Thursday, Sep 2nd 2010
José Saramago 1922 - 2010
One of the many startling things about José Saramago was that he was an overtly political writer in a literary world in which being political does not pay. Remarkably, at the age of 85 he began a highly controversial blog and these occasional pieces, collected in The Notebook (Verso, 2010) - [...]
The Irish Times on Saturday 17th July published an article about Colombian claims that Venezuela is sheltering members of the FARC guerrilla group. This is an old chestnut that Colombia and the US revive from time to time, especially if there’s need to draw attention away from other news and particularly if it’s embarrassing news. [...]
The first decade of the 21st century has been a difficult one for the UN, as its credibility has taken a serious battering. Incidents such as the international furore provoked by the Volker report on the UN administration of the Iraq sanctions prior to the 2003 invasion, accusations of corruption against the previous UN Secretary [...]
It’s an old cliche that the Chinese character for crisis is the same as opportunity. In Haiti however, business and political leaders are not concerned with originality. The catastrophic earthquake was quick to be seen as an opportunity to rebuild the Western hemisphere’s poorest country, with the US thinktank the Heritage Foundation famously writing that [...]
The current violence errupting in the southern region of Kyrgyzstan is deeply troubling.
If we are to go by the news reports given by the BBC, the violence is the culmination of long standing ethnic tensions. If we are to believe The Economist’s recent article “Stalin’s Harvest” we are seeing the inevitable fruits of Stalin’s labour.
According [...]
Update: Twitter is a very fast way of getting updates on the situation today. You can follow ILR updates based on what we’re seeing on our twitter page @irishleftreview.
Advise from Raymond Deane, if you want to do something about the Israeli attack on the Gaza Flotilla.
I’d say ring Foreign Affairs and demand action - [...]
Book Review: Max Lane, Unfinished Nation: Indonesia before and after Suharto, Verso, 2008
There was a time when everyone seemed to be talking about Indonesia. Well, they were talking about it on Joe Duffy and Pat Kenny at least, and that’s as near as makes no difference in this country. As East Timor voted to extricate [...]
Danielle Sabai | Thailand: A point of No Return
In an article written on the 16th of May 2010, Danielle Sabai provides a comprehensive account of recent Thai political history, and a thorough and compelling analysis of the current trouble between the Abhisit government and the Red Shirt Movement, which are described as “a political movement [...]
Despite pledges on the part of donor countries in 1970 to spend 0.7% of GNP on official development assistance (ODA), this target is still proving elusive 40 years later. However, many would argue that ODA is not the best way to tackle poverty and its attendant ills - the solution is increased global trading. By [...]
Contra errores Graecorum, ad Urbanum IV Pontificem Maximum (Against the Errors of the Greeks, to Pope Urban IV) is a short treatise written in 1263 by Roman Catholic theologian Saint Thomas Aquinas as a contribution to Pope Urban’s efforts at reunion with the Eastern Church. This work engendered a whole series of responses and European [...]