Geography Archives: United States

At dawn on June 28, the Honduran military abducted President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint and flew him out of the country.  Conflicting and ambiguous statements from the Obama administration left many confused about whether it opposed this coup or was really trying to help it succeed.  Here are the top ten indicators (with apologies to […]

The news from the Danish capital gives a picture of chaos. After planning a conference with about 40 thousand people in attendance, the hosts find it impossible to honor their promise. Evo, the first of the two presidents of ALBA-member countries to arrive, stated some truths derived from the millennium-old culture of his people.

The ‘Sandwich Theory’ I was piqued by the phrase ‘sandwich theory’ when I first heard it from Delhi students.  They were referring to the views of a section of articulate, influential, middle India in the wake of the controversies over Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh and now Operation Green Hunt.  The ‘theory’, if we may call […]

  But for Iran, the 6th Manama Dialogue would have failed to achieve its very objective, namely serving as a forum for debating regional security.  Held in Bahrain from 11 to 13 December, the occasion attracted Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki following a two-year absence from the annual event. Senior Iranian officials shunned the 2007 […]

We want to draw your attention to a brilliant piece, “Iran’s Foreign Policy Strategy After Saddam,” just published by Kayhan Barzegar, an Iranian scholar and foreign policy analyst currently at the Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.  We have previously posted about an Op Ed that Barzegar published on Iranian perspectives about […]

Iran is not going to the 2010 World Cup, but there is another football being kicked around in the domestic Iranian media: the extent of poverty in Iran. Last month, the Statistical Center of Iran reported that 70 percent of Iranians earn less than a monthly income of $450 for a household of five.  This […]

I’m going to discuss the utility of non-violent resistance as it applies to resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict and, specifically, the occupation and blockade of the Gaza strip.  Even more specifically, I’m going to discuss the Gaza Freedom March (GFM), of which I’m one of the organizers.  But before discussing Palestinian non-violence, several things must be […]

The United States has already lost the war in Afghanistan, just as it has lost the war in Iraq. President Barack Obama’s vast expansion of the Afghan war announced Dec. 1, and the extension of the violence into neighboring Pakistan, are intended to camouflage the reality of defeat, as was the Bush Administration’s “surge” in […]

The historical geography of capitalist development is at a key inflexion point in which the geographical configurations of power are rapidly shifting at the very moment when the temporal dynamic is facing very serious constraints.  Three-percent compound annual growth (generally considered the minimum satisfactory growth rate for a healthy capitalist economy) is becoming less and […]

1. Where We Are: a) The world has entered a depression, whose greatest impact is yet to come (in the next five years). b) The United States has entered a serious decline in geopolitical power, whose greatest impact is yet to come (in the next five years). c) The world environment is entering into serious […]

“Sanctions alone cannot eradicate apartheid; that task is ultimately left to the people of South Africa themselves.  But economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land.” — Richard L. Trumka, June 23, 1987 “We call on other workers and unions […]

Forbes magazine recently placed two Mexicans, Carlos Slim and Joaquín Guzmán, high on their list of the most powerful people in the world.  Carlos Slim is the world’s third-richest man and CEO of a telecommunications company and Joaquín Guzmán is the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel.  While the purpose and the methodology of this […]

Western media commentary continues to depict Iran as having “rejected” the Baradei proposal for refueling the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), thereby setting the stage for the Obama Administration to pursue, at a minimum, tougher multilateral and unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic. As we wrote about in The Race for Iran, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr […]

The Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME) continues its fight for its members’ jobs and for the union itself, but now, two months since President Felipe Calderón’s liquidation of the state-owned Light and Power Company, seizure of the facilities, and firing of the 44,000 workers, and faced with the government’s intransigence, the union has been forced […]

  The talks between the G5 plus 1 and Iran are careening toward a premature breakdown.  If they do fall apart, it will be due in large part to a serious diplomatic miscalculation by the Obama administration. Along with its European allies, the Obama administration seized on a plan that cleverly asked Iran to divest […]

  Paul Jay, Senior Editor, The Real News Network: So let’s talk about Copenhagen.  If in fact most of the scientific community is quite persuaded in the climate change science, and certainly they are, and all the world governments say they are, what’s preventing us from getting a serious agreement, and particularly with China and […]

Take a look at the map.  Afghanistan is next to or near Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan, and India.  These are all countries that are vitally important to the United States as key allies or enemies, and as potential economic and political competitors.  Afghanistan is also next to Turkmenistan and other Central Asian Republics that are […]

  Farzana Shaikh.  Making Sense of Pakistan.  New York: Columbia University Press, 2009.  ix + 274 pp.  $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14962-4. Farzana Shaikh offers a scholarly and erudite study of the competition to define and establish a “national” identity for Pakistan.  The author argues that contested visions of the religious nature of the postcolonial state […]

On November 7, 2009, the Western media devoted ample space to the Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez.  The news from Havana about the dispute between the dissident and Cuban authorities circled the world and overshadowed the rest of the news.1 Sanchez recounted her mishap in detail on her blog and in the press.  In doing so, […]

Understanding the Deficit One of the most popular causes among Washington political insiders is reducing the budget deficit.  The conventional story in these circles is that current and projected future deficits will place an unbearable burden on future generations.  Their argument is that the need to reduce the deficit is a question of intergenerational equity. […]