Geography Archives: Europe

U.S. and Iranian representatives meet this week at a time when trust between the two countries is at a low ebb following the revelation last week of a previously undisclosed Iranian nuclear facility under construction and the test firing of Iran’s long-range missiles on September 28.  Meanwhile, the Obama administration’s policy of engagement with Iran […]

  In their article “Gay Imperialism: Gender and Sexuality Discourse in the ‘War on Terror’” (2008), Jin Haritaworn, Tamsila Tauqir and Esra Erdem critique white gay discourses in Germany and Britain that trade in Islamophobic constructions of a gay-friendly, sexually liberated ‘West’ and a homophobic, sexually oppressive ‘Islam’ as the West’s Other.  They argue that […]

Analytical Monthly Review On Monday, October 12th, it was reported that Manmohan Singh — despite the request of air chief marshal P. V. Naik to permit IAF personnel in helicopters to attack inhabitants of the hilly regions — had announced that the armed forces would not be deployed against the domestic left-wing opponents of the […]

Today, close to my Berlin home, I saw a frightening march of Nazis, calling themselves the Nationale Sozialistische Partei Deutschlands — leaving out only the word Arbeiter (Worker) from the name Hitler used.  Several thousands of them, almost all in black, many skinheads but also many all too normal-looking youngsters (and a smattering of very […]

Six million Jews Annihilated in the manner most cruel, An imperialist genocide by the fascist armies. You must understand history. The victims have become executioners, Switching roles, Colonizing Palestinian territories, against all common sense. Dead, dead! In whose name? Dead, dead! In the name of Israel. Dead, dead! In whose name? Dead, dead! In the […]

Rescued from a state of near-irrelevance by the world recession and an infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars (mostly from the U.S., Europe, and Japan), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is now thinking of expanding its role into previously uncharted territory.  In Istanbul for the fall meetings of the IMF, Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn […]

President Obama is coming under attack from the Right for his reluctance to grant the request of General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, for more U.S. troops.  On the other side of the equation sits the majority of the American people, who are against sending more troops and in fact oppose […]

  Erasto Reyes, trade unionist and representative of the Honduras Resistance Front returned this Wednesday to the European Parliament as part of his European solidarity visit.  Reyes requested concrete support from the Parliament. In a press conference he declared that: “Parliament must denounce and vigorously condemn the coup which took place in Honduras.  We ask […]

We are a diverse group of Palestinians, solidarity activists, and supporters of human rights and international law.  We write to join the Palestinian political parties, civil society groups, trade unions, and citizens that have condemned the recent decision at the UN Human Rights Council to withdraw Palestinian support for a resolution endorsing the report of […]

October 7th marked the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic, and the media let no one forget it!  Sarcasm prevailed, the attacks were all-embracing and almost interrupted, the only GDR relics spared in the attacks were the TV Sandman broadcasts for children, the jolly green and red figures on traffic lights […]

  The news coming out of Geneva these days is indeed very shocking and depressing.  The Abbas government, whose term in office expired long ago, has succumbed to pressure being exerted by Hillary Clinton and Avigdor Lieberman to defer any and all discussion of the Goldstone report on the war crimes in Gaza until next […]

  I don’t want to serve. . . .  I think that in fighting in the cinema, through our movies, for a freer, more authentic expression, with weapons that can include joie de vivre and comedy, we are waging the same war as those who fight on the barricades. — Dušan Makavejev (1971) Infamous Yugoslavian […]

Maria Charles and David B. Grusky.  Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men.  Stanford University Press, 2004, 400 pp.  $US 55.00 hardcover (0-8047-3634-0). There is a substantial body of literature showing that, across time periods and nations, men and women have tended to do different types of work.  While many studies suggest that […]

The Geneva meeting — despite the furious anti-Iranian spin by the Western media and the House vote for gasoline sanctions against Iran right before the talk — turned out to be, for once, a happy surprise: it resulted in an agreement that all sides can hail as a victory for them. Iran claims that it […]

Representatives of Iran and six of the world’s most powerful countries are scheduled to meet this week in Geneva, one of a series of events that increasingly looks like a rerun of the build-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. As we prepare for a barrage of anti-Iranian media spin, it would be good […]

Hooman Majd Answers the Nuclear Question Question: How do you respond to concerns over Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Majd: Stop worrying.  Don’t learn to love the bomb, but stop worrying.  First of all, Iran is so far away from having a nuclear weapon.  I know there are all these reports, these alarmist reports: Iran has enough […]

Much of the media complained that the German election campaign was dull; after all, the two main opponents had worked together in a coalition for four years and generally agreed or compromised on most issues.  Dull or not, however, it had three important results. Angela Merkel of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will remain in […]

“Medvedev-watching” graduated from pure science to applied science during the four-day visit by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to New York and Pittsburgh last week. The Western perception that the famous Prime Minister Vladimir Putin-Medvedev “tandem” in Moscow would inevitably transform and the Russian president would incrementally create his own power center in the Kremlin received […]

  In my video work, entitled Give ‘Em Hell (2008), I abruptly reveal today’s situation regarding migration in the UK.  During the course of several days in the summer of 2008, I positioned protest banners on the streets of London and secretly recorded the unfolding scene with a hidden camera from the opposite side of […]

  Laurent Dubois.  Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005.  384 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-674-01304-9; $20.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-674-01826-6. Laurent Dubois’s Avengers of the New World builds on a body of Caribbean scholarship that has been torn between trying to place Haiti’s independence from France […]