Geography Archives: Latin America

On February 23, 2010, Cuban inmate Orlando Zapata Tamayo died after 83 days on hunger strike.  He was 42.  This is the first such incident since inmate Pedro Luis Boitel died in 1972 under similar conditions.  The corporate media put the tragic incident on the front page and emphasized the plight of Cuban prisoners.1 Zapata’s […]

Within days of a January 12 earthquake that devastated much of southern Haiti, the New York Times was using the disaster to promote a United Nations plan for drastically expanding the country’s garment assembly industry, which employs low-paid workers to stitch apparel for duty-free export, mainly to the U.S. market.  This, according to several opinion […]

  Brasilia — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva just reiterated, in a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that Brazil will continue to maintain commercial relations with Iran and will seek a peaceful solution to Iran’s nuclear issue. After meeting with Hillary Clinton at the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center, the provisional […]

The U.S. ruling class and its political representatives at all levels have launched an all-out assault on public education.  While disparate elements of this campaign have been in place for the past three or four decades, we are today seeing a confluence and culmination of these trends, orchestrated by President Obama and his Education secretary […]

From 21 January to 2 February 2010, Eric Toussaint and Olivier Bonfond — both involved in alterglobalization activism and members of the International Council of the World Social Forum, of the world coordination of social movements, and of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt 1 — participated in various events and […]

  Mary E. Odem, Elaine Cantrell Lacy, eds.  Latino Immigrants and the Transformation of the U.S. South.  Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009.  xxvii + 175 pp. $59.95 (library), ISBN 978-0-8203-2968-0; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8203-3212-3. In the past two decades, the Latino population of the American South has grown faster than in any other region […]

It’s now more than a month since the earthquake that laid waste to Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people and thrusting millions of people into the most desperate conditions. But according to the U.S. government, Haitians have a lot to be thankful for. On February 12, the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Ken Merten boasted: “In […]

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a writer, teacher, historian, and social activist, is Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies at California State University. You have been deeply involved in Indigenous peoples’ activism in the United States.  What is the current situation of Indigenous people in the US economically and politically? Decolonization is a difficult and long-term […]

Decisive battles between the forces of revolution and counter-revolution loom on the horizon in Venezuela. The campaign for the September 26 National Assembly elections will be a crucial battle between the supporters of socialist President Hugo Chavez and the US-backed right-wing opposition. But these battles, part of the class struggle between the poor majority and […]

  Robert Aldrich.  Colonialism and Homosexuality.  London and New York: Routledge, 2003.  xii + 436 pp.  Maps, notes, bibliography, and index.  $104.95 US (cl.).  ISBN 0-415-19615-9.  $32.95 (pb.).  ISBN 0-415-19616-7. It is generally seen as a sign of maturity when gay scholarship moves beyond a mere self-affirmative search for “ancestry” and develops a critical and […]

Dambisa Moyo was no doubt an excellent student.  Unfortunately, she is a product of the conventional economics curriculum, which is great if one is to embark on a career at the World Bank or Goldman Sachs.  She attempts a radical critique of ‘aid’ but sadly she is not up to the task, her noble intentions […]

In a visit to Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week, Hillary Clinton said that Iran “is moving toward a military dictatorship” and continued the Administration’s campaign for tougher sanctions against that country. What could America’s top diplomat hope to accomplish with this kind of inflammatory rhetoric?  It seems unlikely that the goal was to support […]

The President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández, recently fired the head of the central bank, Martín Redrado, when he rejected the government’s plan to use $6.6 billion of international reserves to pay off debt. The domestic and international press response was overwhelmingly negative, with complaints that this would “kill central bank independence.” Leaving aside the question […]

  The Brazilian expression “Greek Present” (Presente de Grego) means unwelcome gift, an obvious reference to the infamous Trojan Horse.  The current crisis in Greece might show that the euro was just one of those presents.  If the European Union (EU) does not provide sufficient resources to preclude not just a default, but also and […]

Ever since the global financial and economic crisis broke, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has been regularly tracking its impact on the level and quality of employment.  In January 2009, the ILO (International Labour Office 2009) indicated that, under alternate scenarios, global unemployment could increase by between 18 million and 51 million people worldwide from […]

  In late 2009 the New York-based group Human Rights Watch published a report titled New Castro, Same Cuba.  Based on the testimony of former prisoners, the report systematically condemns the Cuban government as an “abusive” regime that uses its “repressive machinery . . . draconian laws and sham trials to incarcerate scores more who […]

The capitalist world has experienced its deepest economic meltdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Paradoxically, whereas the earlier period saw the breakdown of liberal capitalism, the rise of fascism and Nazism, and the Soviet alternative to liberal capitalism, today neo-liberalism and capitalist globalization still remain powerful, and apparently supreme, on the stage of […]

  In the United States, the mismanagement of the financial crisis, in particular the ill designed Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), has led to a wave of populist protests, and to a narrow confirmation vote for Bernanke.  In Argentina, where the recession was considerably milder than in the United States and had no financial cause, […]

3 February 2010 — As is custom at the beginning of each year, the different US agencies publish their famous annual reports on topics ranging from human rights, trafficking in persons, terrorism, threats, drug-trafficking, and other issues that indicate who will be this year’s target of US aggression.  Yesterday, it was the intelligence community’s turn. […]

  Part I: Brenda Villacorta JRW: It’s in the evening of January 25, in Tegucigalpa, outside the Brazilian embassy, where a gathering of the anti-coup resistance is taking place.  So, you’re a part of the Resistance against the coup, and, in particular, a part of the feminist resistance to the coup? Brenda Villacorta BV: That’s […]