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Statement of Support to CUNY Students Attacked and Arrested in Peaceful Protests Against Ex-Gen. David Petraeus
On September 18, 2013, a press release issued by the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Militarization of CUNY stated: “Six students were arrested in a brutal, unprovoked police attack during a peaceful protest by the City University of New York’s students and faculty against CUNY’s appointment of former CIA chief ex-General David Petraeus. Students were […]
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Germany: Threats of Violence, Hopes for Votes
All summer the threat of violence was in the air in Hellersdorf. This borough on the outskirts of East Berlin, once a huge site of modern high-rise buildings aimed at solving East German housing problems, provided homes for nearly 130,000 people. After “the Wall went down” many high-rise buildings were cropped from eleven to five […]
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Against War on Syria
Nicolás Maduro is the President of Venezuela. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print
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Killing Civilians to Protect Civilians in Syria
The drums of war are beating again. The Obama administration will reportedly launch a military strike to punish Syria’s Assad government for its alleged use of chemical weapons. A military attack would invariably kill civilians for the ostensible purpose of showing the Syrian government that killing civilians is wrong. “What we are talking about here […]
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The Struggle Continues: Seeking Compensation for Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims, 52 Years On
The drums of war are beating again. The Obama administration will reportedly launch a military strike to punish Syria’s Assad government for its alleged use of chemical weapons. A military attack would invariably kill civilians for the ostensible purpose of showing the Syrian government that killing civilians is wrong. “What we are talking about here […]
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We Can Smell the Tear Gas from Rio and Taksim to Tahrir
To you at whose side we struggle, June 30th will mark a new stage of rebellion for us, building on what started January 25th and 28th, 2011. This time we rebel against the reign of the Muslim Brotherhood that has brought only more of the same forms of economic exploitation, police violence, torture, and killings. […]
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Whose Majority? Understanding the Foundations of the Political Conflict Over Gezi Park Protests in Turkey
Turkey has been witnessing one of the most vibrant and creative protests in its history since a group of protestors were subjected to brutal police violence a month ago in Gezi Park, Istanbul. Primarily started as a reaction against the urban regeneration of Gezi Park, protests then proliferated in other parts of Istanbul and […]
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Kurds and Turks Share Doubts About Peace Talks Between PKK and Turkish Government
Diyarbakir (Amed) After nearly three decades of war, Turkey’s Kurdistan region, home for an estimated 25 million stateless Kurds, warily awaits a long-lasting peace. For the last 29 years this region has been ravaged by a ferocious conflict between the Turkish army, the NATO’s second largest, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a guerilla movement […]
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“The Economy Is Doing Fine, But the People Aren’t”: Some Facts on the Economic Background of the Protests in Turkey
Speaking about the then dictator of Nicaragua, US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt reportedly said: “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” Whether or not Roosevelt actually said it in so many words is disputable, but there is no doubt that it — i.e., dictatorship is licensed in […]
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The Choice for the Working Class Will Certainly Be Created
1. For days now Turkey has been witnessing a genuine popular movement. The actions and protests, which have started in Istanbul and spread all over Turkey, have a massive, legitimate, and historic character. The most important of all is the striking change in the mood of people. The fear and apathy has been overcome […]
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International Peace Delegation to Syria, May 2-10, 2013
Former U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire from Northern Ireland are two of twenty participants from seven countries that will participate in an international delegation to Syria, May 2-10, 2013. The purpose of the delegation is to meet with communities affected by the fighting, with a view towards facilitating peace and […]
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The Resistible Rise of a New One-Party System
Conversation in Germany these days, when not about soccer, dealt often with beef which was part horsemeat, high-priced organic “bio” eggs which weren’t all they claimed to be, or, in thrilling, moving detail, the last weeks, days, and hours of the one and only German Pope (since 1058 A.D.). Also under often heated debate was […]
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The Unusual Uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan, Two Years On
“Under Fire in Iraqi Kurdistan,” Extract from The Fourth Estate in Iraqi Kurdistan, a film by Rozh Ahmad On February 16th, 2011, in solidarity with the mass uprisings sweeping the Middle East, Kurds took to the streets of Sulaymaniyah in Iraqi Kurdistan and the following day demanded an end to their one and only official […]
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The Talented Mr. Takeyh: Why Doesn’t the Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Like Flynt & Hillary Mann Leverett?
If there’s one thing mainstream “Iran experts” hate, it’s well-credentialed, experienced analysts who dare challenge Beltway orthodoxies, buck conventional wisdom, and demythologize the banal, bromidic, and Manichean foreign policy narrative of the United States government and its obedient media. Such perspectives are shunned by “serious” scholars who play by the rules they and their former […]
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SNC’s Khatib Now Ready for Dialogue With Syria’s Assad — Why?
Note: Moaz al-Khatib is the President of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (commonly known as the Syrian National Coalition, SNC, the successor to the Syrian National Council, also known as SNC). | Print
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The Kurdish Rebellion in Syria: Toward Irreversible Liberation
The Kurds in Syria, the country’s largest ethnic minority, number an estimated three million. Despite having stayed neutral amid the civil war, they now control most of Syria’s Kurdish north they claim they have “liberated” from the Ba’athist regime and self-govern independently of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA). Although many Kurds still fear “re-occupation” […]
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Syrian Kurds — a Photo Essay
Syrian refugees fleeing for Iraqi Kurdistan, at the Girbalat crossing, northeast of Syria. In 2012 alone, over 50,000 Syrian refugees have fled the civil war for Iraqi Kurdistan, according to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials. An empty frame now, it long displayed a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad in central Derek, a Kurdish town bordering […]
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Crisis, Resistance, and Prospects: The Arab Revolutions and Beyond
The “Crisis, Resistance, and Prospects: The Arab Revolutions and Beyond” conference is being planned as a three-day event scheduled to take place at York University (4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) on March 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, 2013. The objective of this conference is to provide a critical intervention that seeks to challenge the dominant […]
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Where Is the Left in the Austere Germany of the “Patriots”?
Things in Berlin are all really up in the air! No, cancel that! Just the opposite; they are grounded — indefinitely! That giant new hub airport for Berlin, named after Willy Brandt, was due to be opened last June after weeks and months of ballyhoo. But it wasn’t. Something was not quite OK with the […]
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International Initiative to Stop the War in Syria: Yes to Democracy, No to Foreign Intervention!
We, the undersigned, who are part of an international civil society increasingly worried about the awful bloodshed of the Syrian people, are supporting a political initiative based on the results of a fact-finding mission which some of our colleagues undertook to Beirut and Damascus in September 2012. This initiative consists in calling for a delegation […]