Subjects Archives: Agriculture

  Africa has historically been less of a priority to U.S. foreign policy planners than other regions, such as the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.  This was certainly the case when George W. Bush took office in 2001.  But during the course of his tenure, “Africa’s position in the U.S. strategic spectrum . […]

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND — On April 6, 2009, I spent a day visiting the offices of New Zealand’s newest, and among its most dynamic, trade unions, Unite. Unite is at the forefront of a revitalization of a section of the labour movement in New Zealand that has resulted in thousands of young and marginalized workers […]

Rights and labor groups say almost all the estimated 300,000 Syrians working in Lebanon have no official status, often endure dangerous conditions, and earn about US$300 a month doing jobs shunned by most Lebanese. In 2006, the Labor Ministry issued just 471 work permits to Syrian nationals, meaning the remainder worked unregistered.  According to 2008 […]

  Industrial production fell 1.5 percent in March after a similar decrease in February.  For the first quarter as a whole, output dropped at an annual rate of 20.0 percent, the largest quarterly decrease of the current contraction.  At 97.4 percent of its 2002 average, output in March fell to its lowest level since December […]

Abstract Following the 2000-01 crisis, Turkey implemented an orthodox strategy of raising interest rates and maintaining an overvalued exchange rate.  But, contrary to the traditional stabilization packages that aim to increase interest rates to constrain domestic demand, the new orthodoxy aimed at maintaining high interest rates to attract speculative foreign capital.  The end result was […]

Abstract The collapse of the European socialist block at the end of the 1980s caused a deep crisis in the Cuban economy.  One of the distinctive features of the process of adjustment and reform of the Cuban economy carried out by the government was that even during the worst period of the crisis, the Revolution’s […]

  2008 — Annus Horribilis for the world economy — produced successive food, energy, and financial crises, initially devastating particularly the global poor, but quickly extending to the commanding heights of the US and core economies and ushering in the sharpest downturn since the 1930s depression. As all nations strive to respond to the financial […]

The government estimates the growth rate will be 2% at the maximum this year.

“The strategy is to create a public instrument in which the banks place certain percentages of their targeted portfolios.”

No neoliberal package, to the disappointment of the Right! President Chávez announced a series of “anti-crisis measures” to protect the country from the capitalist crisis, which are devoid of the typical neoliberal ingredients that the Right predicted.  The 2009 budget is revised based on $40 a barrel (previously it was based on $60).  Sumptuary expenses […]

Obituaries for the Islamic Republic of Iran appeared even before it was born.  In the hectic months of 1979 — before the Islamic Republic had been officially declared — many Iranians as well as foreigners, academics as well as journalists, participants as well as observers, conservatives as well as revolutionaries, confidently predicted its imminent demise.  […]

In this Briefing, we look at how the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq not only gives easy entry to US agribusiness and pushes neoliberal policies, something that has always been a primary function of US development assistance, but is also an intrinsic part of the US military campaign in these countries and […]

The World Bank’s Board of Governors has approved the first of a series of reforms aimed at amplifying the voice and influence of developing countries inside the World Bank Group.  The centrepiece of these much-awaited reforms, announced in mid-February, is an additional seat for Sub-Saharan Africa on the Bank’s Board of Executive Directors, a change […]

This Sunday, the Eighth of March, Assemble at Plaza O’Leary at 9 AM in Silence, to March toward Plaza Los Museos, the Location of the Cultural Festival We Are Marching to Open New Paths.  Big Marches Work Their Magic Because We Make the Path by Marching, Which Is the Legacy of the Collective Memory of […]

Most analysts agree that the chances of immigration reform in the first year or two of Obama’s administration are extremely slim.  We can’t expect politicians and policymakers to take action.  The change we want to see has to come from below. We can make it happen if we unite around a common goal: swift, practical, […]

  The global economic crisis was the main protagonist on the first day of Globalización 2009, the 9th International Conference of Economists on Globalization and Problems of Development, presided over by First Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura; Dominican President Leonel Fernández Reyna; Cuban Vice President Esteban Lazo Hernández; Nobel Laureates in economics Edmund Phelps […]

See, also, Hajir Palaschi, “Interview with Shahla Lahiji on Women’s Presence in the Labor Market: No Vocation Must Be Prohibited for Women,” Trans. Yoshie Furuhashi, MRZine, 18 February 2008. The Iranian Revolution and its aftermath have generated many debates, one of which pertains to the effects on women’s labor force participation and employment patterns.  For […]

  How Should Venezuela Face the Coming Recession? Presently much of the industrialized world is in a severe economic recession.  The United States, Europe, and Japan are definitely in one and other important countries such as China are close to being in one. So far most South American countries have not entered into a recession.  […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its February 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. We have lost twice over from the late November terror attacks in Mumbai.  We must add to the anguish of the loved ones of the poor people who […]

  Directed by Massoud Bakhshi, Tehran Has No More Pomegranates, a feature-length experimental documentary made over the span of five years, tells the story of Iran’s encounter with modernity and its social and political changes through a comic and ironic narrative about the transformation of its capital, Tehran, from a small village to a huge […]

This is the longer version of an essay by the author released by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on 6 February 2009. Week after week, we see the global economy contracting at a pace worse than predicted by the gloomiest analysts.  We are now, it is clear, in no ordinary recession but are headed for […]