Geography Archives: Russia

Dear Amnesty (amnestyis@amnesty.org): “Russia’s threats to abort a binding UN resolution on Syria for the second time are utterly irresponsible,” said José Luis Díaz, Amnesty’s representative to the UN.  “Russia bears a heavy responsibility for allowing the brutal crackdown to continue.”1 With Libya still suffering the lethal consequences of western military “liberation,” with Iran gravely […]

One state or two?  Boycott of Israeli goods or goods from the settlements?  Is the lobby the genesis of American wrongdoing in Palestine or is it imperialism?  The questions — regarding vision, strategy, and analysis — produce sharp cleavages on the Left.  Indeed, generally ones much deeper than they need to be.  And they remain […]

Sasha Lilley: Protests against Wall Street have inspired many people to move their money from big banks to smaller banks and credit unions and encourage others to do the same.  Why might you be skeptical of this effort? Doug Henwood: There are several reasons.  First of all, I think a lot of the big banks […]

  From the editorial board of Skepsis, an appeal to the Russian speople to not to be fooled into thinking their problems can be solved by elections. Don’t Step on That Rake Again! The public mood is changing. Even before the elections, on the streets of Moscow and Petersburg, in the major cities’ (and even […]

Hurray!  Merkel won the day!  It took a long night of backroom bargaining, but except for that Tory, David Cameron, all European Union members agreed to save the euro, save the economy, save the world!  It had been on the brink of disaster, Sarkozy warned on the eve of the meeting: unless we reach agreement […]

Victor Nieto is a cartoonist in Venezuela.  Cf. Vitaly Churkin, “Russia Against Any Sanctions on Syria” (2 December 2011); “Done Deal: Russia Supplies Cruise Missiles to Syria” (RT, 2 December 2011). var idcomments_acct = ‘c90a61ed51fd7b64001f1361a7a71191’; var idcomments_post_id; var idcomments_post_url; | Print

Shlomo Sand.  The Invention of the Jewish People.  Verso, 2009. By this time already, after 60-plus years of heatedly arguing the topic back and forth, is there anything new and insightful to be said that might have a bearing on the Israel-Palestine conflict and help to bring some political and intellectual closure at long last […]

World Peace Forum Teach-In, Vancouver, Canada, November 12, 2011 (Modified from Notes) We are at what social theorists call a “historic moment,” in which real change suddenly seems possible.  It is therefore all the more important to learn from past struggles.  One of the first lessens of a long history of dissent from the early […]

  The Occupy Wall Street movement has transfixed the nation.  In just a few weeks, it has spread from Manhattan to hundreds of towns and cities, and it has now taken root in other countries.  It has focused the widespread anger that we feel toward a tiny group of extraordinarily rich individuals (the 1%) who […]

What’s the origin of the Islamic Republic’s biggest banking scandal? The financial conglomerate Amir Mansour Arya Investment Development Company allegedly procured several letters of credit from domestic banks totaling $2.8 billion — far above the company’s available collateral.  The Arya Group, founded by Amir Mansour Khosravi and now controlled by his son Mah-Afarid, controlled around […]

  In the wars currently waged on the backs of the Arab revolutions, one particular term stands out in the lexicon of Arab politicians and their columnist and media acolytes: the phrase “convergence of interests,” which has made a big comeback. In Tunisia, liberals of the worst kind, and Islamists of the opportunist variety, have […]

There has been a lot of hand-wringing and moralizing about the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) blocking a resolution in the UN against the government of Syria last week.  China and Russia used a rare double veto as permanent members of the Security Council, and the other three abstained. “During this […]

  As I have understood the task at hand, the editors of Aneek expect me to respond to the question: Is ‘Maoism’ in India an authentic application of ‘Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought’?  Frankly, I am not comfortable with such a positing of the question for it seems to suggest one “correct” interpretation of ‘Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought’ […]

Most Western Marxists suffer from a deep resentment: they have never experienced a successful communist revolution.  For some unaccountable reason, all of those successful revolutions have happened in the ‘East’: Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, China, Vietnam and so on.  And none of the few revolutions in the ‘West’, from Finland to Germany, […]

Mike Elk: There are a number of comparisons between the two [the “Arab Spring” and Occupy Wall Street].  In the protests in the Middle East you had people protesting for a number of reasons. . . .  They are driven largely by social media, and then institutional actors like unions and other groups start joining […]

Grand Mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmad Badr Eddin Hassoun On October 2, near the University of Ebla in Idlib province, gunmen shot dead the son of the Grand Mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmad Badr Eddin Hassoun — Saria Hassoun, a student of the university.  A victim of the attack also was Professor Mohammad al Omar. […]

Yanis Varoufakis is a prestigious economist who heads the Department of Economic Policy at the University of Athens.  From 2004 to 2007 Varoufakis served as economic adviser to George Papandreou.  Author of several books on Game Theory, Varoufakis is also a recognized speaker and often appears as guest analyst for news media such as the […]

  Is current U.S. foreign policy in Africa following a blueprint drawn up almost eight years ago by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, one of the most conservative think tanks in the world?  Although it seems odd that a Democratic administration would have anything in common with the extremists at Heritage, the convergence in policy and […]

  Despite my very negative position on the regime for private and public reasons, the truth is that the regime is very strong, and neither the outside nor the inside were able to make it change its usual stances.  This strength does not come from a vacuum.  The regime has a broad popular base that […]

The Foreign Ministers of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, meeting in Caracas, Venezuela on 9 September 2011, recalling the Special Communiqué of the Political Council on 4 March 2011 and the Special Communiqué of the Ministerial Social Council on 19 March 2011, condemns the NATO intervention in Libya and its illegal […]