Geography Archives: Middle East

News travels to us that events in West Bengal have overtaken the optimism that some of us have experienced during trips to the state.  We are concerned about the rancour that has divided the public space, created what appear to be unbridgeable gaps between people who share similar values.  It is this that distresses us.  […]

The situation of the Arab Left is similar to “the phenomenon of the transformation of the Left” on the global scale and a reflection of it.  The reason is simple: the Arab Left, as a general rule though with some exceptions, was never a “Left” in the dialectical materialist sense.  It has always been a […]

Saturday, November 17.  In the energy capital of the US and under a light drizzling rain, a couple of hundred Houstonians marched and rallied against the ongoing oil war against the people of Iraq.  Neither the cloudy skies nor the small turnout dampened the spirit of the crowd or the tone of the message. The […]

  Die ständigen Mitglieder des UN-Sicherheitsrats hatten sich im Atomstreit mit dem Iran Anfang Oktober geeinigt: Die Entscheidung über verschärfte Sanktionen wird vertagt, bis die Internationale Atomenergiebehörde (IAEO) einen neuen Bericht über das Atomprogramm Irans vorgelegt hat.  Aber so viel Geduld wollten die USA nicht aufbringen.  Im Alleingang verschärften sie die Wirtschaftssanktionen, stuften die Revolutionsgarden […]

Tallulah is a small town in Northeastern Louisiana, one of the poorest regions in the US.   It is about 90 miles from the now-legendary town of Jena, and like Jena it is a town with a large youth prison that was closed after allegations of abuse and brutality.  Also like Jena, residents of Tallulah are […]

  For the last 20 years, the U.S. government has accused me of being a terrorist.  Along with six other Palestinians and a Kenyan, we were dubbed the “Los Angeles Eight” by the media.  Our case even made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. On Oct. 30 — 20 grueling years after the early morning […]

Introduction On the 17th and 18th of November 2007, the finance ministers and reserve bank governors of the G20 countries, along with leading International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank officials, will be gathering in the seaside village of Kleinmond, South Africa.1  During this meeting — which will be hosted by the current Chair of […]

Poppin’ Fresh, chubby little standard-bearer for the mass marketing of lip-smacking glutens, interrupted regularly scheduled TV programming today at 8:46 a.m. to announce the imposition of martial law across the continental United States. “Now, don’t you folks go out of your homes, and don’t you try to stop those roundups in the streets — we’ve […]

On December 10th, 2003, the leftist newsweekly Jungle World published a pamphlet by the French journalists Caroline Fourest and Fiammetta Venner, which contained a defensive claim which would go on to have a great career: with their assertion that the term “Islamophobia” was coined in the year 1979 by Iranian mullahs in order to denounce […]

  INTRODUCTION Five years into the US-UK illegal invasion of Iraq and its consequent catastrophe for Iraqi people, peace loving people throughout the world are appalled by the current Iran-US standoff and its resemblance to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.  The hawks, headed by Dick Cheney in Washington, are now shamelessly calling for […]

Everything Americans do requires transportation because our individualized homes, like our jobs and shopping locations, are all considerable distances from one another except in our largest, densest cities.  The private automobile rules.  Everything we buy in a store got there by truck.  Two-thirds of US oil consumption goes for transportation, most of that for private […]

  Once again the Turkish generals threaten to invade areas in Northern Iraq, or, if you want, Southern Kurdistan. Historically, these areas with their flat fields around the Euphrates and Tigris, surrounded by peaked mountaintops, were home to a multitude of religions and cultures, in the way mountainous areas often are.  But, after decades of […]

Un an après la dernière guerre au Liban, le parti Hezbollah reste un mystère.  Pour la première fois, son leader, Hassan Nasrallah, a accepté la présence de caméras occidentales au sein de l’organisation et répond, sous haute surveillance, aux questions les plus délicates.  En retraçant l’histoire de ce mouvement, ce documentaire exceptionnel donne les clés […]

  November 10, 2007 Late Friday afternoon, approximately 50 members of Olympia Port Militarization Resistance (OlyPMR) sat down near the main gate of the Port of Olympia in Washington State.  Two tractor trailers, one carrying two Stryker combat vehicles, another filled with military cargo, were blocked from exiting the port.  Police arrived on the scene […]

A new dimension of immense importance is being added to the contradictions of US policy in Iraq and the Middle East at large.  Turkey, a staunch US ally for over half a century and a NATO member, is threatening to militarily intervene in Northern Iraq, i.e. Iraqi Kurdistan.  A resolution was passed by the Turkish […]

  Cast of Characters Andy: 19, prisoner Shades: 30s, prisoner Place A dormitory in Rikers Island Correctional Facility, New York City Time An evening, early 1960s SETTING:  A bed stretches right from SC.  Other beds are dimly seen behind it.  The right wall has barred windows.  At the head of the bed, SR, is a […]

On October 9, the Oregon AFL-CIO passed a resolution opposing the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement and three other pending trade deals with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea.  A state federation condemning a free trade deal would normally be an unremarkable event, except for the remarkable absence in the Peru case of a typically heavy-weight free […]

Author’s Note:  The appearance of General Petraeus’s Counterinsurgency Field Manual, published recently for the US book trade by the University of Chicago Press, has created a stir because of charges of pilfered scholarship, damage to the reputation of UC, and the role of anthropologist Montgomery McFate in writing the book.  The mission of social science […]

Directed by KP Sasi and based on Kamaan Singh Dhami’s anti-war song “American War Paar Da! (Check Out the American War!),” the 4-minute music video is a satirical but severe indictment of America’s role in escalating world conflict.  Originally written following the post-9/11 bombing of Afghanistan by the USA, and developed to address the occupation […]

  Preamble Dear Friends, it is a great privilege to be with you again since 2002.  As you know, my address then has recently been in the news because on the basis of a distortion of what I said, President Dease of St Thomas University decided I shouldn’t visit his campus.  It is good that […]