Archive | May, 2010

  • Regarding the Use of Force by the Israeli Defense Forces Against the Humanitarian Aid Fleet to Gaza

    We protest in the strongest terms the use of force by the Israeli Defense Forces against the civilians from many countries who want to transport humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza, and among whom there are women and children, which, according to the initial information available, resulted in the death of 2 persons and […]

  • Israel’s Attack on the Turkish Ships Complicates China’s Balancing Act on Iran and the United States

    President Obama’s already diminishing chances to “steamroll” the Iran-Turkey-Brazil Joint Declaration by ramming new sanctions against the Islamic Republic through the United Nations Security Council during the next few weeks got even smaller this morning, when Israeli naval commandos stormed Turkish-flagged ships in international waters off Gaza, killing at least 16 people in the process. […]

  • Israel: Protest in Arab Town of Um el-Fahem against Israeli Attack on Freedom Flotilla

    A mass rally has been held in Um el-Fahem today in condemnation of the Israeli pirate attack on the freedom flotilla.  Former Mayor of Um el-Fahem Raed Salah was on board the Mavi Marmara during the attack, in which nearly 20 activists are said to have been killed by the IDF. For more information, visit […]

  • Egypt: Can the Muslim Brotherhood Say “Down with Mubarak”?

    I can almost swear this is the first time I hear the Muslim Brothers chanting publicly, “Down with Mubarak!” Nyahahaha . . . the cowards.  During the evening Palestine protest in Ramses, whenever the Socialists chanted “Down with Mubarak,” followed by young MBs, you can see in the video MB organizers waving “No,” trying to […]

  • Israel Attacks Turkish Free Gaza Ship: 16 Killed, According to Israeli Army Radio

    30 May 2010 — According to Turkish news sources (CNN Turk, Hürriyet, Milliyet, NTV, and many others), Israeli soldiers stormed the Turkish Free Gaza ship Mavi Marmara belonging to İnsani Yardım Vakfı (Humanitarian Aid Foundation), killing at least 2 and wounding over 30 on board.  The Turkish government has set up a crisis room while […]

  • Norman G. Finkelstein: “Israel Is Now a Lunatic State”

      Norman G. Finkelstein: What happened with the Gaza flotilla was not an accident.  You have to remember that the Israeli cabinet met for fully a week.  All the cabinet ministers discussed and deliberated how they would handle the flotilla.  There were numerous reports in the Israeli press, numerous suggestions, numerous recommendations about what to […]

  • Protest Israeli Murders of Freedom Flotilla Activists

    International Solidarity Movement 31 May 2010, Free Gaza Movement Israel Murders at Least 10 Unarmed Civilians on Aid Flotilla to Gaza, Dozens Injured (Cyprus, June 1, 2010, 6:30AM local) — Under darkness of night, Israeli commandos from at least 14 warships and military helicopters boarded the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began shooting.  According […]

  • The Empire and Drugs

    WHEN I was detained in Mexico by the Federal Security Police who, by pure chance became suspicious of certain movements of ours, despite the fact that we were making them with maximum care in order to avoid being snatched by the killer hand of Batista – like Machado did in Mexico when his agents assassinated […]

  • Thailand: NGO-COD Shows Scandalous Double Standards over the Violent Crackdown

    The Thai NGO Coordinating committee (NGO-COD) issued a statement on 20th May 2010 about the violence in Bangkok.  The statement blamed both the government and the UDD Red Shirts for the deaths.  This is despite the fact that the UDD protestors were unarmed and the government used tanks, snipers and weapons of war against the […]

  • Time for OTA

    When the Republican Gingrich devolution took over Congress in 1995, it stripped the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of all its funding and left it a shell with no experts to advise committees and members of Congress.  Whereupon Congress was plunged into a dark age regarding decisions about trillions of national security, offshore oil […]

  • Gaza: Live from the Freedom Flotilla

      Update “Israel Attacks Turkish Free Gaza Ship: 16 Killed, According to Israeli Army Radio.” For more information, visit <www.ihh.org.tr>, <www.witnessgaza.com>, and <www.freegaza.org>. | Print  

  • India and Pakistan: Labor, Democratization, and Development

      Christopher Candland.  Labor, Democratization and Development in India and Pakistan.  London: Routledge, 2007.  216 pages. This book, by Christopher Candland, sets out to provide a documented analytical and empirical study of the linkages between organized labor, development, and democratization in India and Pakistan from the colonial period till date.  It attempts to explain why […]

  • Rock

    Rock! Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 28 May 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

  • Rwandan Arrest of U.S. Lawyer Motivated by Politics

    Professor Peter Erlinder, noted criminal defense lawyer and past president of the National Lawyers Guild, was arrested Friday morning in Rwanda for “genocide ideology.”  Erlinder’s representation of high-profile defendants before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) has incurred the wrath of government officials, who have charged him with “negation of the Tutsi genocide” for […]

  • Breaking the Blockade of Silence: L.A. Art and Advocacy for the Cuban 5

    How do you break through the twelve-year blockade of silence that has kept five Cuban political prisoners invisible to the American public?  How can art transcend U.S. prison walls and present the truth about these men, locked up in five distant prisons scattered across the United States, to a Los Angeles community?  On May 22nd […]

  • Arab Domestic Affairs

    “We will not allow any country to interfere in our domestic affairs.”(But see who’s swimming in the fishbowl that is the “Arab world.” . . .) Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist.  This cartoon, first published by Al Jazeera, illustrates an interview with Bahady by eHasakeh (16 March 2010); it is reproduced here for non-profit […]

  • No Justice, No Euro!

    The current turmoil in financial markets around the world is another illustration of the damage that can be done by a bloated and politically powerful financial sector, combined with finance ministers and central bankers who identify with this sector and have their own right-wing policy agenda. Welcome to Europe, which has become the epicenter of […]

  • Someone Is Watching: The Peril and Promise of School Surveillance

      Torin Monahan, Rodolfo D. Torres, eds.  Schools under Surveillance: Cultures of Control in Public Education.  Critical Issues in Crime and Society Series.  New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010.  vi + 264 pp.  $72.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8135-4679-7; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8135-4680-3. In the fall of 2009, Lower Merion High School in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, was caught […]

  • Arizona: Grassroots Organizing to Repeal All Anti-Immigrant Laws

      Joel Olson is a member of the Repeal Coalition in Flagstaff, Arizona.  Repeal spearheaded the grassroots mobilization that successfully pressured the Flagstaff City Council to pass an injunction threatening a lawsuit against the state for its anti-immigrant law SB 1070. SB 1070 has clearly reignited the immigrant rights movement.  What is SB 1070 and […]

  • Vigorous Legal Advocate Arrested in Rwanda

      New York — The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) demands the immediate release of its former president, Professor Peter Erlinder, whom Rwandan Police arrested early today on charges of “genocide ideology.”  He had traveled to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, on May 23, to join the defense team of Rwandan presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.  Erlinder is […]