Uncategorized Archives - Page 68 of 274

Bad aid: Throw your arms around the world

by Vijay Prashad | Apr 7, 2010

In December 1984, I walked into the HMV store on London’s Oxford Street to spend a little discretionary money on an LP. Other albums drew me, but one had an advantage. It combined the talents of all the major ‘Top of the Pops’ singers in one song. Given the standards of British pop at the time (leaving aside Scritti Politti’s ‘Jacques Derrida’ and perhaps the Bronski Beat’s ‘Smalltown Boy’), the diminishing marginal returns at the cash register were held in check with only one purchase. It had to be Bob Geldof’s ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ The ‘charity single’ had all of Britain’s finest, from Paul McCartney to Boy George, from Siobhan Fahey (of Bananarama) to Sting. The song opens with African drums and Phil Collins’s drum kit, and then the flow of British vocalists, with a young Bono in full flight. Geldof named their charity super-group Band Aid, a name that morphed as the fever caught, into Live Aid, Sport Aid and so on. BBC ran the Band Aid song non-stop. It raised millions of pounds to buy relief for the survivors of the Ethiopian famine.

China’s Global Shopping Spree

by Michael Klare | Apr 7, 2010

Think of it as a tale of two countries. When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home. Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States has experienced a marked decline in the consumption of oil and other key industrial materials. Not so China. With the recession’s crippling effects expected to linger in the U.S. for many years, analysts foresee a slow recovery when it comes to resource consumption. Not so China.

Blood Sport

by John Feffer | Apr 6, 2010

In the Mayan game of pitz, the first team sport in human history, two sets of players squared off in a ball court that could stretch as long as a football field. The object of the game was to use hips and elbows to keep the ball in the air and, if possible, get it through a hoop set high on a stone wall. The ball was roughly the size and heft of a human head. Indeed, given the sheer number of decapitations in the Popol Vuh, the sacred Mayan text that prominently features the game, scholars have not ruled out the possibility that the teams sometimes played with the heads of sacrificial victims. It’s also probable that, at the conclusion of the game, one team or the other fell en masse beneath the priests’ daggers.

Postcard From…Cape Town

by Andre Vltchek | Apr 5, 2010

The 2010 FIFA World Cup is coming to Cape Town, the first to be held in Africa. But the anger of many South Africans is brewing. The righteous wrath stems from the continuing social rifts that divide this “rainbow nation” along racial lines. Sadly, xenophobia and extreme nationalism are also muffling the legitimate demands of the poor.

U.S. Lawmakers Support Illegal Annexation

by Stephen Zunes | Apr 5, 2010

In yet another assault on fundamental principles of international law, a bipartisan majority of the Senate has gone on record calling on the United States to endorse Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara, the former Spanish colony invaded by Moroccan forces in 1975 on the verge of its independence. In doing so, the Senate is pressuring the Obama administration to go against a series of UN Security Council resolutions, a landmark decision of the International Court of Justice, and the position of the African Union and most of the United States’ closest European allies.

The Foreign Policy of Baseball

by Robert Elias | Apr 2, 2010

A few days ago, I turned on the radio and heard the sweet sounds of San Francisco Giants broadcaster Jon Miller announcing this year’s first spring-training game. I thought, “Ah, baseball is finally back, and all is well in our national pastime, our country, and the world.”

The State of the World’s Women

by Christine Ahn, Anasuya Sengupta | Apr 1, 2010

It’s a year of anniversaries for the global women’s movement, but not necessarily a year of good news for women globally. International Women’s Day, begun in Copenhagen at an international socialist gathering where women pledged to achieve universal suffrage, was celebrated for the 100th year, while the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is in its 30th year. To date, 189 countries have signed CEDAW. The United States, Iran, and Sudan are among those who have yet to ratify or sign it.

Egypt’s Impending Political Earthquake

by Richard Javad Heydarian | Mar 31, 2010

Egypt, one of the most powerful U.S. allies in the Arab world, is sitting on a political volcano ready to erupt at any moment. The upcoming presidential elections will be a potential watershed in Egyptian politics and a fierce battle for Egypt’s soul.

Iraq’s Baby Steps Toward Democracy

by Adil E. Shamoo | Mar 30, 2010

The Obama administration may finally get some good news. Iraq’s recent elections for parliament might actually result in a non-sectarian, pro-American government. This outcome would enable the Obama administration to fulfill its goal of removing all but 50,000 support troops by this August and drawn U.S. forces down to zero by the end of 2011.

Earthquake Olympics

by John Feffer | Mar 30, 2010

The survivors of the devastating earthquakes in Haiti and Chile are still scrambling to deal with the damage. Here, however, pundits are still scrambling to explain the dramatic difference in impact. Haiti’s quake on January 12 came in at 7.0 on the Richter scale, leveled the capital city, and left more than 200,000 dead. Chile’s earthquake on February 27 registered a magnitude of 8.8, which means it was 500 times more powerful than the Haiti shock. But fewer than 1,000 Chileans died, and the damage to buildings was considerably less.