Our contributor Mahmood Ketabchi offers another critique of the US left’s reponse to the “cartoon controversy.” Interestingly, he finds reflexive support for any forces ostensibly opposing the US to be a paradoxical form of nationalism, that places the United States… Read moreUS “left nationalism” and the cartoon crisis
From China’s The Standard, March 3: US President George W Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday sealed what they hailed as an “historic” nuclear deal, seen as the bedrock of a new strategic partnership. Capping eight months of… Read moreUS signs nuclear pact with India
Gee, that didn’t take long, did it? CBS, March 2: Police say at least one bomb near the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killed four people and injured 49 others early Thursday. Explosions ripped through the parking lot of the… Read morePakistan: terror blast at US consulate
Nope, no imminent civil war in Iraq, Bush says. If this was anywhere else in the world, we would recognize it as already a civil war… Armed expulsions of Shiites. Washington Post, March 1: BAGHDAD, Feb. 28 — Salim Rashid,… Read moreIraq: “sectarian cleansing”
India’s long and forgotten war with the Maoist Naxalite rebels in the impoverished east claims scores of lives in Chattisgarh state just as Bush arrives in the country. Note that the right-wing BJP is forming anti-guerilla paramilitary groups in the… Read moreIndia: Maoists attack as Bush arrives
Great, just what we need—military incursions to provoke a general uprising in Pakistan’s increasingly restive Tribal Areas. Just to give the teetering edifice of Musharraf’s dictatorship a healthy shove towards the abyss. Then we can have a nuclear-armed Taliban in… Read moreWar in Waziristan?
From AFP, March 1, via Middle East Times. A glimmer of hope, we suppose—but even Khatami equivocates on the numbers. Iran’s former reformist president Mohammad Khatami has described the Holocaust as a “historical reality” – a stinging attack on his… Read moreIran: Khatami dissents from Holocaust revisionism
Amazing! Finally the light bulb goes on! Why, this man should be director of national intelligence! Oops, he already is! Of course we were warning before Bush went into Iraq that destabilization of the country could spark regional or even… Read moreNegroponte: Iraq could spark regional war
Hugo Chavez threatens to cut oil to the US at the same time that he makes it available at a subsidized rate to low-income US consumers. Capitol Hill Republicans go apoplectic that a developing country could stand up to Uncle… Read moreChavez threatens to cut off oil to US
A rather ironic way to note the 20th anniversary of the “People Power” revolution that ousted longtime dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. Those who marched in Manila to commemorate the revolution over the weekend did so in defiance of… Read moreState of emergency in Philippines
From AP via the Glasgow Herald, Feb. 27: Tens of of thousands of demonstrators, including ministers and politicians of all stripes, united in a show of force against racism and anti-Semitism yesterday, marching through the capital after the torture and… Read moreFrance: torture-killing sparks anti-racist march
From the Village Voice Power Plays blog, Feb. 25: Critical Mass: NYPD Carries Smaller Stick This Week by Sarah Ferguson The NYPD switched up its game at Friday’s Critical Mass ride. Instead of making mass arrests for protest charges like… Read moreNYC: de-escalation in Critical Mass struggle?
