Thursday, May 24th 2012
When newly elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy named Bernard Kouchner Minister for Foreign Affairs in May 2007 there were few eyebrows raised. It had been an open secret in French political circles for weeks beforehand and it later transpired that Sarkozy had offered Kouchner the job before the election – an election during which Kouchner [...]
Farhang Morady | Continuity and Change in the Political Economy of Iran: June 2009 Protest Movement and Reactions
An excellent paper on Iran and the recent protest movement, discussed in the context of the economic, social and religious changes in Iran, with particular regard to Shia Islam and its political and social application.
So, the huge [...]
Director Neil Blomkamp constructs a sci-fi allegory to explore the violence, cruelty and exploitation of South African segregation and poverty, apartheid and after. The result, however, is an awkward
collage of documentary, body-horror, corporate exposé, and action movie.
In 1989, intergalactic refugees arrive at Johannesburg, South Africa, and, much like their earthly counterparts, they are confined to [...]
Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report
Glen Ford’s latest contribution to Black Agenda Report points to a study which finds that:
“The very rich, through their media, have been holding a conversation among themselves.”
The Great Recession, or the Financial Meltdown of 2008, or whatever history will ultimately wind up calling the unfolding economic debacle we [...]
In last Sunday’s elections, Greece’s major social-democratic party PASOK has been returned to power, while the governing New Democracy, the traditional right wing party, suffered its worst ever defeat in its 25-year history. PASOK leader George Papandreou, son of Andreas Papandreou, becomes Prime Minister, while Kostantin Karamanlis, only two years since his re-lection, is dealt [...]
Media Studies is Shit | Bamako: Doing Politics on Screen
Rabelais of the excellent Media Studies is Shit blog on putting politics into cinema, the problems of representation and the 2006 film Bamako.
Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako (2006) is a film you’ll find filed under ‘world cinema’ at your HMV, although the film’s political ambition means that it [...]
Glen Ford | Black Agenda Report: Black is Back
Glen Ford, of Black Agenda Report on a new coalition to fight the powers that be - including Obama.
African Americans have long struggled under the institutional weight of the Democratic Party, whose priorities have not coincided with our own for most of the last 40 years, if [...]
Gareth Pierce | The Framing of al-Megrahi
Although the crime was the most hideous Scotland had ever known, the integrity of the crime scene was violated; in part because outsiders were conducting a desperate search for wreckage that it was important for them to find and spirit away. As many police investigations over the years have [...]
Adbelbaset al-Megrahi walked free yesterday, having been freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish executive. The US is outraged, as, understandably are many families of victims of the Lockerbie terrorist attack, and everyone, including Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond, questioned the taste of the hero’s welcome afforded Megrahi in Tripoli. The Libyans have pointed out [...]
Le Monde Diplomatique on Iran
Marwan Bishara examines the politics of US-Iranian accommodation after three decades of conflict and considers how the fallout from disputed presidential elections effects Tehran’s regional role.
Part 1
Part 2
