Geography Archives: Asia

The late, late snow has finally disappeared from Berlin’s streets.  Visible once again, here and there, are the “stumble stones” — Stolpersteine in German. Many Berlin tourists will enjoy the night life.  They may also look upwards — at the giant TV tower, the Brandenburg Gate, at ancient and less ancient churches.  There is a […]

A few days ago I mentioned the great challenges humanity is currently facing. Intelligent life emerged on our planet approximately 200,000 years ago, although new discoveries demonstrate something else. This is not to confuse intelligent life with the existence of life which, from its elemental forms in our solar system, emerged millions of years ago. […]

Part 1: Mexican Workers Win Ownership of Tire Plant With Three-Year Strike “If the owners don’t want it, let’s run it ourselves.”  When a factory closes, the idea of turning it into a worker-owned co-operative sometimes comes up — and usually dies. The hurdles to buying a plant, even a failing plant, are huge, and […]

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa‘s idea that we are not “living in an epoch of change” but rather “in a change of epoch” is very much to the point.  There is an obvious worldwide decline of existing imperialisms and historic changes in the correlation of social, class, and nation-state forces.  There have arisen popular movements of […]

  This article was featured in the March 2013 issue of Analytical Monthly Review, a sister edition of Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India. — Ed. Some young people gathered on the crossroads of Shahbagh in Dhaka on February 5, 2013, to protest against the judgment of the International Crimes Tribunal (ICT) which […]

Tunis, Tunisia Tens of thousands of people marched through downtown Tunis on Tuesday in a spirited march celebrating the beginning the 13th World Social Forum — the first to be held in an Arab country.  The majority of marchers were from Tunisia and neighboring nations, but there was substantial representation from Europe, as well as […]

When Hugo Chávez triumphed in the 1998 presidential elections, the neoliberal capitalist model was already foundering.  The choice then was none other than whether to re-establish the neoliberal capitalist model — clearly with some changes including greater concern for social issues, but still motivated by the same logic of profit seeking — or to go […]

Bradley Manning has pleaded guilty to 10 charges including possessing and willfully communicating to an unauthorized person — all the main elements of the WikiLeaks disclosure.  The charges carry a total of 20 years in prison.  For the first time, Bradley spoke publicly about what he did and why.  His actions, now confirmed by his […]

New York, N.Y., 2018 — Every year about this time, since way back in 2013, the City of New York has bestowed its prestigious Hashmi Award upon a worthy New York resident who lives openly as an observant Muslim.  The Hashmi recipient — preferably of Asian, Middle Eastern, or African descent — must have paid […]

The depth and length of the global crisis are now clear to millions.  In the sixth year since it started in late 2007, no end is in sight.  Unemployment rates are now less than halfway back from their recession peak to where they were in 2007.  Over 20 million are without work, millions more limited […]

“Under Fire in Iraqi Kurdistan,” Extract from The Fourth Estate in Iraqi Kurdistan, a film by Rozh Ahmad On February 16th, 2011, in solidarity with the mass uprisings sweeping the Middle East, Kurds took to the streets of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan and the following day demanded an end to their one and only official […]

  February 15, 2003 Sarah, New York: The wind that whips down the avenues is bitterly cold, but that doesn’t stop us from protesting the drive to war in Iraq.  People from all over the city and the Northeast — young and old, hardened activists and first-time protestors — have converged on Manhattan, where the […]

As was the case in 1930s Germany, Greek liberalism has revealed itself to be politically spent.  In dealing with the austerity measures imposed upon the country from outside by an international troika consisting of the IMF, European Commission, and European Central Bank, the government has failed comprehensively in the eyes of its electorate. When the […]

If there’s one thing mainstream “Iran experts” hate, it’s well-credentialed, experienced analysts who dare challenge Beltway orthodoxies, buck conventional wisdom, and demythologize the banal, bromidic, and Manichean foreign policy narrative of the United States government and its obedient media.  Such perspectives are shunned by “serious” scholars who play by the rules they and their former […]

  Dipankar Chakraborty, the founding editor of the independent left Bangla journal Aneek, passed away on Sunday night.  He was 71.  A cardiac patient, he had suffered a respiratory problem in the evening and died on the way to hospital.  He is survived by his wife, son, daughter, and grandchildren. Always active in people’s movements, […]

“An economic recovery has begun.”      — President Obama, Second Inaugural Address President Obama’s optimism — baseless as it may be — was surely appreciated at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.  For in what was described as the “most optimistic” meeting since 2007, 2,600 members of the global elite convened over the weekend […]

I. The Globe See the Globe.  More than half the 7 billion people on the Globe are women.  Women are different from men.  Why are women different from men?  Because, according to international humanitarian agencies, women have special percentages that stick out.  See women’s percentages: Women make up 70% of the world’s poor. Women do […]

The Kurds in Syria, the country’s largest ethnic minority, number an estimated three million.  Despite having stayed neutral amid the civil war, they now control most of Syria’s Kurdish north they claim they have “liberated” from the Ba’athist regime and self-govern independently of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).  Although many Kurds still fear “re-occupation” […]

Syrian refugees fleeing for Iraqi Kurdistan, at the Girbalat crossing, northeast of Syria.  In 2012 alone, over 50,000 Syrian refugees have fled the civil war for Iraqi Kurdistan, according to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials. An empty frame now, it long displayed a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad in central Derek, a Kurdish town bordering […]

  Rebekah Wetmore and Ryan Romard (RW/RR): The crisis of world capitalism starting in 2007 was the most severe crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression and thus far the recovery, both globally and within Canada, has been weak at best.  With this mind, to what extent is the current crisis cyclical and in what […]