The thunderous events set in motion by Israel’s storming of the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the peace flotilla challenging the blockade of Gaza, have thrown important light on the overall situation in the Middle East. Turkey has emerged as the major protagonist among the forces that support the Palestinian cause. This is extremely […]
Geography Archives: Latin America
Don’t Let Deficit Demagogues Scare You into Accepting Austerity
The U.S. and European Union together make up about half of the global economy, and recovery is quite uncertain in both of these big economies. Contrary to a lot of folk wisdom and political posturing, the problem is not irresponsible government spending in either case, but a lack of commitment by the authorities in both […]
Debt Management in Latin America: How Safe Is the New Debt Composition?
. . . Public debt levels as a share of GDP declined substantially in the Latin American region during the five years preceding the great global crisis of 2008 and 2009. Data available for the largest seven countries in the region (LAC-7)1 show that the ratio of total public debt to GDP fell from […]
Three Protests and What They May Mean for Immigrant Rights
The immigrant rights movement is moving to a new level of militancy, at least to judge by events in New York City the first week of June. At noon on June 1 several hundred people gathered in front of the Jacob Javits Federal Building in Lower Manhattan for a press conference and a civil disobedience […]
Brazil and Turkey Defy Washington on Iran Sanctions
The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution calling for new sanctions against Iran today. Wait, did you just yawn? Pay attention, there’s real news here. The man-bites-dog story is that two countries — Brazil and Turkey — voted no, while Lebanon abstained. That’s a record. There’s never been more than one no vote before; […]
The Limits of Citizenship in Twentieth-Century Brazil
Brodwyn M. Fischer. A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. xx + 464 pp. $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8047-5290-9. From the 1920s to the 1950s, largely under the impetus of reforms associated with Getúlio Vargas (president, 1930-45, 1951-54), the Brazilian state expanded significantly and extended […]
Latin America and the Middle East: A Threatening Alliance?
Whether in the media or in U.S. policy circles, the words “Middle East” and “South America” are rarely mentioned together in a positive light. Reports of Middle Eastern terrorist cells allegedly operating in South America’s Tri-Border region or on Venezuela’s Margarita Island have appeared intermittently in the U.S. press since at least 2003. These […]
Cochabamba Conference: Climate Radicals Leave Much to Ponder
The climate crisis and efforts to tackle it have witnessed unprecedented mobilisation of popular movements, NGOs, think tanks, experts, intellectuals and activists, as was evident at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen last December. Of course, this “civil society” activism has embraced a very wide spectrum of opinion. Amongst the most vociferous, at various gatherings as […]
Breaking the Blockade of Silence: L.A. Art and Advocacy for the Cuban 5
How do you break through the twelve-year blockade of silence that has kept five Cuban political prisoners invisible to the American public? How can art transcend U.S. prison walls and present the truth about these men, locked up in five distant prisons scattered across the United States, to a Los Angeles community? On May 22nd […]
Empire against Democracy
After the Second World War, from which the Allied forces emerged victorious, the government of the United States sought to make the most of its military victory. It structured the Assembly of the United Nations to be led by a Security Council composed of the seven most powerful countries, with veto power over decisions […]
No Justice, No Euro!
The current turmoil in financial markets around the world is another illustration of the damage that can be done by a bloated and politically powerful financial sector, combined with finance ministers and central bankers who identify with this sector and have their own right-wing policy agenda. Welcome to Europe, which has become the epicenter of […]
A “New World Order” Is Possible — and Needed
The efforts of Brazil and Turkey to find a negotiated solution to the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program, which generated a negotiated agreement with Iran last week, must be seen in the context of a growing challenge to the international political order. That political order has been dominated by the United States, with Europe as […]
Revisiting Global Imbalances
Until recently, the discussion on global imbalances focused on the current account deficit of the US and the current account surplus of China, making this a bilateral rather than a multilateral problem. As a result, the process of rebalancing was seen as involving adjustments in either or both of these countries, and not so much […]
South Africa: An Unfinished Revolution?
The Fourth Strini Moodley Annual Memorial Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 13 May 2010 I In her historical novel, A Place of Greater Safety, which is played out against the backdrop of the Great French Revolution through an illuminating character analysis and synthesis of three of that revolution’s most prominent personalities, viz., Maximilien Robespierre, Georges […]
UNASUR: An Emerging Geopolitical Force
Earlier this month, as the US loudly complained about Venezuela’s decision to purchase arms from Russia, South America’s ministers of defense came together in Guayaquil, Ecuador and put the finishing touches on an agreement to develop common mechanisms of transparency in defense policy and spending. The agreement, which also calls for the creation of a […]
Mr. Lula Goes to Tehran — Brazil’s Neocons React
Brazil’s Ascent under Lula’s Leadership Under the leadership of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil has become a regional leader in Latin America with vibrant international foreign policy. A look at the internal political dynamics of Brazil would be useful also. During President Lula’s presidency, Brazil has had tremendous economic growth. But in the coming […]
How Do You Spell “Success”? A Look at “Internal Devaluation” in Greece, Latvia, and Argentina
As of today the idea that Greece might be better off leaving the Euro and renegotiating its debt is considered by many to be unthinkable. Instead, the country is embarking upon a program of “internal devaluation” — in which it keeps the Euro and lowers its real exchange rate by creating enough unemployment to drive […]
Market Irrationality in the Eurozone
Markets can be irrational, as Keynes famously pointed out, and the Eurozone/Greek crisis is a classic example. “The markets” for months have been demanding more blood from Greece, as the financial press has continuously and often unquestioningly reported: more commitment to spending cuts, tax increases, and “procyclical” policies that the bondholders, EU authorities, and the […]
Bolivia: Between Development and Mother Earth
The tremendous success of the April 19-22 World Peoples Summit on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, has confirmed the well-deserved role of its initiator — Bolivian President Evo Morales — as one of the world’s leading environmental advocates. Since being elected the country’s first indigenous president in 2005, Morales has […]
Interview with Gopalji, Spokesperson of the Special Area Committee of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in a Forest in Jharkhand, Eastern India
Communism in the rest of the world seems to have collapsed. What hope do you have of achieving a socialist state in India? The claim that there is no hope for socialism and communism, that they are dead, is mere propaganda unleashed by the imperialists and the apologists of capitalism. The 20th century saw the […]
