Munir: Pakistan Needs Scrutiny Not Charity8 Oct 2007In October 2005, upon learning of the devastation that had been caused in Northern Pakistan by a massive earthquake, many of my British friends promptly emailed me with offers of help, ranging from money to filling in my duties at Cambridge while I visited the earthquake stricken region. At the time, I suggested to them that what countries like Pakistan need, even in the face of such calamities, is not charity but scrutiny.
Sakr: The Struggle For Land That Never Ends8 Oct 2007The Egyptian government last month closed down the Association for Human Rights and Legal Aid and, before that, the Centre for Trade Union and Workers Services. This is in response to the greatest wave of industrial action by workers in decades, and protests by small farmers against moves to dismantle Nasser’s agrarian reforms span style=”font-size: 10pt; font-family: verdana; m.
Ramonet: Sarkozy8 Oct 2007Like the pied piper of Hamelin, Nicolas Sarkozy initially enchanted eminent figures on all sides with his verve and brio. The media were equally spellbound and joined in the mass hysteria.
Baker: The Entertainment Industry Police Crackdown8 Oct 2007Last week, a jury determined that Jammie Thomas, a single mother living in Minnesota, should pay $222,000 to the recording industry for allowing other people to download 24 songs off her computer on a file-sharing system. That’s a pretty steep fine for passing along a few copies of Britney Spears’ latest hits.
Billet: Trouble in the Heartland8 Oct 2007Once again, the Boss is untouchable. Magic is the kind of revelatory, despite-all-odds, nose-to-the-grindstone, rock n’ roll that only Bruce Springsteen can create.
Ali: The face of rebellion everywhere8 Oct 2007IN a small Bolivian town called Vallegrande, somewhat to the discomfiture of the resident priest, local Catholics commonly offer prayers not only to the Lord but also to a certain Saint Ernesto. The reference is not to some revered religious figure from the distant past but to a devout atheist who blazed a revolutionary trail in the latter half of the 20th century.
Engler: CIDA: foreign “aid” in name only?8 Oct 2007A Senlis Council report released in August detailed the failure of Canadian programs supposedly aimed at alleviating poverty in Kandahar province. The mainstream media criticized the Canadian International Development Agency’s (CIDA) inability/unwillingness to successfully distribute aid and even questioned Canada’s justification for a military presence in Afghanistan.
Chomsky: US/Indo Nuclear Agreement: Derailing A Deal8 Oct 200708 August, 2007—Nuclear-armed states are criminal states. They have a legal obligation, confirmed by the World Court, to live up to Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which calls on them to carry out good-faith .
Castro: Che8 Oct 2007I make a halt in my daily struggle to bow my head in respect and gratitude to the exceptional combatant who fell in combat on October 8th, forty years ago; for the example he passed on to us as leader of his Rebel Army Column, crossing the swampy grounds of the former provinces of Oriente and Camagüey, while being chased by enemy troops. He was the liberator of the city of Santa Clara and the mastermind of voluntary work; he accomplished honorable political missions abroad and served as messenger of militant internationalism in East Congo and Bolivia.
Gindin: One Sided Class War:7 Oct 2007In 1978, then United Auto Worker (UAW) President Douglas Fraser, frustrated with corporate America’s new aggressiveness, accused U.S.
Iltis: Burma’s long struggle for democracy7 Oct 2007What began on August 15 as protests against escalating fuel and transport prices and deteriorating economic conditions has developed into a mass uprising in Burma. From September 17, mobilisations by Buddhist monks and nuns emboldened thousands of Burmese to take to the streets in the largest protests since the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 that was brutally crushed, with over 3000 people killed, by the military regime that has ruled Burma since 1962.
Baroud: Haider Abdul-Shafi: Passing Undefeated6 Oct 2007The recent death of Haider Abdul-Shafi could not have come at a worse time. Bearing in mind the grim shortcomings of the Palestinian leadership and the lack of any serious attempt to rectify the situation, the loss of this unique and iconic leader feels all the more acute.
Abu-Manneh: Israel’s Colonial Siege and The Palestinians5 Oct 2007[This essay appears in The Socialist Register 2008: Global Flashpoints: Reactions to imperialism and neoliberalism, now available from Monthly Review Press in the USA, Fernwood Books in Canada and Merlin Press in the UK and the rest of the world. For the table of contents of the whole volume, click here.
Annis: Haiti: A Modern Tragedy5 Oct 2007An Unbroken Agony Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President span lang=”EN-CA” style=”font-size: 10pt; color: black; font-family: verdana; mso-bidi-font-family: ‘times new roman’; mso-ansi-la
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