From 21 January to 2 February 2010, Eric Toussaint and Olivier Bonfond — both involved in alterglobalization activism and members of the International Council of the World Social Forum, of the world coordination of social movements, and of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt 1 — participated in various events and […]
Geography Archives: Russia
Tehran Has No More Pomegranates
Anyone who has lived in Tehran knows how rapidly it morphs and expands. One can hardly keep track of the establishments opening or being shut down in a given week or of the buildings being erected in this neighborhood or that. It is no wonder, then, that Masoud Bakhshi chose in Tehran Has No More […]
“A Military Strike at Iran Would Be a Colossal Mistake”: An Interview with Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said last week that Iran’s latest statements and actions were compelling the United States “. . . and other countries” to resort to stiff sanctions. Russian Security Council Deputy Secretary Vladimir Nazarov said in his turn that Moscow might support sanctions but that they must be “adequate to […]
Discipline and Debate: Visions of the Enlightenment
Michael Sauter. Visions of the Enlightenment: The Edict on Religion of 1788 and the Politics of the Public Sphere in Eighteenth-Century Prussia. Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History. Leiden: Brill, 2009. xvii + 242 pp. $147.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-90-04-17651-5. In this recent book, Michael J. Sauter has set himself many tasks. His first argument urges […]
Electricity Emergency in Venezuela
Merida, February 9th, 2010 — Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez declared a state of emergency in the electricity sector Monday night on national radio and television. The emergency decree permits the electricity minister to take extraordinary measures, instructs the National Electricity Corporation (Corpoelec) to accelerate its schedule of infrastructure and investments, and calls for an education […]
Could the Obama Administration Perhaps Be Exaggerating Russian Enthusiasm for Expanded Sanctions on Iran?
In recent weeks, the Obama Administration has been enthusiastically spinning its progress in winning Russian support for prospective new sanctions on Iran. We have cautioned that, while Russia may, in the end, support a new UNSC sanctions resolution, it will not support broad-based sanctions against major sectors of Iran’s economy or measures that would get […]
Iran, China, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
The new secretary general of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Muratbek Sansyzbayevich Imanaliev, said at a news conference in Beijing earlier this week that the conflict in Afghanistan and expanding the SCO’s members to include Iran and Pakistan were the top issues on the SCO’s agenda in 2010. Certainly, these issues are likely to dominate […]
Germany’s Unilateral Sanction against Itself and the Unspoken Moral of the Story
German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently claimed at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Germany has always called for transparency and cooperation with Iran, but unfortunately Iran has not responded. Merkel also made it clear that her government will pursue unilateral economic sanctions in case China blocks an otherwise unanimous Security […]
The Ugly Face of the Beautiful Game
Christos Kassimeris. European Football in Black and White: Tackling Racism in Football. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008. viii + 267 pp. $75.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7391-1959-4; $29.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-7391-1960-0. Soccer fans held in thrall by the European Championships have no doubt observed the significant display of anti-racist statements and activities before, during, and after the […]
Zionism Laid Bare
The essential point of M. Shahid Alam‘s book, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, comes clear upon opening the book to the inscription in the frontispiece. From the Persian poet and philosopher Rumi, the quote reads, “You have the light, but you have no humanity. Seek humanity, for that is the goal.” Alam, […]
US Intelligence Report Classifies Venezuela as “Anti-US Leader”
3 February 2010 — As is custom at the beginning of each year, the different US agencies publish their famous annual reports on topics ranging from human rights, trafficking in persons, terrorism, threats, drug-trafficking, and other issues that indicate who will be this year’s target of US aggression. Yesterday, it was the intelligence community’s turn. […]
After the Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession, What Next?
John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review and author of The Great Financial Crisis (2009, with Fred Magdoff) and The Ecological Revolution (2009) — both from Monthly Review Press. This interview was conducted from Dhaka by Farooque Chowdhury (editor of Micro Credit: Myth Manufactured, 2007) for MRzine and Bangla Monthly Review. It is part […]
From the “Iraq Liberation Act” to an “Iran Liberation Act”?
As we noted yesterday, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass has attracted considerable attention with an opinion piece in Newsweek entitled “Enough is Enough: Why We Can No Longer Remain on the Sidelines in the Struggle for Regime Change in Iran.” As we reflected on Richard’s arguments, we recalled another high-profile piece of policy […]
Hugo Chavez Did Not Accuse the U.S. of Causing the Haitian Earthquake
On January 19, Spanish newspaper ABC, a newspaper of record in Spain, published a story entitled “Chavez Accuses US of Causing Earthquake in Haiti.” The story was quickly picked up by websites around the globe — most quoting Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez as saying the U.S. used a new tectonic weapon to induce the […]
1848
Mike Rapport. 1848: Year of Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 2009. xvi + 461 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-465-01436-1. Mike Rapport is one of the few scholars who write European history not as the history of a few select countries, but of the entire continent. Rapport is at home in the history of the […]
Colored Revolutions in Colored Lenses: A Comparative Analysis of U.S. and Russian Press Coverage of Political Movements in Ukraine, Belarus, and Uzbekistan
This study compared The New York Times‘ and The Moscow Times‘ coverage of the political movements in three former Soviet republics. Data analysis revealed a clear pro-movement pattern in The New York Times’ reporting. The U.S. newspaper used more pro-movement sources than pro-incumbent sources. Overall, The New York Times depicted the protesters favorably and […]
The Oliver Kamm School of Falsification: Imperial Truth-Enforcement, British Branch
An important and perhaps growing feature of official and strong-interest-group propaganda is the resort to personal attacks and flak to keep dissidents at bay and inconvenient thoughts out of sight and mind. This has been notable over many years in the case of pro-Israel propaganda, where we can observe a positive correlation between upward spikes […]
US: From Sanctions to War against Iran?
Kenneth Katzman: Certainly, as long as the floor is open for talks, there is always a hope for a deal. But I think, from the US standpoint, the United States is certainly not counting on a deal. Obviously, the thrust of US policy, I think, is starting to shift, from a focus on getting […]
Debating the Strategic Significance of Iran’s Natural Gas
Following on from our recent post, “Iran, the Competition over Eurasian Natural Gas, and the Revival of Classical Diplomacy in the 21st Century,” we want to draw readers’ attention, first of all, to a very thoughtful comment on that post from Ed Chow, our friend and colleague at CSIS. Ed generously notes his agreement with […]
Year of Resistance: Interview with Eva Golinger
Listen to Sheehan’s interview with Golinger: Eva Golinger: Venezuela is a very wealthy country in oil and gas reserves. It’s actually one of the largest oil producers in the world. It has over 24% of oil reserves in the entire world. That’s a lot for a country of 27 million people. And of course […]
