Geography Archives: South Korea

  • Thailand: Drop Lèse Majesté Charges against Giles Ji Ungpakorn

    Academics, Intellectuals and Members of Parliament from around the World Call for Charges against Giles Ji Ungpakorn to be Dropped Academics from U.K, Canada, France, South Africa, Ireland, Australia, South Korea, Greece and the U.S.A., including those from Oxford University and SOAS London University, have signed an open letter calling for charges of lèse majesté, […]

  • The Coronation of the New Emperor

    Around the world hundreds of millions of people witnessed the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States (US), or rather the coronation of the new “emperor.”  Even at the bottom tip of Africa, it was difficult to escape the scenes of imperial grandeur that beamed across television sets.  As was the case with […]

  • An Unarmed Palestinian Woman Confronts Israeli Soldiers

    This footage was first shown in the W (World Wide Weekly) program on South Korea’s MBC.   Brought to YouTube by oli505 11 months ago, it has been watched 306,150 times as of 12 January 2009, 15:15 PM.  The brave Palestinian woman in the video has been identified by Mitchell Cohen as Huwaida Arraf, a […]

  • Saturday 20/12 Global Day of Action against State Terrorism

      “Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]

  • Reflections on the Global Economic Crisis and Its Likely Impact on South Africa

      “Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]

  • One Hundred and Fifty Years of Marx’s Grundrisse: Incomplete, Complex and Prophetic

    “Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we put […]

  • South America: Recession Can Be Avoided

    Can South America escape the wrath of the economic and financial storms that have their epicenter in the United States?  Since the financial meltdown began in mid-September, the bond markets of most of the region (Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela) have been hit, as well as most of their stock markets and a number of currencies.  […]

  • Seized! The 2008 Land Grab for Food and Financial Security

    Today’s food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab.  On the one hand, “food insecure” governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snatching up vast areas of farmland abroad for their own offshore food production.  On the other hand, food corporations and private investors, hungry for profits […]

  • Asia and the Meltdown of American Finance

    The boardrooms and finance ministries of Seoul, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur are today filled with a fair degree of schadenfreude at America’s troubles.  Schadenfreude is not a very nice emotion; Theodor Adorno once defined it as “unanticipated delight in the sufferings of another.”  But asking Asia’s business and governing elites to repress shivers of […]

  • Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis

    International Political Economy Conference Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis Caracas, Venezuela Final Declaration Academics and researchers from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela participated in The International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to […]

  • India’s Combative Anti-Displacement Movement

      I recently spent three weeks gathering information about the anti-displacement movement in India.  As a guest of Visthapan Virodhi Jan Vikas Andolan (People’s Movement against Displacement and for Development), I traveled across central and eastern India visiting the sites of proposed industrial and mining projects, Special Economic Zones, and real estate developments.  I spoke […]

  • Iran: Comprehensive Sustainable Development as Potential Counter-Hegemonic Strategy

    The questions regarding variations in social development, economic progress, and political empowerment have produced a voluminous literature over the past century, and because of the complexity of these issues, much important reflection will continue well into the future.  In the early 1980s, a United Nations’ Commission coined the term “sustainable development” as a public statement […]

  • A Primer on Wall Street Meltdown

    Flying into New York Tuesday, I had the same feeling I had when I arrived in Beirut two years ago, at the height of the Israeli bombing of that city — that of entering a war zone. The immigration agent, upon learning I taught political economy, commented, “Well, I guess you folks will now be […]

  • Third World: Is Another Debt Crisis in the Offing?

    While taking a significant toll on public revenues,1 repayment of the public debt has, since 2004, ceased to be a major concern for most middle-revenue countries and for raw material-exporting countries in general.  In fact the majority of governments of these countries are having no trouble finding loans at historically low interest rates.  However, the […]

  • Dealing with Iran’s Not-So-Irrational Leadership

      Nothing expresses the widening gap between the mind frames of the Iranian ruling elite and their Western counterparts more than the headlines in their respective newspapers.  The American media, above all, have unilaterally resolved the intelligence questions over Iran’s nuclear program.  The New York Times leads the pack with articles and even editorials that […]

  • When the Tough Decide to Become Diplomatic

    President George W. Bush and his neo-con coterie made it a point of pride that their relationship to regimes they did not like was one of toughness, not of soft-soap diplomacy.  In his State of the Union speech in 2002, Bush denounced the “Axis of Evil” — composed of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea — […]

  • The March 20, 2008 US Declaration of War on Iran

      March 20, 2008, destined to be another day of infamy.  On this date the US officially declared war on Iran.  But it’s not going to be the kind of war many have been expecting. No, there was no dramatic televised announcement by President George W. Bush from the White House oval office.  In fact […]

  • Fear and Loathing in Bolivia: New Constitution, Polarization

    Right & Left confront at blockade “Let’s go unblock the road, compañeros!” a man in an old baseball cap yells as he joins a group of people hauling rocks and tires from a central intersection in Cochabamba.  This group of students and union activists are mobilizing against a civic strike led by middle-class foot soldiers […]

  • Save the Marxian Tradition at Seoul National University, South Korea

    “O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day “Help fund the good fight.   By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]

  • World Against War Conference

      “O there are times, we must confess To harboring a whim — we Like to picture old Karl Marx Sliding down our chimney” — Susie Day“Help fund the good fight.   By contributing to MR, you help reinforce the left and reclaim the future.” — Richard D. Vogel “To do my part, I just […]