November 29, 2010 We will be writing about the WikiLeaks documents and Iran throughout this week. As we sort through the cables that are available so far, the first major point is that, as even the New York Times‘ quasi-neoconservative David Sanger and his colleagues noted in their first story on the documents, the Obama […]
Geography Archives: United States
WikiLeaks Honduras: State Dept. Busted on Support of Coup
By July 24, 2009, the U.S. government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009. The U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with subject: “Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup,” asserting that “there is no doubt” that the events of […]
Decoding Class Politics in Iran
Reference ID Date Classification Origin 09RPODUBAI177 2009-04-22 11:11 SECRET//NOFORN Iran RPO Dubai Game of Attrition. Ahmadinejad’s defeats on the budget and his plan to distribute cash payments to lower-income Iranians show that power centers, such as the Majles, are actively working to pressure the President prior to the June election, according to [Source removed]. […]
Morales Laments Exclusion of His Proposal from Cancún Summit
Bolivian President Evo Morales lamented this Friday that his proposal as well as that of Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, calling on the rich countries to halve their greenhouse gas emissions, has not been welcomed into the Cancún Summit on climate change to be held next week. Morales indicated at a press conference that the petitions […]
Gates’ False Iran Premise: Sanctions Will Not Sow Internal Discord and Change Iran’s Nuclear Calculations
Since returning to government service to take up his current position, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been a sober skeptic about the wisdom of military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets — under President Obama as well as under President George W. Bush, and regardless of whether such strikes would be carried out by the […]
Squeezing Iran: The European Connection
Negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program are due to start again shortly, and once again the European Union is called upon as a “mediator.” This is no minor challenge. With Iran insisting on discussing Israel’s nuclear capacity and the United States preparing a tougher uranium swap agreement, a deal seems as far away as ever. Nevertheless, […]
Noam Chomsky on Hopes and Prospects for Activism: “We Can Achieve a Lot”
Acclaimed philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He shared his perspectives on international affairs, economics, and other themes in an interview conducted at his office in Boston on September 14, 2010. Keane Bhatt: Your new book Hopes and Prospects begins with the story of […]
China’s Export Conundrum
In 2009, the European Union, United States and Mexico filed a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against China’s export restrictions on certain raw materials, including bauxite, coke, fluorspar, silicon carbide and zinc. They said that, firstly, these constraints — in the form of export taxes, quotas, licences and so on — caused […]
Excerpts from FAO’s Food Outlook (November 2010)
International prices of most agricultural commodities have increased in recent months, some sharply. The FAO Food Price index has gained 34 points since the previous Food Outlook report in June, averaging 197 points in October, only 16 points short from its peak in June 2008. The upward movements of prices were connected with several factors, […]
The Value of Money
Paul Jay: On November 7, the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, issued a statement calling for the reintroduction of some form of gold standard to establish the value of money. Why now? . . . Is Robert Zoellick’s proposal grasping at straws? Jane D’Arista: Well, what you’re saying is quite right. The […]
Core Inflation Virtually Flat since July
The Consumer Price Index rose 0.2 percent in October as the inflation in the price of energy rebounded to 2.6 percent in the month. The overall price of core consumer goods and services remained virtually flat for the third consecutive month. Over that time, the core rate of inflation has been only 0.2 percent, annualized. […]
The Gains from Trade: South American Economic Integration and the Resolution of Conflict
It has long been argued that expanding commercial relations between countries acts as an incentive for nations to avoid hostilities up to and including armed conflict. Indeed this was a major impetus behind the economic integration of Europe1 after World War II, which led to the European Union and more recently the currency union of […]
Can We Afford Cost-Saving Efficiency?
So there are no technological fixes [to the environmental problem caused by increasing consumption] in sight? I’ve gone on from the basic footprint concept to demonstrate a couple of other interesting spin-offs. The assumption seems to be, in the mainstream, that improved technology, improved material and energy efficiency will help to solve this problem. […]
David Brooks’ Apocalypse
“Elections come and go, but the United States is still careening toward bankruptcy. By 2020, the U.S. will be spending $1 trillion a year just to pay the interest on the national debt. Sometime between now and then the catastrophe will come. It will come with amazing swiftness. The bond markets are with you until […]
No Fracking Way! PA: Exemption without Taxation in the “Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas”
Part 1 Part 2 Part 1 Tom Corbett, Governor-Elect for Pennsylvania: It’s now time to come together, to tell the rest of the world — to tell the rest of the world Pennsylvania is open for business. Jesse Freeston: And that business is natural gas. Pennsylvania’s race was unique in that it was fought primarily […]
Emerging Markets Confront QE2: Capital Controls, Reserve Accumulation, or Both?
Paul Jay: You recently wrote a piece in the Guardian. The title is “Who Pays the Bill for the Fed’s QE2? By Depressing US Interest Rates, Quantitative Easing Forces Developing Countries to Defend Their Currencies at Crippling Cost.” What do you mean by that? Kevin P. Gallagher: One of the unintended effects of QE2 […]
The War on the Resistance in Lebanon Enters Its Fifth Phase
“We have overcome four phases [Resolution 1559, sponsored by France and the United States, imposing the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon; the French temptation, i.e. Jacques Chirac’s offer of power in exchange for disarmament; Israel’s July War, backed by the United States, against Lebanon in 2006; the 5 May 2008 decision of the Lebanese government, prodded […]
G-20 Barking Up the Wrong Tree
If the G-20 is going to be nothing more than a talking shop on economic issues, they ought to at least talk about the economic problems that really matter, and the ones that they can do something about. Not that currency values don’t matter — they are actually very important. And it is interesting to […]
Israel’s Self-Destruction: Reunifying the Palestinian Nation
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, is in the United States this week, but few observers expect an immediate or significant breakthrough in the stalled peace talks with the Palestinian leadership. In public, Mr. Netanyahu maintains he is committed to the pledge he made last year, shortly after he formed his right-wing government, to work towards […]
After the Midterm Elections: Hawks Up the Pressure for Military Action and Obama Sets Iran Up for More Sanctions
Tony Karon has another sharp piece this week, entitled “Israel Pressed for a Tougher U.S. Line on Iran.” For some time now, we have been forecasting an intensification of pressure on the Obama Administration, by Israel and pro-Israel constituencies in the United States, for U.S. military strikes against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It appears that the […]
