JOHANNESBURG, 11 May 2009 (IRIN) — Rich countries and firms are leasing or buying massive tracts of land in developing nations for the production of food or biofuel. An area equivalent to Germany’s farmed land is at stake, and tens of billions of dollars on offer. On the plus side, agro-industrial production could develop underused […]
Geography Archives: South Africa
Together without God
Ronald Aronson, Living without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided, Counterpoint Press, 2008. Something unprecedented happened in American publishing in the last four years. Books explicitly advocating atheism became bestsellers. It happened despite (or because of) the theocratic drift in our politics. In 2005, Wayne State University professor Ronald Aronson called […]
Scottish Trade Union Congress Votes for BDS against Israel
22 April 2009 — On Wednesday, Scotland joined Ireland and South Africa when the Scottish Trade Union Congress, representing every Scottish trade union, voted overwhelmingly to commit to boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. This is the third example of a national trade union federation committing to BDS and is a clear indication that, […]
Israel Forcefully Condemned at UN Conference against Racism
The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended the conference to condemn the Israeli government’s brutal and repressive policy against the Palestinians. The European delegates walked out when he called the government of Israel “racist,” but the Latin Americans stayed. The United States and eight other countries boycotted the event. The Israeli government’s stance against […]
Israel on Trial
Chilling testimony by Israeli soldiers substantiates charges that Israel’s Gaza Strip assault entailed grave violations of international law. The emergence of a predominantly right-wing, nationalist government in Israel suggests that there may be more violations to come. Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli civilians also constituted war crimes, but do not excuse Israel’s transgressions. While […]
Motorola Sells Israel Bomb Division as National Boycott Campaign Advances
Washington, DC (April 2) — The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and allied organizations participating in a national boycott campaign against Motorola welcomed news that Motorola Israel Ltd. has sold its Government Electronics Department, which made several products that enable Israel’s military occupation of and human rights abuses against Palestinians. The reported sale […]
Investigate the Israeli Missile Contract
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement: Investigate the Israeli Missile Contract The Rs. 10,000 crore missile production deal with an Israeli company, the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), has now been exposed as a deal involving massive kickbacks besides being an unnecessary contract. The Left parties […]
On Anti-Semitism, Boycotts, and the Case of Hermann Dierkes: An Open Letter from Jewish Peace Activists
Background Raymond Deane, “A Public Stoning in Germany,” Electronic Intifada, 6 March 2009; and Yossi Bartal, “The German Left and Israel,” Alternative Information Center, 18 March 2009. We are peace activists of Jewish background. Some of us typically identify in this way; others of us do not. But we all object to those who claim […]
Anti-communism with a Liberal Face
Murali Balaji, The Professor and the Pupil: The Politics and Friendship of W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson, New York: Nation Books, 2007. W. E. B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson have been poorly served by their biographers. David Levering Lewis and Martin Duberman found these two US communist revolutionaries about as congenial […]
Who’s Telling the Truth About Iran’s Nuclear Program?
Since February 2003, Iran’s nuclear program has undergone what the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) itself admits to be the most intrusive inspection in its entire history. After thousands of hours of inspections by some of the most experienced IAEA experts, the Agency has verified time and again that (1) there is no evidence […]
Statement of Joel Kovel Regarding His Termination by Bard College
Joel Kovel holds the Alger Hiss chair in social studies at Bard College and is the author of Overcoming Zionism among other titles. He has recently been informed by the college that his contract will not be extended beyond July 1. In the statement below, he argues that the termination is due to his […]
The Disease of Privatization
Introduction Over the last two months, cholera has broken out in a number of provinces in South Africa. Thousands of people have been infected and over fifty people have already died.1 Initially, a number of politicians, including parliamentarians from the right-wing Democratic Alliance (DA), tried to blame Zimbabweans — who were fleeing the economic meltdown, […]
Human Rights Watch Goes to War
The Middle East has always been a difficult challenge for Western human rights organizations, particularly those seeking influence or funding in the United States. The pressure to go soft on US allies is in some respects reminiscent of Washington’s special pleading for Latin American terror regimes in the 1970s and 1980s. In the case […]
Zimbabwe Ten Years On: Results and Prospects
Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros
After a decade of political polarization and international standoff, the debate on Zimbabwe has finally been opened up to a wider reading public, thanks to Mahmood Mamdani’s “Lessons of Zimbabwe,” appearing in the London Review of Books (04/12/2008). Renowned scholars, within and without Africa, have broken their silence and have taken public positions. The […]
Victory for Worker Solidarity:South African Dock Workers Refuse to Offload Israeli Goods
6 February 2009 The Congress of South African Trade Union is pleased to announce that its members, dock workers belonging to the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), achieved a victory last night when they stood firm by their decision not to offload the Johanna Russ, a ship that was carrying Israeli […]
Reflections on Academic Sanctions
In the last few weeks, following the recent military attack on Gaza, we have seen an increase in calls for boycott of Israeli institutions in general, and academic institutions in particular. A general boycott strategy can be useful indeed in mobilizing solidarity with Palestinians and undermining support for Israeli war crimes internationally and within the […]
Prophetic Verse
please keep in mind as you prepare to pass sentence you may at some time be in need of a presidential pardon and I may, understandably, be reluctant to grant it. Dennis Brutus is a South African poet. Active against Apartheid, he was arrested in 1963 and imprisoned for 18 months on Robben Island. After […]
Free Palestine! Isolate Apartheid Israel!South African Dock Workers Refuse to Handle Israeli Goods
COSATU and PSC launch Week of Action for Palestine supported by YCL and other progressive organisations In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by […]
Cries of Ghosts across Centuries
Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe! Woe! Woe! Towers that soared into clear blue are at blocks of stone settled into earth all gone, all shattered ground into scattered dust Babylon has fallen, has fallen Yea, Babylon has fallen Woe! Woe! Woe! Now hordes of warring barbarians literate, skilled in killing […]
More Zionist Than Israel? German Policy and Media on Gaza
The Gaza massacre, at least for the moment, is over — ended just before Barack Obama’s inauguration, so as not to cast an unwelcome cloud over his first hours as U.S. President. The initial Palestinian death toll is 1,300 . . . and expected to rise. (Four times that number were injured, and more wounded […]
