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Change of Epoch: Imperialism Counterattacks, But Chávez Lives, the Struggle Continues
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa‘s idea that we are not “living in an epoch of change” but rather “in a change of epoch” is very much to the point. There is an obvious worldwide decline of existing imperialisms and historic changes in the correlation of social, class, and nation-state forces. There have arisen popular movements of […]
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The Talented Mr. Takeyh: Why Doesn’t the Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Like Flynt & Hillary Mann Leverett?
If there’s one thing mainstream “Iran experts” hate, it’s well-credentialed, experienced analysts who dare challenge Beltway orthodoxies, buck conventional wisdom, and demythologize the banal, bromidic, and Manichean foreign policy narrative of the United States government and its obedient media. Such perspectives are shunned by “serious” scholars who play by the rules they and their former […]
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Why Is Cuba’s Health Care System the Best Model for Poor Countries?
Furious though it may be, the current debate over health care in the US is largely irrelevant to charting a path for poor countries of Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. That is because the US squanders perhaps 10 to 20 times what is needed for a good, affordable medical system. The waste […]
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Not Quite “Ordinary Human Beings” — Anti-Imperialism and the Anti-Humanist Rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon
Attempting to latch onto the just, vital, and growing movement in support of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, Gilad Atzmon is one of a very small and unrepresentative group of writers who have argued (in agreement with many Zionists) that there is no meaningful distinction to be made between Jews in general and Israeli atrocities. […]
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Pessimism of the Reality, Optimism of the Ideal
I. It seems to me that José Vasconcelos has found a formula on pessimism and optimism that not only defines the feeling of the new Ibero-American generation in the face of the contemporary crisis, but also corresponds to the absolute mentality and sensibility of an era in which, despite the thesis of José Ortega […]
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WFTU: ‘Support People, Oppose Imperialist Interference in Arab Countries’
The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) organised on September 13-14 a two-day international trade union meet in the European Parliament complex in Strasbourg, France, to express solidarity with the fighting people of Arab countries and voice strong protest against the hegemonic interference of US imperialism and its European allies in the internal affairs […]
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Martial Law in Haiti
The methods of the United States in colonized Latin America have not changed. They cannot change. Violence is not used in countries under Yankee administration just by accident. Three events during the past five years underscore the increasing martial tendency of U.S. policy in these countries: the intervention in Panama against a strike, the […]
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Brazil’s “Wall Street” Problem
Brazil’s economy is slowing, but the government is increasing its primary surplus by cutting spending, which could slow the economy more. In June, industrial production fell by 1.6 percent, and economic activity fell for the first time since 2008. Although monthly figures are erratic and don’t necessarily indicate any trend, the overall picture raises questions […]
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Comparison of Annex 1 and Non-Annex 1 Pledges under the Cancun Agreements
Abstract: This report examines four recent detailed studies of countries’ mitigation pledges under the Cancun Agreements, for the purpose of comparing developed (Annex 1) country pledges to developing (non-Annex 1) country pledges. It finds that there is broad agreement that developing country pledges amount to more mitigation than developed country pledges. That conclusion applies […]
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Why Is the United States Waging Perpetual War against the Cuban People’s Health System?
In January the government of the United States of America saw fit to seize $4.207 million in funds allocated to Cuba by the United Nations Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the first quarter of 2011, Cuba has charged. The UN Fund is a $22 billion a year program that works to […]
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Humala’s Win in Peru Consolidates Gains for Left, More Independent and Democratic South America
Ollanta Humala’s apparent presidential electoral victory in Peru represents a consolidation of the gains made by left-leaning leaders in South America over the past decade, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said today. “Democracy, national and regional independence, and economic and social progress have gone hand-in-hand with South America’s leftward political […]
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Why Washington Is Worried about Peru’s Election
In just a few days, on June 5th, an election will take place that will have a significant influence on the Western Hemisphere. At the moment it is too close to call. Most of official Washington has been relatively quiet, but there is no doubt that the Obama Administration has a big stake in the […]
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The Euro Crisis as a Twin Recycling Problem: A New Rationale for the “Modest Proposal”
1. Introduction: The Twin Recycling Problems in Brief
Europe’s crisis is caused by its institutional failure to confront two recycling problems: a debt recycling problem and a surplus recycling problem.
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Between Emigration and Crime
Latin Americans are not born-criminals nor did they invent drugs. The Aztecs, Maya and other pre-Columbian human groups in Mexico and Central America, for example, were excellent farmers and didn’t even know about growing coca. The Quechua and Aymara were capable of producing nutritious foods on perfect terraces that followed the mountain level curves. On […]
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For a New Europe: University Struggles Against Austerity
We, the student and precarious workers of Europe, Tunisia, Japan, the US, Canada, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Argentina, met in Paris over the weekend of the 11th-13th of February, 2011 to discuss and organize a common network based on our common struggles. Students from Maghreb and Gambia tried to come but France refused them entry. […]
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Bolivia Raises Fuel Prices to Protect Economy and Stop Subsidizing Smugglers
The Bolivian government approved on Sunday a decree to bring fuel prices in line with regional prices, “to protect the economy and stop subsidizing smugglers,” which adjusts gasoline and diesel prices while keeping frozen the prices of liquefied petroleum gas and vehicular natural gas. At a press conference, Vice President Álvaro García Linera, temporarily […]
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WikiLeaks Cables Show Why Washington Won’t Allow Democracy in Haiti
The polarization of the debate around WikiLeaks is pretty simple, really. Of all the governments in the world, the United States government is the greatest threat to world peace and security today. This is obvious to anyone who looks at the facts with a modicum of objectivity. The Iraq war has claimed hundreds of thousands, […]
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The Gains from Trade: South American Economic Integration and the Resolution of Conflict
It has long been argued that expanding commercial relations between countries acts as an incentive for nations to avoid hostilities up to and including armed conflict. Indeed this was a major impetus behind the economic integration of Europe1 after World War II, which led to the European Union and more recently the currency union of […]
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Ten Theses on New Developmentalism
On May 24 and 25 of 2010, a group of economists sharing a Keynesian and structuralist development macroeconomics approach convened in São Paulo to discuss ten theses on New Developmentalism — the name that some of them have been using for some years to describe the national development strategy that middle income countries are today […]
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Will New Report Pave the Way for Honduras’ Reincorporation into the OAS?
Following several weeks of meetings and internal deliberations, a special “high-level commission” has presented the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) with a long-awaited report on Honduras. Mandated by a June 8 resolution agreed to at the OAS ministerial meeting in Lima, Peru, the report presents an analysis of the current situation […]