With Venezuela’s economy having contracted last year (as did the vast majority of economies in the Western Hemisphere), the economy suffering from electricity shortages, and the value of domestic currency having recently fallen sharply in the parallel market, stories of Venezuela’s economic ruin are again making headlines. The Washington Post, in a news article that […]
Geography Archives: Europe
Countries in the continent of Europe
The Mural Speaks
The Rachel Corrie Foundation andBreak the Silence Mural Project co‐presentThe Mural Speaks Come celebrate the completion of this dynamic, interactive mural at a free event at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, May 8 at the Labor Temple building, corner of State and Capitol, downtown Olympia. The Mural Speaks event is more than a mural commemoration; it’s a […]
Lula and Erdoğan Go to Tehran: Alternative Perspectives on Their Diplomatic Prospects
Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will travel to Iran this weekend, ostensibly to attend the G-15 summit meeting that opens in Tehran on Monday. But Lula’s trip is attracting enormous international attention because the Brazilian leader will use his visit to try, in collaboration with Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to broker […]
Class Struggles and National Debts
The political conflicts and street battles in Greece today foretell what is coming to many countries including the US. The struggles are basically over what the government spends on and who pays the taxes. In today’s class-divided societies, classes differ over what governments should do and who should pay the taxes. Governments in such societies […]
The Non-Proliferation Treaty Is an Intrinsically Unfair Treaty
Ambassador Cabactulan, President of the Review Conference, Ambassador Sergio Duarte, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to congratulate you, Mr. President, for the chairmanship of this Conference. You can count on my delegation’s best cooperation. The Non-Proliferation Treaty is an intrinsically unfair treaty, which divides the world between “haves” and “have-nots.” […]
Threatening Iran Is Wrong
The antiwar movement everywhere should be extremely alarmed about the Obama Administration’s declaration in April that Washington can target Iran with nuclear weapons. Although vague “all options are on the table” warnings were also issued under George W. Bush, now the threat of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran is enshrined in the revised […]
The Nazis Defeated in Berlin
To believe the boulevard rags, it would be a day of revolutionary riot, bloody battles with the police, and violent standoffs between extremists of the left and right. Of course, being May Day, there were the usual union rallies in most major cities, including Berlin, where union leaders spoke rather more militantly than on the […]
Greece
Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist. This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 30 April 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print
Why Are the US and Israel Threatening Iran? And Who Really Rules the World?
Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 while at the same time sending more troops to the Afghanistan War. What has become of the promise of “change”? I am one of the few who are not disillusioned, because I had no expectations. I had written about Obama’s positions and prospects even before […]
The Greeks and Angela Merkel
Pity poor Angela! The rock is Greece and its economic woes. The hard place is North Rhine-Westphalia, where an extremely crucial election is due on May 9th — very soon but not soon enough! And Chancellor Merkel is caught directly in the middle! Europe and the world have been waiting for Germany to commit itself […]
Greece: Who Needs “Success Estonian Style”?
As I have noted previously, Latvia has experienced the worst two-year economic downturn on record, losing more than 25 percent of GDP. It is projected to shrink further during the first half of this year, before beginning a slow recovery, in which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that it will not reach even its […]
Greece, Again: Demystifying “National Debt”
Yet again, business leaders, politicians, academics, and media are blowing smoke around Greece’s efforts to cope with “national debt” problems. Something far more important for the world than this small country’s financial travails is at stake. Indeed, what is at stake affects us all. What is happening in Greece parallels developments everywhere; only details and […]
The Ecology of Socialism
Solidair/Solidaire, the weekly journal of the Workers Party of Belgium (PVDA-PTB), interviewed John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review, 26 April 2010 Solidair/Solidaire: Many green thinkers reject a Marxist analysis because they think that the Marxist approach to the economy is a very productivist one, focused on growth and seeing nature as “a free […]
The Birth of a New Nation
today, in a free clinic near the mean streets in the city of angels 6000 hardscrabble members of Marx’s always unpopular reserve army of unemployed, and their blank-faced children lined up uncomfortably outside of the Los Angeles Sports Arena to get their yellow wristbands their once-in-a-million ticket to see in the flesh a dentist, a […]
Glimpses of Alternatives to Neoliberalism
Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global Perspectives. Adrian Smith, Alison Stenning, and Katie Willis, eds. Macmillan/Zed Books, 2008. 253 pages. Following the tradition of critical geographers, this book explores the expansion of neoliberalism into different spheres and spaces of everyday life. It consists of a collection of essays by writers from the global South, the […]
Iraq Redux: “Conventional Wisdom” of Iran Analysts
The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler had an important story: “Even as Momentum for Iran Sanctions Grows, Containment Seems Only Viable Option.” Glenn states his thesis up front: After months of first attempting to engage Iran and then wooing Russia and China to support new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, the Obama Administration appears within reach […]
Earth Day in Israel: Apartheid Showing through the Greenwash
On April 22, as part of the global Earth Day celebrations, homes, offices, and public buildings in 14 Israeli cities turned out the lights for one hour in an effort to “increase awareness of the vital need to reduce energy consumption.” The Earth Day celebrations included scenes of green fields, wind generators, and rainbows projected […]
The Spectre of Public Debt
Pegging their arguments on the still ongoing drama relating to sovereign debt in Greece, conservative opinion is making a case for a reduction of the size of public debt in developed and developing countries across the world. The latest signatory to the appeal is IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn who reportedly told an audience at the […]
Reason, Faith, and Revolution
Christianity Fair and Foul The Limits of Liberalism Faith and Reason Culture and Barbarism . . . Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God? Who would have expected theology to rear its head once more in the technocratic twenty-first century, almost as surprisingly as some mass revival of Zoroastrianism or […]
Should Greece Follow Estonia’s Example?
As the representatives from the European Union, the IMF, and the Greek government are trying to flesh out how Greece can use the EU’s and the IMF’s funding to remedy its fiscal position, the main question hovering above their negotiations is whether Greece can and should follow Estonia’s example in massively cutting public spending. […]
