Geography Archives: Latin America

Coming out of the December 2 referendum defeat — the first for the Bolivarian movement since the election of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 1998 — and facing discontent amongst popular sectors at the lack of advance in the Bolivarian process, the pro-revolution forces face a big challenge in securing an overwhelming victory in the […]

Prophecies of Downfall The fact that Marx finally began with the composition of his long-planned economic work in the winter of 1857/1858 was directly occasioned by the economic crisis that broke out in the autumn of 1857 and the concomitant expectations of a deep trauma from which capitalism would no longer recover.  “I am working […]

  The UN Food and Agriculture Organization is currently holding an emergency summit in Rome that will be focusing on the ongoing global food crisis, but rejuvenating and protecting agriculturalists does not seem to be on the agenda. In the past couple of months, the attention of the world has been directed at the issue […]

Every May 21st President George W. Bush declares a day of “solidarity” with Cuba and repeats the lies of nearly half a century trying to de-legitimize Latin America’s most successful social revolution in history.  This year, the leading US presidential candidates chimed in, but a potentially explosive scandal involving an axis of US-based terrorist groups, […]

  On Sunday, May 4, 2008, I joined two dozen progressive activists marching in a circle in front of the Bolivian embassy.  Thanks to our spirited presence, 150 or so right-wing Bolivians from the province of Santa Cruz were unable to get in front of the embassy to demonstrate in favor of the autonomy referendum […]

James A. Tyner.  The Business of War: Workers, Warriors, and Hostages in Occupied Iraq.  Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006.  viii + 152 pp.  Bibliography, index.  ISBN 978-0-7546-4791-1. In The Business of War, James A. Tyner provides an engaged and readable synthesis of scholarship and informed polemic produced in response to the Anglo-American invasion and occupation […]

Introduction People across the world, from Mexico to Mozambique, have once again been taking to the streets in protest.  The reason is to demand that their most basic need be met: access to food.  With food prices skyrocketing over the last few months, billions of people around the globe have been relentlessly driven towards starvation.  […]

“What I find a bit reprehensible is the tendency of certain Western voices to . . . raising concerns about China’s attempt to get into the African market because it is a bit hypocritical for Western states to be concerned about how China is approaching Africa when they have had centuries of relations with Africa, […]

“Bolivia is on the verge of exploding,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned on April 21. Speaking on the eve of an extraordinary summit of the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA — the alliance made of Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Dominica) that was partly called to discuss the situation in Bolivia, Chavez stated the […]

For some time now the rising cost of food all over the world has taken households, governments and the media by storm.  The price of wheat has gone up by 130% over the last year.1 Rice has doubled in price in Asia in the first three months of 2008 alone,2 and just last week it […]

La Paz — In recent days the Haitians have gone into the streets to protest against the brutal increase in the cost of food.  The response of the police — with the support of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) — was repression that cost the life of at least five demonstrators and […]

Fernando Lugo, a bearded, left-leaning bishop, is expected to win Paraguay’s historic presidential election on April 20th, upsetting a 60-year rule by the right-wing Colorado Party.  While escaping the heat of the Paraguayan sun by sitting in the shade of an orange tree, farmer union leader Tomas Zayas explains, “If Lugo is elected, it will […]

MRZine must be commended for its recent publication of Mike Friedman’s interview with Nicaragua’s Comandante Mónica Baltodano.  It is especially welcome because there has been a dearth of information and analysis about Nicaragua in the English-language world ever since the 1990 electoral defeat of the revolution.  That in some ways is puzzling because the actions […]

More than a year ago, I attended the official book release for the Venezuelan edition of Eva Golinger‘s Bush Versus Chávez, published by Monte Avila, and the book had previously been printed in Cuba by Editorial José Martí.  I recount this to make the following point: long before the publication of Bush Versus Chávez in […]

The US Government is waging war on Venezuela — not your typical, traditional war, but a modern, asymmetric — 4th Generation War – against President Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution.  Below is a presentation I created regarding the pattern and escalation of US Government aggression against Venezuela, with clear quotes and cites as evidence to […]

Reeling from the blow that it received in the aftermath of the Colombian military’s illegal incursion on March 1 into Ecuador — which resulted in the brutal massacre of a number of civilians and members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), including its chief negotiator Raul Reyes — US imperialism has once again […]

  This Thursday the House of Commons passed a Confidence Motion put forward by the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to extend the Canadian mission in Kandahar, Afghanistan to December 2011 past the current commitment to 2009.  With the support of the Liberal Party (breaking their previous position of a call for a […]

The battle against US imperialism and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has once again been taken to the streets of Mexico City.  On the 31st of January, hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers came out in protest against the free trade onslaught that the people of Mexico have been subjected to.  This time, […]

In November 2007, the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors reducing immigration, released a report entitled “Immigrants in the United States, 2007: A Profile of America’s Foreign-Born Population.”   The report was covered widely in the media, and the author, Center staff researcher Steven Camarota, was given many opportunities to repeat his […]

On Saturday, March 1, Colombian military forces attacked an encampment of the FARC, the largest Colombian guerilla group, across the Ecuadorian border.  The strike, in violation of international law, reportedly killed up to 20 guerrillas in their sleep.  Among those killed was Raúl Reyes, a top FARC commander.  The attack has sparked a regional crisis […]