Subjects Archives: Ecology

  Iran, a major oil producing and exporting country, also imports gasoline because of inadequate refining capacity and rising petrol consumption.  This article examines the problems faced by an economy dependent on the export of crude oil and gas that are compounded by the dilemmas of rising domestic consumption, a significant decline in productive capacity, […]

Should the neoliberal “free market” govern food production and distribution?  Or can we learn from the efforts of Venezuela, under Hugo Chavez, to address food insecurity?  Christina Schiavoni describes the transformation of that nation’s food and agriculture system.  David Pimentel points out the colossal energy demands of the US system and proposes ways to reduce […]

Like the star gazers who last week watched the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, diplomatic observers had a field day watching the penumbra of big power politics involving the United States, Russia and China, which constitutes one of the crucial phenomena of 21st-century world politics. It all began with United States Vice […]

Patrick Barrett, Daniel Chavez, and Cesar Rodriguez-Garavito, eds., The New Latin American Left: Utopia Reborn, Pluto Press (2008), 320 pages. The conflict in Honduras has been an ongoing challenge for governments across the political spectrum in Latin America.  In the years leading up to this tense and decisive event a number of leaders and social […]

It is now a commonplace that we are experiencing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  The downward trajectory on a global level is similar to the 1930s, though in the United States — the epicenter of the crisis — there are indications that the rate of decline may be slowing.1  […]

I It is possible to argue that the growth rate figures for both India and China are exaggerated.  But, we shall proceed by accepting them as correct.  The inequalities in both economies however have increased dramatically during this very phase of extraordinarily high growth, to a point where substantial segments of the population, particularly, but […]

Even before the crisis over the election outcome broke, the prognosis for Iran in the coming year was not good.  Back in October oil prices had started to fall and the contractionary measures taken by the Central Bank several months earlier to rein in inflation had slowed the economy.  Last year, Iran’s imports had soared […]

  Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review.  Its June 2009 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. The dire consequences of human induced climate change are now most often presented as facing us in the near future.  We suggest that the future, as far as […]

  A fact-finding team of nine students from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) recently visited Lalgarh, to probe into the reality of the ongoing movement of the people in the area.  Here we are enclosing the preliminary details of what we saw.  We would like to appeal to your daily news channel to also highlight certain […]

See, also, Food Crisis and the Global Land Grab at , a new Web site set up by Grain. PHNOM PENH, 10 June 2009 (IRIN) — Sam Pov, a rice farmer in Cambodia’s western Battambang Province, is very worried that his land will be taken over by a foreign investor. “I’ve heard the rumours about […]

60 Die in Peru Rainforest Protest Send a Message to the President of Peru June 5, 2009 URGENT ACTION ALERT Peru’s Amazon Indigenous Peoples need you to TAKE ACTION now! Tell the Peruvian Government: Immediately suspend violent repression of indigenous protests and the State of Emergency Repeal the Free Trade Laws that allow oil, logging, […]

  Humanism and Human Rights Who or what is the ‘human’ of human rights and the ‘humanity’ of humanitarianism?  The question sounds naïve, silly even.  Yet, important philosophical and ontological questions are involved.  If rights are given to beings on account of their humanity, ‘human’ nature with its needs, characteristics and desires is the normative […]

JOHANNESBURG, 26 May 2009 (IRIN) — Food prices will rise again by 2015, when economies are expected to have recovered from the global recession, pushing up demand once more, says a recent UN report. 2008 is seen as the year of food crises, prompted in part by high fuel prices, but these started declining as […]

Five days ago I read a press report stating that Ban Ki-moon would appoint Bill Clinton as his special envoy for Haiti.

  “For fifty years, crude oil has been flowing from under the feet of the people of the Niger Delta.  For fifty years, they have been promised that this would mean a better life.  This promise has never been kept.  Now, the people have had enough.” Sandy Cioffi is a Seattle-based film and video artist.  […]

In the recently concluded 2009 general elections to the lower house of the parliament, the Social Democratic Left (SDL henceforth) In India, composed of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), the Communist Party of India (CPI), and a bunch of smaller left-wing parties, has witnessed the severest electoral drubbing in a long time.  This year, […]

The keynote address at the “Climate Change, Social Change” conference (organized by Green Left Weekly), Sydney, Australia, 12 April 2008. This address became the basis for John Bellamy Foster, “Ecology and the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism” (Monthly Review, November 2008), which in turn became the last chapter of The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with […]

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 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 […]

JOHANNESBURG, 14 May 2009 (IRIN) — Climate change will be the biggest global health threat in the 21st century, but little is known about its possible effects on developing countries, where the impact will be felt most, says a new report. “Information that is reliable, accurate, and disseminated is fundamental for effective adaptation and to […]