Geography Archives: Europe

Thursday, 19 March 2009 The new day of united action is incontestably a great success.  On the 19th of March, there were more strikes, more demonstrations, and many more demonstrators than there were on the 29th of January, which was an exceptional mobilization itself. 3 Million Demonstrators at 219 Demos1 For employment, purchasing power, and […]

The essence of Keynes’s contribution was the demolition of Say’s law of markets. Say’s Law argued that supply created its own demand, so that there could never be an actual glut of production. Marx had rejected Say’s Law from the beginning, calling it “the childish babbling of a Say, but unworthy of Ricardo.” But neoclassical economics was built on it.

Obituaries for the Islamic Republic of Iran appeared even before it was born.  In the hectic months of 1979 — before the Islamic Republic had been officially declared — many Iranians as well as foreigners, academics as well as journalists, participants as well as observers, conservatives as well as revolutionaries, confidently predicted its imminent demise.  […]

Murali Balaji, The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics and Friendship of W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, New York:  Nation Books, 2007. W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson have been poorly served by their biographers.  David Levering Lewis and Martin Duberman found these two US communist revolutionaries about as congenial […]

  Although many people believe inequality is socially divisive and adds to the problems associated with relative deprivation, what inequality does or does not do to us has remained largely a matter of personal opinion.  But now that we have comparable measures of the scale of income inequality in different societies we can actually see […]

“Religious despotism is most intransigent because a religious despot views his rule as not only his right but his duty.” — Abdolkarim Soroush The French philosopher Michel Foucault, at the request of one of Italy’s biggest dailies Corriere della Sera, went to Iran to cover the growing unrest and protests against the increasingly despotic regime […]

Peter Wien.   Iraqi Arab Nationalism: Authoritarian, Totalitarian, and Pro-Fascist Inclinations, 1932-1941.   SOAS/Routledge Studies on the Middle East Series.  London: Routledge, 2006.  x + 162 pp.  $150.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-415-36858-2; $39.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-415-46182-5. Sometimes — when read against the backdrop of a particular time and place — a book resonates beyond the immediate […]

“Also being debated [at the AFL-CIO executive council meeting] is whether to create a mechanism to nudge past-their-prime union presidents to retire so unions are not stuck with tired, uninspired leaders.  One negotiator [of AFL-CIO/ Change-to-Win/NEA unity] talked of creating an advisory ‘Labor House of Lords’ to encourage older union presidents to step aside.” — […]

In this Briefing, we look at how the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and […]

  André Meier, dir.  Do Communists Have Better Sex? (Sex im geteilten Deutschland).  First Run/Icarus Films, 2006. 52 mins., color, subtitles in English. This film, a mixture of scholarly research and light-hearted presentations of stereotypes about the role of sex in divided Germany (from the end of the Second World War to the fall of […]

The World Bank’s Board of Governors has approved the first of a series of reforms aimed at amplifying the voice and influence of developing countries inside the World Bank Group.  The centrepiece of these much-awaited reforms, announced in mid-February, is an additional seat for Sub-Saharan Africa on the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors, a change […]

  James Renton.  The Zionist Masquerade: The Birth of the Anglo-Zionist Alliance 1914-1918.  New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.  xi + 231 pp. ISBN 978-0-230-54718-6; $69.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-230-54718-6. The word “masquerade” is not one to be used lightly by historians.  Obviously, James Renton is aware of this, and he strives to justify his choice of […]

This campaign film by Amnesty International and Mundi Romani drawing attention to the importance of women and the complexity of the Roma identity was released on 6 March 2009, in time for International Women’s Day.  The campaign seeks to combat the escalating violence against the Roma people in Europe, including Hungary, which is threatening the […]

This Sunday, the Eighth of March, Assemble at Plaza O’Leary at 9 AM in Silence, to March toward Plaza Los Museos, the Location of the Cultural Festival We Are Marching to Open New Paths.  Big Marches Work Their Magic Because We Make the Path by Marching, Which Is the Legacy of the Collective Memory of […]

Interview with Eric Toussaint, President of the Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM), in Havana. Obama Picked People Who Brought You This Crisis as His Advisers What is your opinion of Team Obama? Toussaint: Obama picked the very people who are responsible for this economic fiasco.  Some hoped that Obama would appoint […]

  Jean-Hugues Ratenon is President of the “Agir Pou Nou Tout” [Act for All of Us] Association, which is part of the Collective of Trade Unions, Political Organizations, and Community Associations of Réunion (COSPAR), the organizer of the social movement. The prefect of Réunion announced, on Thursday, 5 March, a decrease in the price of […]

  We call on the EU to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement until Israel respects human rights and International Law. The EU is Israel’s biggest importer of goods, and its second biggest exporter.  In 2006 the total traded between the EU and Israel amounted to 23.5 BILLION Euros. The EU-Israel Association Agreement forms the legal […]

  HRIS: Are you satisfied with the results last night? Elie Domota: Overall, yes.  This applies only to the employees of the member companies of the employers’ organizations.  We will set up a procedure to extend the agreement to all employees in Guadeloupe in the coming days. Julien: The agreement shows that your demand for […]

  Sitting in the shadow of an elegant carbet, feeling the trade wind, Roger de Jaham, age 60, lets his Creole accent lilt, talking about the blow that he recently suffered: “For the first time in my life, a man whom I greeted told me: ‘I don’t shake the hand of a béké.”  The man […]

She’s called Emmely; her real name is Barbara E. — with the family name omiited in line with legal practice here.  All over Germany people are talking about her, most frequently with anger in their voices.  For Emmely, a cashier in East Berlin, was fired by her discount store employer for allegedly filching 1.30 euro […]