The brutal murder of three nationalist leaders of Balochistan and the ensuing crisis has brought the issue of the Baloch national struggle to the forefront once again, only to be met with feigned surprises and arrogant dismissals by a major part of the rest of Pakistan. We in Pakistan — and particularly those of us […]
Geography Archives: Middle East
Palestinian BDS Campaign Calls on Tehran to Cut Ties with Alstom and Veolia
Bethlehem, Ma’an — Palestinian civil society groups called on Tehran to cut ties with two French companies profiting from work in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. A day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took center stage as a critic of Israel at a UN conference in Geneva, the Palestinian Campaign for […]
The Communist Party of Israel against the Rightist Netanyahu Government’s New Economic Plan
The rightist Netanyahu government unveiled yesterday (Thursday, April 23, 2009) its “jet plane for economic growth,” with an immediate cut in corporate taxes and massive privatizations of the Electricity Corporation, the Employment Agency, the ports, and the Land Authority, in an attempt to fuel renewed capitalist gains. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yuval […]
Scottish Trade Union Congress Votes for BDS against Israel
22 April 2009 — On Wednesday, Scotland joined Ireland and South Africa when the Scottish Trade Union Congress, representing every Scottish trade union, voted overwhelmingly to commit to boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. This is the third example of a national trade union federation committing to BDS and is a clear indication that, […]
Wretched Conditions of Syrian Workers in Lebanon
Rights and labor groups say almost all the estimated 300,000 Syrians working in Lebanon have no official status, often endure dangerous conditions, and earn about US$300 a month doing jobs shunned by most Lebanese. In 2006, the Labor Ministry issued just 471 work permits to Syrian nationals, meaning the remainder worked unregistered. According to 2008 […]
Israel Forcefully Condemned at UN Conference against Racism
The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended the conference to condemn the Israeli government’s brutal and repressive policy against the Palestinians. The European delegates walked out when he called the government of Israel “racist,” but the Latin Americans stayed. The United States and eight other countries boycotted the event. The Israeli government’s stance against […]
Humanitarian Blues
Conor Foley, The Thin Blue Line: How Humanitarianism Went to War, Verso, 2008. All is not well within the world of humanitarian aid organisations. In his new book, The Thin Blue Line, Conor Foley, an experienced aid worker, discusses many of the problems associated with the burgeoning relationship between contemporary aid organisations and recent […]
“What about Cuba, Mr. Obama?”
Barack Obama hopes to be received differently at the summit in Trinidad and Tobago: he can talk about the crisis, his administration’s new positions on Iraq and Iran, and any number of other things, but he can’t escape the fact that what matters most is his position on Cuba. The imperial vision of the United […]
Why Do the NATO Powers Think That Durban 1 Was a Setback and Fear Another at Durban 2?
1. The title of this note is intentional. Over the past twenty years, the Western powers in a military alliance (NATO) have arrogantly cast themselves as representatives of the “international community” and thus marginalized the United Nations, the only institution qualified to speak in its name. This attitude is now systematic, and, in all international […]
Lebanon: Fair Deal for Domestic Workers?
BEIRUT, 16 April 2009 (IRIN) — Eighty Ethiopian women have been in Tripoli Women’s Prison in north Lebanon for over a year, accused of not having a passport which was either taken from them when they started as domestic workers, or which they never had in the first place. Most were arrested on the street […]
Rethink Afghanistan
Part 1: Afghanistan + More Troops = Catastrophe Part 2: Pakistan: “The Most Dangerous Country” Part 3: Cost of War Anand Gopal, Afghanistan Correspondent, Christian Science Monitor: The United States has only forces to go and control certain urban areas. . . . They don’t have the troop size, nor could they conceivably ever […]
Interview with Ken Loach: “Now, More Than Ever, We Need Parties of the Principled Left”
I think in these dark times it’s very important that we have parties of the left that stand on the principled opposition to capitalism, that explain why what is happening to our economies, what is happening internationally, comes from the capitalist system. It isn’t something independent, it isn’t an act of god, it comes from […]
Patterns of Adjustment in the Age of Finance: The Case of Turkey as a Peripheral Agent of Neoliberal Globalization
Abstract Following the 2000-01 crisis, Turkey implemented an orthodox strategy of raising interest rates and maintaining an overvalued exchange rate. But, contrary to the traditional stabilization packages that aim to increase interest rates to constrain domestic demand, the new orthodoxy aimed at maintaining high interest rates to attract speculative foreign capital. The end result was […]
Israel’s Military Threat against Iran Is a Bluff That Keeps Giving
In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed to have told President Barack Obama that either America stops Iran or Israel will. Not surprisingly, the interview sparked quite a controversy, and only a day later, General David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that “the Israeli […]
Turkey and the Obama Visit: “He Gave Me Water!”
Obama did what was expected, dispensing good luck charms for all. What he left behind is a state of delirium, a la the Hunchback of Notre Dame: “He gave me water.” Even though some of Obama’s gestures during the visit — such as Obama reminding the young people he was chatting with of the […]
Egypt and Israel: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend
Jamal Dajani: A war of words between the Egyptian government and the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah has escalated after Egypt’s public prosecutor recently ordered 49 people held for plotting attacks on behalf of Hezbollah be kept in custody for an additional 15 days. The 49 suspects include Egyptians, Palestinians, and Lebanese. They were reportedly arrested […]
Demonstration in Baghdad against US Occupation
Thousands of supporters of Shi’i leader Muqtada al-Sadr demonstrated in Baghdad to demand an end to the “US occupation,” on the sixth anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime. From early morning, a multitude of youths, waving Iraqi flags and upholding portraits of Muqtada al-Sadr, assembled, despite the relentless rain, in Firdos Square, where, […]
Arab Students Marginalized by Israeli Universities
Obstacles to Israel’s Arab minority participating in higher education have resulted in a record number of Arab students taking up places at universities in neighboring Jordan, a new report reveals. Figures compiled by Dirasat, a Nazareth-based organization monitoring education issues, show 5,400 Arab students from Israel are at Jordanian universities — half the number of […]
Wrestling with the Past
Sonya Huber. Opa Nobody. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008. xvi + 358 pp. Illustrations. ISBN 978-0-8032-1080-6; $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8032-1080-6. In recent years, scholars have grappled with the specific manner in which recent generations of Germans and Austrians have confronted their own familial complicity in Nazism. The narratives revealed by these studies […]
China’s Way Forward? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Hegemony and the World Economy in Crisis
2008 — Annus Horribilis for the world economy — produced successive food, energy, and financial crises, initially devastating particularly the global poor, but quickly extending to the commanding heights of the US and core economies and ushering in the sharpest downturn since the 1930s depression. As all nations strive to respond to the financial […]
