even China at the moment. In the case of the advanced […]
The Afghanistan Paradox: Evaluating Prospects for a New Antiwar Movement
The antiwar movement is all but dead and buried. Turnout at the March 20th, 7th year anniversary of the Iraq invasion in Washington D.C. was pitiful, estimated at approximately ten thousand. To make matters worse, approval of the war in Afghanistan has not fallen, but slightly increased in the last few months as U.S. marines […]
Israel: The Global Pacification Industry
Jeff Halper: We’re one of the leading — I would say, modestly — peace and human rights organizations in Israel. We started about thirteen years ago. I’ve been involved for forty years in the Israeli peace movement. During the Oslo peace process, during the 90s, the Israeli peace movement also, like other Israelis, invested […]
Ask Ms. Liberty: Advice for the Lovelorn and the War-Torn
In today’s column, our Statue of Liberty once again gasses up her torch to answer two timely letters: Dear Green Lady, I am a gay soldier, trying to have safe sex at an air force base in Nevada. It is really rough here with that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy and all. Also I got […]
On China
Andrew Fischer: The Chinese oversaving, I think, is a false argument. If you say it’s because of Chinese oversaving, what you’re basically implying is that Chinese households save a lot of money because their consumption is being repressed because of industrial policies in China that take money away from households and direct it toward […]
Neo-Liberalism, Secularism, and the Future of the Left in India — A Day-long Conference
Neo-Liberalism, Secularism, and the Future of the Left in India A Day-long Conference Thursday, April 1, 2010, 10 am — 7:30 pm Heyman Center for the Humanities, Second Floor Common Room Keynote speaker: Sitaram Yechury Additional Speakers: Prabhat Patnaik Jayati Ghosh C.P. Chandrasekhar Javeed Alam Discussants: Sanjay Reddy Arjun Jayadev Anwar Shaikh Anush Kapadia […]
Iran-US Standoff
“What is it that they have against Iran? If you look at it, it’s only that Iran is rising as a competitor of Israel. There is no other basis for this animosity.” — Aijaz Ahmad Aijaz Ahmad: The US is running out of all options. You mentioned this possible agreement. Iran has actually agreed […]
One Massacre Too Many
“. . . a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.” — The Goldstone Report “I can promise you that throughout the war, […]
Israel and Aid
On July 10, 1996, at a Joint Session of the United States Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a standing ovation for these words: “With America’s help, Israel has grown to be a powerful, modern state. . . . But I believe there can be no greater tribute to America’s long-standing economic aid to […]
Walking with the Comrades
The terse, typewritten note slipped under my door in a sealed envelope confirmed my appointment with India’s Gravest Internal Security Threat. I’d been waiting for months to hear from them. I had to be at the Ma Danteshwari mandir in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, at any of four given times on two given days. That was to […]
Militarizing Latin America
The United States was founded as an “infant empire,” in George Washington’s words. The conquest of the national territory was a grand imperial venture, much like the vast expansion of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. From the earliest days, control over the Western Hemisphere was a critical goal. Ambitions expanded during World War II, as […]
American Police Training and Political Violence: From the Philippines Conquest to the Killing Fields of Afghanistan and Iraq
“In the police you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos.” –George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant and Other Essays “. . . the […]
U.S. Campaign to De-legitimize Venezuela’s Elections Has Begun
Venezuela has an election for its National Assembly in September, and the campaign has begun in earnest. I am referring to the international campaign. This is carried out largely through the international media; although some will spill over into the Venezuelan media. It involves many public officials, especially in the U.S. The goal will be […]
Are the Iranian Poor a Bunch of Welfare Queens?
The picture we usually get of the Iranian poor in the media is one of two extremes: the wretched of the earth, or the equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queens.” (If you remember, Reagan attacked the meager US welfare system by inventing a group of people who did not even exist: pink-Cadillac-driving, children-producing, unwilling-to-work black […]
What Are the Real Threats to Democracy in the Americas? A Honduran Constitutional Convention and the New Cold War of the U.S.A.
On March 10, the U.S. House Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere held a hearing to chart the course of their agenda in the Western Hemisphere over the coming year. On March 12-15, the National Popular Resistance Front in Honduras (FNRP) held a national meeting to pave the way for a Honduran Constitutional Convention, even in […]
