Can Global Sports Boycotts Help End the War in Ukraine?
The power of sports to legitimize a regime also means they have the power to delegitimize one, too.
Fear and Loathing in Duterte’s Philippines: An Interview with Vicente Rafael
Rodrigo Duterte is about to leave office. Will his successor as Philippine president be just as vulgar and ruthless?
Continental Drifters and the Nationless Nation
The number of people forcibly displaced by war, persecution, general violence, or human-rights violations last year swelled to a staggering 84 million.
No Pasaran: Ukraine 2022
Vladimir Putin is the Franco of today, and Ukraine must become the graveyard of Putinism.
Corporate Accountability In Liberia Gets A Fresh Look
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberia’s first woman president, has been praised internationally for her efforts to address war crimes from the country’s civil war and for negotiating significant debt relief, even winning the Noble Peace Prize as a result. However, a briefing held last Thursday by IPS’ Foreign Policy in Focus coinciding with Sirleaf’s recent visit to the United States drew attention to areas that Sirleaf has failed to adequately address. The event was well attended, with more people than could fit into our conference room.
Sudan on Verge of Bankruptcy — Militarily, Economically and Politically
The Sudanese government turn protests into a sting operation by publicizing fake ones online and arresting those who show up.
Deep-Sixing the China Option
Since talks with Iran over its nuclear development started up again in April, U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that Tehran will not be allowed to “play for time” in the negotiations. In fact, it is the Obama administration that is playing for time.
Kenya: Postcolonial Imperial Hangover
I distinctly remember watching on television with concern how young men from the Coast province of Kenya were ambushed and rounded up by security forces who busted them in the midst of military training with homemade wooden rifles a few years ago. Given the ragtag nature of this wannabe “army,” my initial reaction was to dismiss them as a bunch of loonies. But a few months to roughly a year later, I again saw in the news this time a group of well-clad young men being frog-marched by police in the streets of Mombasa, the second biggest and oldest trading city in Kenya on the Indian Ocean that is also home to the country’s naval force. This group, it was later to emerge was the secessionist Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) that is no doubt one of the biggest headaches for Kenya’s political leadership, and to some extent a great concern to the international community of nations considering the geo-political significance of Mombasa, which is a remarkable commercial and military nerve centre. The MRC has dominated national news for the last few months as their secessionist demands have hit a new high octave. These young men, women and children are not a passing cloud that can be wished away and their existential frustrations and subsequent pain and distress motivating them to secede from Kenya after almost fifty years ought to be an issue of great concern to all.
The Folly of Mindless Science
In 2000, I traveled to India, invited to speak at the organizing meeting of the Indian Coalition for Nuclear and Disarmament and Peace. About 600 organizations, including some 80 from Pakistan gathered in New Delhi to strategize for nuclear disarmament. India had quietly acquired the bomb and performed one nuclear test at Pokhran in 1974 but it was in 1998 that all hell broke out, with India exploding five underground tests, swiftly followed by six in Pakistan.
Postcard from…Mexico
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), the candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), lost Mexico’s presidency by only .56 of a percentage point in 2006. Fraud was widely suspected. Until recently, the media had anointed Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), as the certain winner in the July 1 election.
In the past month a student movement has arisen that has cast doubt on this electoral outcome.
Don’t Recreate Haiti’s Army
Haitian President Michel Martelly finds himself in an increasingly difficult position on the military question. In mid-May, several former army officers met with Martelly and urged him to uphold his presidential campaign promise that, if elected, he would reintroduce the army.
But this is one pledge the Haitian president should renege on.
What Have These Ultra-Orthodox Jews Got Against Honoring Holocaust Victims?
The Neturei Karta sect is opposed to the Jewish state.
The Rise and Fall of the Human Rights Empire
Today human rights is the dominant language for justice claimsof both social movements and states. It is the banner under which utopian projects seek audibility on the global stageand foreign policy initiatives strive for global legitimacy. With human rights invoked by boththose who captain the ships of globalization, and those who contest its terms and trajectory, internal tensions and contradictions have moved to the forefront.
Egyptian Revolution Frozen in Its Tracks
The new government will probably be even more open to World Bank and IMF structural-adjustment programs than in the past.