Geography Archives: United States

  Elkalam.com talks with Nadine Rosa-Rosso, former secretary general of the Parti du Travail (Workers’ Party) of Belgium, who has launched a Europe-wide campaign to remove Hamas from the list of terrorist organizations.  She explains the reasons for this initiative today. Why did you decide to launch an appeal for the removal of Hamas from […]

The battle over “intellectual property rights” is likely to be one of the most important of this century.  It has enormous economic, social, and political implications in a wide range of areas, from medicine to the arts and culture — anything where the public interest in the widespread dissemination of knowledge runs up against those […]

The United Nation’s watchdog on torture has criticized Israel for refusing to allow inspections at a secret prison, dubbed by critics as “Israel’s Guantanamo Bay” and demanded to know if more such clandestine detention camps are operating. In a report published on Friday, the Committee Against Torture requested that Israel identify the location of the […]

  The East Palestine Archipelago Above: Imagined map by Julien Bousac, graphically illustrating the Palestinians’ difficulty in getting around.  All the zones of the West Bank occupied by Israel are pictured as the sea.  Left: The legend of the map in English. Source: L’Atlas, Un monde à l’envers, Paris: Le Monde diplomatique, 2009. Download the […]

Nancy Fraser‘s analysis of the obstacles to social and political justice represents an advance at a theoretical level for those who face the dilemmas of social practice.  In this sense, her work reinforces the importance of the role of the intellectual, not only when it comes to dealing with moments of crisis, but also with […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its May 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. Today, in May 2009, few familiar with recent events in Nepal would dispute that there is a serious threat to the civil peace, whose origin dates from the […]

To watch my country of birth unravel has been a curious thing. As the Taliban continues to sweep across vast swaths of northern Pakistan, American pundits and officials ask incredulously, “How can their government let this happen?  How can their people let this happen?”  The United States looks on anxiously like a jolted passerby watching […]

  Countless academics have sought to measure the tangible benefits of being a union member.  The difference between union and non-union wages, often referred to as the “union premium,” can be calculated in many different ways.  It’s a profoundly complex field. . . .  Here’s a classic example of the poop one has to wade […]

Paul Jay:  So, we left off the first segment of the interview with you suggesting that there really doesn’t seem to be any kind of sensible strategy of the US in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  What would the sensible strategy be right now?  Obama seems to have . . . it’s very strange, they assessed the […]

  The latest economic indicators in the United States and other industrial countries suggest that economic decline might finally be coming to an end and a recovery can begin by late 2009.  Once it starts, however, the global recovery can face a new potential threat from rapidly rising commodity prices, particularly for oil, food, and […]

  Paul Jay: So, President Karzai has just been in Washington, President Zardari has been in Washington, meeting President Obama.  What effect are the policies of the three presidents having in Pakistan? Aijaz Ahmad: We know that the pressure from the United States that has been mounted over the last two weeks has led to […]

  “I also made it clear that the United States will work with our Afghan and international partners to make every effort to avoid civilian casualties as we help the Afghan government combat our common enemy,” US President Barack Obama promised.  He received his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts Hamid Karzai and Asif Ali Zardari at […]

  On May 6, 67 Mexican human rights organizations (all non-governmental organizations) along with several other Mexican organizations and individuals, made a call to end US support to the Mexican military in the war on drugs. The letter came after the approval of the 2009 installment of the controversial three-year Merida initiative which provides US […]

Washington, DC (May 7, 2009) — The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 280 organizations working to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law, and equality, today criticized the Obama Administration for including $2.775 billion in unconditioned military aid to Israel in its FY2010 […]

The wave of pressures exercised by Washington on Israel could signal the beginning of a new era in the relations between the US and Israeli governments.  The administration of US President Barack Obama has reiterated the requirement that a Palestinian state be created, a key issue, which is not supported by the new right-wing government […]

  5 May 2009 — It has finally happened right here in the United States.  Citizens who believe healthcare is a human right have been arrested and are being processed like criminals through the Southeast District of Columbia police station.  Their crime? Asking for single payer healthcare reform — publicly funded, privately delivered healthcare — […]

Francis R. Nicosia.  Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.  Cambridge University Press, 2008.  xiv + 324 pp.  $85.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-88392-4. In his latest book, Francis R. Nicosia returns to and explores in greater detail one of the major topics of his important earlier book, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question (1985): the complex […]

Introduction The stimulus bill that President Obama pushed through Congress in the first month of his presidency was an important first step in counteracting the economic downturn.  However, as many analysts have noted, it is not likely to be sufficient to turn around the economy.  Economic and fiscal data only available after the passage of […]

Speaking at the National Assembly, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani said that the military could stop the Taliban and that the country’s nuclear weapons were safe. “Does this parliament not have moral courage to stop them?” he asked. Pakistan is on a precipice.  The Swat Valley, once called the Switzerland of Pakistan for […]

Introduction Vaclav Smil’s Energy in World History (1994) provides an overview of global changes in human energy use from before the Neolithic Revolution to modern times.  In various places in the book, Smil discusses the relationship between energy use and the rise of centers of economic and political power in world history.  In explaining what […]