September 2011

Visit the archives.

Noam Chomsky on Occupy Wall Street Protest and Palestinian Bid for Statehood

Video Pinning its hopes on the sole support of the US, Israel risks a collapse if it is ever withdrawn - much like apartheid-era South Africa, prominent scholar Professor Noam Chomsky warns. ­He recalls how South Africans felt safe to ignore a UN embargo and corporations pulling out of their country throughout the 1980s, as long as the Reagan administration continued to support them. As soon as the US withdrew its support, the apartheid regime collapsed. "For 35 years, the US and Israel...

How Decent Public Transport Can Strike a Blow to Poverty

Picture: urbanjoburg.blogspot.com Charlene Houston - Public transport emerged out of the need for commuters to get from one place to another for social and economic reasons. Transport serves another important function too, shipping goods such as agricultural produce from one point to another. Indeed, the first train in South Africa was planned to run from Cape Town to Wellington in order to service the wine industry.  These days, while cars dominate our roads, public transport is still critical for getting the workforce to and from work...

They've Tried Everything: What Now?

Picture: warnewsupdate.blogspot.com Leonard Gentle - The world is tipping over into unknown territory. All the pundits are now starting to agree with US economist, Nouriel Roubini, famous for his prediction of the 2008 financial crash, that a second recession is inevitable. South Africa’s Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus has also added her voice to the chorus warning of another “Lehman type event.” Since the last recession, the major governments have spent in excess of $24trillion bailing out the banks, dwarfing the money...

'Something Has Started': Michael Moore on the Occupy Wall St. Protests That Could Spark a Movement

Video Oscar-winning filmmaker, best-selling author, and provocateur laureate Michael Moore talks about the growing "Occupy Wall Street" protests in Lower Manhattan, which he visited on Monday night. "This is literally an uprising of people who have had it," Moore says. "It has already started to spread across the country in other cities. It will continue to spread. ... It will be tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people ... Their work ahead is not as difficult...

Geo-engineering Is More about Hubris than Reality

Picture: geoeng.brs.nihon-u.ac.jp Glenn Ashton - Humans certainly are an enterprising species. Problem is, our discoveries tend to result in unintended consequences. People have now figured out that we may be able to repair or reduce our unintended impacts on the global climate by intentionally re-engineering it through a set of processes which have been collectively called “geo-engineering.” Besides the obvious moral considerations, there are serious practical concerns that geo-engineering has a high probability of making an...

The Dollar, the Euro and the Deepening Crisis

Video On Thursday, stock markets around the globe crashed again -- likely due to concerns about the crisis in Europe and perhaps profound concern about the growing recession around the globe.  Investors immediately started buying US dollars and American treasury bills. Thus, despite ongoing predictions about the crash of the US dollar, quite the contrary seems to be happening. Helping to make sense of this latest development is Prof. Leo Panitch, author of the book, "In and Out of...