May 24, 2011, 19:30 In continuation of the telephone conversation between the presidents of Russia and Syria held on April 6, 2011, and on the eve of his trip to France for a G8 summit, Dmitry Medvedev stated the principled position of the Russian Federation regarding the events in Syria and around it. The […]
Geography Archives: Russia
The Crisis Enters Year Five
The current global capitalist crisis began with the severe contraction in the housing markets in mid-2007. Welcome to Year Five. A usual inventory of where things stand begins with the good news: the major banks, the stock market, and corporate profits have largely or completely “recovered” from the lows they reached early in 2009. The […]
Tariq Ali on Syria and Libya: “Whenever the West Intervenes, It’s a Disaster”
Tariq Ali and Rory Suchet
Tariq Ali: I don’t think sanctions work. They are essentially a symbolic measure. Usually when sanctions are applied against a country, they affect the poor people in that country more than the ruling elites, as we saw for years before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003. They had imposed a bloody sanctions regime, […]
Opposition’s Call for General Strike Falls on Deaf Ears in Syria
DAMASCUS, May 18 (RIA Novosti) The Syrian opposition’s calls to hold a general day-long strike on Wednesday have been largely ignored, Aljazeera reported. The Syrian opposition called for a general strike as the government denied reports that it has been burying anti-government protesters in mass graves. “Wednesday will be a day of punishment for the […]
On Syria and Libya
Question: Today, Clinton stated that the US considered it necessary to step up pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. How can you comment on this? Foreign Minister Lavrov: No one is happy when in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, as in all other states there are disturbing developments, with blood […]
Russia and China on Syria
Moscow against UN Security Council Taking Up Syria — Source MOSCOW, May 11 (Interfax) — Moscow is against the Syria issue being put before the UN Security Council, a Russian Foreign Ministry source said on Wednesday. “Syria mustn’t be discussed in the Security Council, that is obvious,” the source told Interfax. China Calls on […]
On Syria, Democracy, and Imperialism
The trajectory of the democratic movement in the Arab world was never going to be a straight line with clear goals and objectives. The Arab regimes are not homogeneous; they have medieval Islamist monarchies, as in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, and secular but completely authoritarian regimes, both Western puppets like Mubarak and […]
Russia Defends Syria from Outside Interference
United Nations, April 27 (Xinhua) — Russia said here on Wednesday that the current situation in Syria, despite an increase in tension and confrontation, does not threaten international peace and security, but “a real threat to regional security . . . could arise from outside interference in Syria’s domestic situation.” Alexander Pankin, Russia’s deputy permanent […]
How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause? (Updated Version)
This is an update of my April 7 post on cancers resulting from Chernobyl — this post includes more detailed information and a more recent estimate of the total radioactive dose from the Chernobyl accident. There is a lot of confusion about how many excess cancer deaths will likely result from the 1986 Chernobyl accident […]
Easter Peace March in Berlin
The Easter holiday in Germany lasts from Good Friday to Easter Monday, four days. It arrived very late this year, at the end of April, and amazing summer weather drew multitudes to lakes or the seaside. Some, it was hoped — if not exactly multitudes — would be drawn by their consciences to a rather […]
Lenin and Keynes
At first sight no two persons could have been more dissimilar. One was a Cambridge don, with more than one foot in the British government; a supporter of the Liberal Party, staunchly opposed to the Bolshevik Revolution; an aesthete and a member of the Bloomsbury Group; a life peer in imperial Britain, and a solid, […]
Mobilizing for September?
The reconvening of the UN in late September and the possible recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders may be a crucial political moment in the struggle for Palestinian liberation — or not. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has characterized it as a looming “diplomatic tsunami” for Israel; Ali Abunimah, a prominent Palestinian-American […]
The Scorecard on Development, 1960-2010: Closing the Gap?
Executive Summary: This paper is the third installment in a series (the first and second editions were in 2001 and 2005) that traces a long-term growth failure in most of the world’s countries. For the vast majority of the world’s low- and middle-income countries, there was a sharp slowdown in economic growth for the two […]
Socialist and/or Feminist?
This year, 8 March marked a century of the celebration of International Women’s Day. But aside from a few publications and websites of women’s movements, this event went largely unremarked in the mainstream press, and also in the public consciousness. The idea of International Women’s Day was born in the socialist movement in the first […]
How Many Cancers Did Chernobyl Really Cause?
There is a lot of confusion about how many excess cancer deaths will likely result from the 1986 Chernobyl accident in Ukraine. As we see below, 70,000 and 35,000 are reasonable estimates of the number of excess cancers and cancer deaths attributable to the accident. Much lower numbers of cancers and deaths are often cited, […]
Arming the Libyan Rebels
Jon Stewart: Jon Stewart: Oh, people, we are now into our third week of a military bombing campaign in Libya, Operation Odyssey Dawn. The operation cleverly named for the Odyssey, a 20-year harrowing journey through a hellscape where nearly everyone is killed. Adding “dawn” . . . so it’s the earliest part of that […]
Libya and the Laws of War: Interview with Michael Mandel
With respect to international law, in what ways does this intervention in Libya differ from those carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq? The intervention in Afghanistan, despite protestations to the contrary, was not authorized by the Security Council, whose relevant resolutions did not even mention Afghanistan, let alone authorize “all necessary means.” That was because […]
Russia Opposes West over Arming Libyan Opposition
The West should not arm the Libyan opposition, says Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. This video was released by Press TV on 30 March 2011. Cf. “Moscow absolutely disagrees with statements by certain participants in the operation in Libya and their intentions to arm rebels who resisted Muammar Gaddafi’s troops” (“Russia, Austria Reveal Close […]
Al-Jazeera: An Island of Pro-Empire Intrigue
The Empire admits: without Al-Jazeera, they could not have bombed Libya. How did Al-Jazeera, once dubbed the ‘terror network’ by some and whose staff were martyred by US bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, end up becoming the media war propagandist for yet another Western war against a small state of the Global South, Libya? We […]
Joint Statement of 58 Communist and Workers’ Parties against Imperialist Aggression in Libya
The imperialist killers headed by the USA, France, Britain and NATO as a whole and with the approval of the UN started a new imperialist war. This time in Libya. Their allegedly humanitarian pretexts are completely misleading! They throw dust into peoples’ eyes! Their real goals are the hydrocarbons in Libya. We, the Communist and […]
