Testimony at a hearing entitled “The U.S. Government Response to the Nuclear Power Plant Incident in Japan,” held by the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the U.S. House of Representatives, 6 April 2011 Summary The crisis underway at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has revealed serious nuclear safety shortcomings […]
Geography Archives: United States
Bring the War Dollars Home, Fund Local Needs!
Washington is broken — there has been no real debate on the $126 billion requested to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yet $33 billion is being cut from vital programs — from heating oil for poor families to milk for infants to Pell grants for college students. We have a new opportunity to […]
US Nuclear Power Plants: Internal NRC Documents Reveal Doubts about Safety Measures
In the weeks following the Fukushima accident, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear industry officials have been asserting that US nuclear plants are better prepared to withstand a catastrophic event like the March 11 earthquake and tsunami than Japanese plants because they have additional safety measures in place. According to internal NRC documents, however, there […]
The Everyday Violence of Urban Neoliberalism: An Interview with Nik Theodore
Nik Theodore is Director of the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a leading theorist of the urban dimensions of neoliberal restructuring. He has collaborated closely with the Right to the City Alliance, the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, and other groups that have been at the […]
Libya and the Laws of War: Interview with Michael Mandel
With respect to international law, in what ways does this intervention in Libya differ from those carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq? The intervention in Afghanistan, despite protestations to the contrary, was not authorized by the Security Council, whose relevant resolutions did not even mention Afghanistan, let alone authorize “all necessary means.” That was because […]
America’s Libyans
The Benghazi council chose as its leader the colorless former justice minister Mustafa Abdel Jalil. Jalil’s brain is Mahmoud Jibril, a former head of the National Economic Development Board (NEDB). A U.S. embassy cable from May 11, 2009 (09TRIPOLI386) describes Jibril as keen on a close relationship with the U.S. and eager “to create a […]
China Reacts to Fukushima
The dark cloud hanging over the future of nuclear power because of the unfolding crisis in Japan may have a silver lining in China by increasing attention to reactor safety. Within days of the earthquake that crippled the nuclear plants in Japan, the Chinese government abruptly suspended approvals for new plant construction, suspended work […]
D’Escoto: The United Nations Is a Deadly U.S. Weapon
United Nations, Mar. 31 (Prensa Latina) — Former Nicaraguan foreign minister Miguel D’Escoto, now appointed as the representative of Libya to the UN, said Thursday that the United Nations has become a “lethal weapon of the Empire (United States).” “We have to get it back, because if it dies it will not be born again,” […]
Long Blackouts Pose Risk to US Reactors
Long before it happened in Japan, regulators in the United States knew that a similar, days-long power failure, whatever the cause, could lead to a radioactive leak in this country. Alan Kolaczkowski, Nuclear Engineer: Looking at the blackout situations and losses of all power, we know that once those pumps finally die off — […]
Ohio Senate Bill 5 to Be Voted on Wednesday — Show Your Opposition at the Statehouse
Against the strong will of Ohioans, the House Commerce and Labor Committee passed a version of Senate Bill 5 today that goes further in gutting the rights of workers and destroying the working middle class than the bill passed by the Senate. This blatant assault on working families, orchestrated by Gov. Kasich and his […]
NATO’s Fascist War
The rebel leaders tipped their hand too early. Now the whole of Libya, including the rebels, understand what they are: traitors dependent on invaders. The rebels thus now lack motive force as well as military training: “Libyan Rebels Flee as Kadafi’s Forces Defend Surt” (Los Angeles Times, 29 March 2011). The only way they can […]
Loving the Libyan Rebels
The multinational empire has come up with a great deal for itself: using Libya’s own money to finance the Libyan rebels to fight against Libya. Ali Tarhouni, a US-educated economist who just got appointed “finance minister” of the rebel “Interim Transitional National Council,” explains the deal: “Right now, there is no immediate crisis kind of […]
Al-Jazeera: An Island of Pro-Empire Intrigue
The Empire admits: without Al-Jazeera, they could not have bombed Libya. How did Al-Jazeera, once dubbed the ‘terror network’ by some and whose staff were martyred by US bombs in Iraq and Afghanistan, end up becoming the media war propagandist for yet another Western war against a small state of the Global South, Libya? We […]
Leonard Weinglass (1933-2011)
Leonard Weinglass, a leading leftwing lawyer in the United States with an international perspective, died in the early evening on March 23, 2011. Len fell ill in late January while in Cuba. In the first days of February exploratory surgery at Montefiore Hospital discovered that he had inoperable cancer of the pancreas. Lenny, a 1958 […]
In Memory of Leonard Weinglass
Not that long ago Len came to visit me and we worked for several hours preparing for the next step of my appeal. I noticed at the time that he was tired. I was worried with his advanced age that he was driving alone after a long trip from New York. The weather was […]
Libya: Stop the Aggression
The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement: Libya: Stop the Aggression The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly condemns the aerial bombardment by aircrafts and ship-based missiles on Libya by the Nato forces. The military strikes by the Nato forces comprising France, Britain and the United States […]
A System Turned Upside Down
The Tunisian revolution has wiped out the Ben Ali system, and the Egyptian revolution is about to eliminate the Mubarak system after the fall of the president. No doubt, the epoch of unlimited domination in the Arab world is coming to its end. After decades of despotic, patronage-based regimes, the Arab peoples seem determined to […]
President of Madison Firefighters after Senate Vote in Wisconsin
Joe Conway and The UpTake
Joe Conway, Madison Fire Fighters Local 311: This is a game changer for everybody here. . . . They took people’s rights away in a matter of minutes, . . . not playing by any rules at all. The UpTake: We’re hearing people talk about a call for a general strike. What do you […]
Bahraini Women Protest at American Embassy
“We don’t want to negotiate. We want to end the monarchy. We want to end the monarchy. Down with the monarchy!” “Down with the monarchy!” “The people want democracy!” “The people want democracy!”
You Can’t Pee for Free: Notes on the Privatization of the Public Sphere
In his 1994 book entitled The Location of Culture, post-colonial theorist Homi Bhaba writes that “cafes are part of the social phenomena of the ‘third place’ [which] . . . people occupy outside of the home and work. It’s a place to relax, to be alone, to socialize, to read, to gossip, to meet […]
