From the category archives:

Context

There’s real hope from Haiti and it’s not what you expect

February 6, 2010

Johann Hari:
In the weeks after a disaster like the Haiti earthquake, journalists always search for an upbeat twist to the tale. You know it by now – the baby found alive after a week under wreckage. But this time, a shaft of light has parted the rubble and the corpses and the unshakeable grief that [...]

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Goodbye Howard Zinn

January 29, 2010

Goodbye Howard Zinn
By Peter Rothberg, The Nation, January 27, 2010
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and the author of the seminal A People’s History of the United States, died today at the age of 87 of a heart attack in Santa Monica, [...]

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Don’t send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me

January 19, 2010

Homeless Haitians told not to flee to U.S.
By James C McKinley Jr, New York Times, January 19, 2010
America has a message for the millions of Haitians left homeless and destitute by last week’s earthquake: Do not try to come to the United States.
Every day, a United States Air Force cargo plane specially equipped with radio [...]

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Why America and China will clash

January 19, 2010

Why America and China will clash
By Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, January 18, 2010
oogle’s clash with China is about much more than the fate of a single, powerful firm. The company’s decision to pull out of China, unless the government there changes its policies on censorship, is a harbinger of increasingly stormy relations between the US [...]

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Turkey and Russia move closer to building strategic partnership

January 18, 2010

Turkey and Russia move closer to building strategic partnership
By Faruk Akkan, Today’s Zaman, January 15, 2010
Turkey and Russia have come closer to building a strategic partnership by agreeing to deepen cooperation in the area of energy and work on a plan to lift visa requirements for their citizens.
The two countries also have ambitious plans to [...]

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After the earthquake, how to rebuild Haiti from scratch

January 17, 2010

After the earthquake, how to rebuild Haiti from scratch
By Jeffrey D. Sachs, Washington Post, January 17, 2010
President Obama has declared that the United States will not forsake Haiti in its moment of agony. Honoring this commitment would be a first for Washington.
To prevent a deepening spiral of death, the United States will have to do [...]

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Obama confidant’s spine-chilling proposal

January 16, 2010

Obama confidant’s spine-chilling proposal
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, January 15, 2010
Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama’s closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama’s head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for “overseeing policies [...]

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Obama pledges aid to Haiti

January 15, 2010

Obama pledges aid to Haiti
By Helene Cooper, New York Times, January 15, 2010
President Obama on Thursday promised $100 million along with more American troops for the relief effort in Haiti, vowing that the United States would stand with the impoverished nation as it grappled with the devastation of its capital city.
The Pentagon sent 125 soldiers [...]

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Haiti, the devil and Pat Robertson

January 14, 2010

Haiti, the devil and Pat Robertson
By David Waters, Washington Post, January 13, 2010
Pat Robertson is at it again. The purported Christian minister who suggested assassinating Venezuela leader Hugo Chavez and nuking the U.S. State Department, the reputed follower of Jesus who blamed the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and [...]

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The other plot to wreck America

January 10, 2010

The other plot to wreck America
By Frank Rich, New York Times, January 10, 2010
There may not be a person in America without a strong opinion about what coulda, shoulda been done to prevent the underwear bomber from boarding that Christmas flight to Detroit. In the years since 9/11, we’ve all become counterterrorists. But in the [...]

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For the West, ‘Game over’ in Central Asia

January 8, 2010

For the West, ‘Game over’ in Central Asia
By Andrea Bonzanni, World Politics Review, January 8, 2010
Last month, the West officially lost the new “Great Game.” The 20-year competition for natural resources and influence in Central Asia between the United States (supported by the European Union), Russia and China has, for now, come to an end, [...]

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What doesn’t work in America

January 7, 2010

What doesn’t work in America
By Orville Schell, TomDispatch, January 7, 2010
Lately, I’ve been studying the climate-change induced melting of glaciers in the Greater Himalaya. Understanding the cascading effects of the slow-motion downsizing of one of the planet’s most magnificent landforms has, to put it politely, left me dispirited. Spending time considering the deleterious downstream effects [...]

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The happiest people

January 7, 2010

The happiest people
By Nicholas D Kristof, New York Times, January 7, 2010
Hmmm. You think it’s a coincidence? Costa Rica is one of the very few countries to have abolished its army, and it’s also arguably the happiest nation on earth.
There are several ways of measuring happiness in countries, all inexact, but this pearl of Central [...]

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