Geography Archives: Yemen

a This is the full-text of the introductory remarks made by the author at the Fourth Anuradha Ghandy Memorial Lecture delivered by Arundhati Roy on 20th January 2012 at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. I woke up this morning to the chirping sounds of the swallows.  Arundhati Roy seems to have brought in those love-birds that […]

Aijaz Ahmad: For one thing, Syria is the last remaining representative of Arab nationalism as it used to be understood historically.  It still calls itself socialist.  Even though it has implemented a great deal of neoliberal reform, the state sector is still dominant.  It bans, literally bans, religion from politics.  It will not recognize the […]

The leader of al-Nahda movement, Rachid Ghannouchi, made his first visit to a foreign country after the first post-revolution Tunisian elections. His choice was the State of Qatar. Analysts see many messages in this gesture but some Tunisians are troubled by the invitation he had extended to the Emir of Qatar. Although many do not want any foreign leader present during the opening session of the constituent assembly, some Tunisians are singling out the ruler of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, as a persona non grata. They see him as a bully who is using Al Jazeera and his huge wealth to push an agenda that is not necessarily in the interest of their country.

  In the wars currently waged on the backs of the Arab revolutions, one particular term stands out in the lexicon of Arab politicians and their columnist and media acolytes: the phrase “convergence of interests,” which has made a big comeback. In Tunisia, liberals of the worst kind, and Islamists of the opportunist variety, have […]

I have been staring incredulously at my TV screen these past few hours as the story of Iran’s alleged assassination attempt of a Saudi diplomat in Washington unfolds in dramatic increments. Reporters keep repeating the theme “like out of a Hollywood script” as they eke out increasingly unlikely details about this “terror” plot. My immediate […]

Dear friends, As you probably know, the Obama administration has just publicly charged that Iranian government agents have been plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States.  Washington is now using this outrageous claim to try and rally support for new sanctions against the Islamic Republic, isolate it in the international arena, and […]

Oct. 15 is a day of nationally coordinated antiwar actions in cities across the U.S., the 10th anniversary of the massively destructive and criminal U.S. war on Afghanistan. When the U.S. government began its attack on Afghanistan 10 years ago, President Bush called it a “war on terror.”  It was followed by 8 years of […]

CCR Cites a Lack of Adherence to Constitutional and International Laws That Afford Due Process Today, in response to the news that a missile attack by an American drone aircraft had killed U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki in Yemen, the Center for Constitutional Rights, which had previously brought a challenge in federal court to the legality […]

  The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) organised on September 13-14 a two-day international trade union meet in the European Parliament complex in Strasbourg, France, to express solidarity with the fighting people of Arab countries and voice strong protest against the hegemonic interference of US imperialism and its European allies in the internal affairs […]

For a regime which has, as ICG put it, really inflicted so many wounds on itself (not to mention Syrians) . . . this strikes me as a very effective strategy going forward.  You corrupt, collaborationist, monarchical, brutal regimes in the region want us, Syria, to reform and transition out. . . .  OK — […]

On Tuesday, June 14, the Guardian of London published “Left and Libertarian Right Cohabit in the Weird World of the Genocide Belittlers.”1  In this nearly 1,100-word commentary, the British writer George Monbiot attacked the two of us (among others) as “genocide deniers” and “revisionists” for our writings on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.  Monbiot also […]

  The way Egyptian scholar and researcher Samir Amin sees it, nothing will be the same as before in the Arab world: protest movements will challenge both the internal social order of Arab countries and their places in the regional and global political chessboard. Hassane Zerrouky: How do you see what’s happening in the Arab […]

Egypt Amin Saikal (ABC, 29 July 2011): “The Islamist parties [in Egypt] now stand a good chance to win an absolute majority in the parliamentary elections in November, and also contest successfully the presidential election. . . .  According to an Aljazeera public opinion survey, released on July 7, 2011, nearly 50 per cent of […]

Merkel just wouldn’t let the cat out of the bag.  In the first days after the arms sale scandal began, her front seat in the Bundestag was conspicuously empty.  When she finally did show up she wore a sour look but said not a word.  The decision made and any reasoning behind it were highly […]

  Much of the commentary in the Arabic media in recent days has focused on the realignments taking place across the Middle East as a result of the various Arab uprisings. Ammar Nehmeh, an occasional columnist at the Beirut-based leftist daily As-Safir, wrote that forces that traditionally resist U.S. policy in the region, and that […]

  Question: Today, Clinton stated that the US considered it necessary to step up pressure on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  How can you comment on this? Foreign Minister Lavrov: No one is happy when in the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, as in all other states there are disturbing developments, with blood […]

The trajectory of the democratic movement in the Arab world was never going to be a straight line with clear goals and objectives.  The Arab regimes are not homogeneous; they have medieval Islamist monarchies, as in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, and secular but completely authoritarian regimes, both Western puppets like Mubarak and […]

I’ll be talking about the relationship between food and the uprisings.  I call them uprisings, I don’t call them revolutions, for a multitude of reasons that I will address. . . .  One of the most common assertions is that these uprisings were triggered, at least partly, by high food prices.  I would like to […]

Camille Otrakji is a Syrian political blogger based in Montreal.  Although he tends to keep a low profile, Otrakji has been, for the past several years, at the forefront of many of the most interesting and influential online initiatives relating to Syrian politics.  He is one of the authors and moderators at Joshua Landis’s Syria […]

As-Safir, a left-wing Lebanese newspaper, first reported on Saturday that Al Jazeera’s Beirut bureau chief Ghassan Ben Jeddo resigned.  The news has now been confirmed by Al-Manar, which has interviewed Ben Jeddo. According to As-Safir, Ben Jeddo resigned first and foremost because “Al Jazeera abandoned an ideal of objectivity and professionalism and resorted to gutter […]