Geography Archives: Europe

Imagine a world ravaged by a plague, and suppose that the year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine is awarded to researchers whose whole career is based on the assumption that plagues are impossible.  The world would have been outraged.  That is precisely how we should feel about yesterday’s announcement of the recipients of the 2010 Nobel […]

What does the USA have in common with China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea?  You would hardly guess, but the European Parliament stated loud and all too clear on October 2nd: those are the countries which put lots of people to death.  In a long, detailed resolution, approved almost unanimously by 574 members […]

  Michael Lebowitz.  The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development.  New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010. It is probably fair to say that revolutionary socialism does not come naturally to everyone.  Some of the young and curious pick up a grimy, twenty-page manifesto in a second-hand bookstore and never look back, but for myself it was […]

US workers suffered a major rise in unemployment from its level in 2008 (5.8 %) to its level in the second quarter of 2010 (9.7 %).  By comparison, French unemployment rose from 7.4 % in 2008 to 9.2 % in the second quarter of 2010.  These data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) show […]

  Kolontàr, Hungary: An aerial photograph taken in June showing a damaged and clearly leaking sludge pond wall shows that the toxic mud disaster in Hungary and subsequent pollution of rivers including the Danube could have been avoided, WWF-Hungary said today. The sludge pond dam wall burst Monday flooding six villages with toxic red mud. […]

The European tour of Wen Jiabao is taking place while the conflict between the US and China over the yuan/dollar exchange rate is getting worse.  At the same time, a similar if less noisy clash exists between China and the Eurozone countries.  Last but not least, tensions have also arisen in the Sino-Japanese relations following […]

  The 2010 Edward Said Memorial Lecture, the Palestine Center, Washington, DC, 7 October 2010 Thank you all for coming today, and, to those of you who are watching, thank you for viewing this talk.  Those of you who live in Washington, who are subjected to the American media, will probably be relieved to hear […]

The opening section of this note dealing with the most important issue in the current political situation—’the Maoist’ or the Naxal issue—sets the context for the argument that follows, which deals with issues involved in understanding and acting in this situation. I reproduce some key passages, marginally modified and compressed in one case, from my 2008 T. Nagi Reddy Memorial Lecture—now available as Indian Politics Today published by Aakar Books, New Delhi—touching upon these issues; a little reason and ability to interconnect is all that is needed to recognise the issue involved. I conclude with a brief summing up of the argument.

  Summary: In 1989, services comprised no more than 10 per cent of Cuba’s export revenues, with sugar accounting for over 70 per cent.  In 2007, by contrast, it was sugar that made up 10 per cent of overseas earnings while services accounted for 70 per cent.  The article provides an overview of this drastic […]

In recent years, climate change seems to have elbowed out other environmental issues to become the No. 1 global problem.  But the alarming problems of water — increasing scarcity, lack of access to drinking water and sanitation, pollution, flooding — are equally important and an even more immediate threat. On 28 July, the UN General […]

Equally at home in Tehran or New York, Hooman Majd benefits from a background as intricately woven as any Persian carpet.  The son of a diplomat under the shah of Iran, Majd attended schools in California, India, Iran, North Africa, and England.  After the tumultuous 1979 Islamic Revolution, return to Iran for Majd and others […]

  Paul Jay: Now, some of the critique is coming from the left; it’s not all coming from the right or from the elite.  And I guess one of the critiques is: why isn’t there more of a rainy day fund?  You know, when oil was riding high, why wasn’t there more reserves established for […]

Once again the time has come in Germany for bells to ring, fireworks to explode, politicians to declaim, and media to drench us with joyful, endless reminders of events of twenty years ago and the evils they overcame.  Last November it was the Fall of the Wall.  Now it’s German Unity which is so loudly […]

An alarming trend is sweeping Europe.  Far-right parties, using anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric, have made electoral gains in several European countries.  In the June European parliament elections, these parties were able to garner votes in a way they haven’t before.  The British National Party (BNP), which has its roots in fascist parties of the past, […]

  Part 1 Aijaz Ahmad: Israel, which is completely isolated in the region, is very unhappy about the fact that Turkey is rising as a power which is establishing very productive and extensive contacts in the region.  Israel was very happy when both of them were completely isolated in the region: Turkey was in the […]

  As’ad AbuKhalil, or Angry Arab as he is more commonly known after his blog The Angry Arab News Service, is in real life a most friendly and forthcoming man.  A Lebanese-born author of four books on the Middle East, he is professor of political science at California State University and is visiting professor at […]

Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  This cartoon was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 27 September 2010.  29 September 2010 is a European Day of Action — “No to Austerity!  Priority for Jobs and Growth!” — called by […]

  At crisis point in peace talks, Jews, Israelis call to lift the siege on Gaza, end the occupation. 26th September 2010 Passengers on the Jewish Boat to Gaza gather for a group photograph before their departure.  Photo by Vish Vishvanath/Metro. Passenger Reuven Moskovitz.  Photo by Vish Vishvanath. A boat carrying aid for Gaza’s population […]

Paper prepared for the American Sociological Association Meetings in Atlanta, August 16th, 2010. There are many explanations for the crisis of capital that began in 2007.  But the one thing missing is an understanding of “systemic risks.”  I was alerted to this when Her Majesty the Queen visited the London School of Economics and asked […]

Nationalization and Workers’ Control: Achievements and Limitations The economic, social and political situation in Venezuela has changed a lot since the failure of the constitutional reform in December 2007, which acted as a warning to the Chávez government.1  This failure had the effect however of reviving the debate on the need to have a socialist […]