In August a UN OCHA Mission visited Syria to assess humanitarian needs in the country stemming from the ongoing crisis there. The Mission included staff from several UN institutions and humanitarian agencies (UNHCR, UNICEF, WHO, WFP, IOM, etc.). The Syrian authorities provided the Mission unimpeded access to all objects of interest. The UN officials […]
Geography Archives: Europe
Countries in the continent of Europe
Syria: What Kind of Revolution?
The Syrian uprising which erupted nearly six months ago seems to be settling into a dangerous deadlock with neither side — the regime or the opposition — willing to budge from its stated position. The daily toll of deaths and injuries climb ever higher with no resolution in sight. The regime seems insistent on […]
Syria: Testing Time
Syria remains relatively calm as efforts to destabilise its government through orchestrated attacks by rebels fail. Life in the Syrian capital, Damascus, seems to be continuing as normal. The streets and the mosques are crowded after the devout break their Ramazan fast in the evening. The security presence is minimal. In fact, there are […]
The Neocolonization of Libya: Interview with Aijaz Ahmad
Aijaz Ahmad: . . . Europeans, and Italians in particular, are celebrating the 100th anniversary of their first aerial bombing ever done in the world. The Italians bombed in Libya in 1911. Now, of course, with 100 years of development of the technology, there have been 20,000 aerial attacks on Libya. . . . They […]
NATO Divides the Libyan Cake
Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain. The cartoon above was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 5 September 2011. Cf. Vittorio de Filippis, “Pétrole : l’accord secret entre le CNT et la France” (Libération, 1 September 2011). | Print
George Monbiot and the Guardian on “Genocide Denial” and “Revisionism”
On Tuesday, June 14, the Guardian of London published “Left and Libertarian Right Cohabit in the Weird World of the Genocide Belittlers.”1 In this nearly 1,100-word commentary, the British writer George Monbiot attacked the two of us (among others) as “genocide deniers” and “revisionists” for our writings on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Monbiot also […]
Subjecting Spanish Constitution to Market Reform
Spanish Constitution, Approved by the Constituent Cortes on 31 October 1978, Reformed by Markets in 2011 Juan Ramón Mora is a cartoonist in Barcelona. This cartoon was first published in his blog on 30 August 2011 under a Creative Commons license. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). Cf. “Folletos para imprimir […]
Corruption and Party Politics in the Late Soviet Period
Luc Duhamel. The KGB Campaign against Corruption in Moscow, 1982-1987. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010. 312 pp. $26.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8229-6108-6. Luc Duhamel’s study of an extensive anticorruption campaign in Moscow in the mid-1980s is riveting. At multiple levels, this work provides new information and perspectives on a period of stalemate, factional competition, […]
NATO’s Rebel Forces
At its peak, the 26 of July Movement had some 300 fighters, ill fed and poorly armed, bitten by mosquitoes and accompanied by the rain. Against them, Gen. Fulgencio Batista mobilized an army, a navy, an air force, a coast guard, and the Rural Guard, aside from a network of spies and irregular bands […]
New York Times Points Out “Racist Overtones” in Libyan Rebel Disinformation It Helped Spread
Claims that the Libyan government was employing African mercenaries against the rebels were given credence in some left-wing media as well, even after information contradicting the claims began to surface: e.g., “. . . [I]t must be pointed out that the Qaddafi regime helped create the conflict [“violence against Black Africans by Libya’s rebel forces”] […]
Austerity Politics Descends on US States
Last week, Democratic Governors in New York and Connecticut repeated the austerity politics of Greece’s Prime Minister Papandreou and Portugal’s Socrates. In doing so, they likewise imitated the austerity politics of their Republican and Democratic counterparts across virtually all 50 states. Austerity for labor and the public is everywhere capitalism’s Plan B. After all, even […]
Tearing Down the Wall? Big Organizing Challenge Remains after Temporary Truce at Verizon
The 45,000 Verizon union members returning to work on Tuesday, after a two-week strike, would do well to remember the words of VZ’s Marc Reed when picket lines were taken down on Saturday. Said Reed: “We remain committed to our objectives.” Verizon’s executive vice-president for human resources wasn’t just referring to the company’s latest giveback […]
Alaeddin Boroujerdi and Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh on What Iran Wants from Russia
Russia Should Pressure U.S. to Lift Anti-Iran Sanctions: MP Russia should pressure the United States to lift the sanctions imposed on Iran, Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Friday. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far taken important steps in order to create transparency concerning its peaceful […]
The Key to Progress in Nuclear Diplomacy with Iran
We have long argued that there will not be a diplomatic resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue without explicit recognition — from the United States and other Western countries, first of all — of the Islamic Republic’s right to the full range of civil nuclear technologies and activities, including uranium enrichment. Two recent developments affirm […]
Regarding the Situation in Syria: “We Do Not Share the US and EU Point of View concerning President Bashar al-Assad”
Comment by Press and Information Department of Russian Foreign Ministry on a Question from Interfax News Agency Regarding the Situation in Syria Question: Please comment on the calls of US President Barack Obama and EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. Answer: Our position on the […]
The “Debt Crisis” Myth
The prevailing understanding of economic troubles in the U.S. and Europe, the world’s two largest economies, is mistaken in a number of ways. First: Imagine that you are driving a car down a road packed with snow and ice and you are worried about an accident. At the same time you are ignoring the fact […]
Looking Back for Insights into a New Paradigm
It is becoming widely acknowledged that the leading ideas of some of the most prestigious late-20th-century economists (such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers in the American government) are outmoded and that a new paradigm of economics is needed. Part I of this essay will focus on two issues which we think it has to […]
Social Origins of the Tent Protests in Israel
It started in mid-July, when Dafni Leef, a Tel Aviv filmmaker, was met with a hike in her rent that she couldn’t afford to pay. Instead of moving to a new apartment, she moved to a tent on Rothschild Boulevard, the city’s sleekest thoroughfare, and set up a Facebook event calling for her compatriots to […]
Order within the Chaos
A Soviet diplomat visiting the US once expressed incredulity toward the political content of mainstream newspapers there. In the USSR, he explained to his American interlocutors, it is necessary to threaten members of the press with torture in order to make them toe the correct political line. In the United States, however, you effect a […]
Memorandum on Libya Handed to British Consul-General in Cape Town by SACP and Allies
12th August 2011 The British Consul-General The British Consulate Riebeeck Street, CAPE TOWN Cc: All Media Houses Dear Sir, We, the leadership and members of the following organisations the SACP, ANC, COSATU, SANCO, ANCYL, YCL, ANCWL, MJC and PASOP and all democrats and peace loving peoples of the African continent, demand that you convey […]
