Tous les articles et traductions

, by In These Times

"Why Do They Want to Do Us Harm?"

Helen Thomas, a veteran reporter, asked the question at a White House press conference on al-Qaeda and terrorism. US administration officials stonewalled. “In these times” asked several contributors with various profiles, including Noam Chomsky and Gaytari Chakravorty Spivak, to provide some (...)

Bridging Partition: People’s Initiatives for Peace between India and Pakistan

Smitu Kothari and Zia Mian with Kamla Bhasin, A H Nayyar and Mohammad Tahseen (eds.), Orient Blackswan

Over the past three decades, in the shadow of hostile nationalisms fuelled by radical Islamic and Hindu politics, military crises, a runaway arms race, nuclear weapons and war, an amazing set of civil society initiatives has been taking root in India and Pakistan. A citizens’ diplomacy (...)

, by Tehelka

Building Stone Scarecrows

Nonviolent rights activits in Gujarat are being branded maoists and jailed, reports Parvaiz Bukhari. Dangs is the smallest and perhaps the most scenic Adivasi district of Gujarat. As you soak in the beauty and breathe the fresh air, Ashish Pawar, a young Adivasi activist acting as a guide, (...)

, by OpenDemocracy

Nigeria and the politics of massacre

In Nigeria, patterns of “religious” massacre are many decades old, but it is wrong to see this as simple “sectarianism”. A poor society facing modernisation at the hands of corrupt elites is vulnerable to the use of violence as a means of asserting economic and political power and the (...)

, by Foreign Policy in Focus

The New Anti-Nuclear Movement

There is a lot of news about nuclearism these days. But to cut through the verbiage of treaties and agreements and summits, and move people from fear to action, we need to focus on three concepts. The United States is the biggest problem when it comes to nuclear weapons. We need a new treaty (...)

, by The Guardian

The ’Obama doctrine’: kill, don’t detain

The ambitious desire to close Guantánamo hailed the coming of a new era, a feeling implicitly recognised by the Nobel peace prize that President Obama received. Unfortunately, what we witnessed was a false dawn. The lawyers for the Guantánamo detainees with whom I am in touch in the US speak (...)

, by OpenDemocracy

Beyond “liddism”: towards real global security

The first decade of the 21st century has been dominated by wars that have killed or injured close to half a million people, wars that arose after determined paramilitaries used parcel-knives to exploit the weaknesses of the world’s most advanced state. That incident might in principle have (...)

, by Tomdispatch.com

Afghanistan as a Drug War

Since Afghanistan now grows the opium poppies that provide more than 90% of the world’s opium, the raw material for the production of heroin, it’s not surprising that drug-trade news and war news intersect from time to time. More surprising is how seldom poppy growing and the drug trade are (...)

, by ALI Tariq, London Review of Books

Unhappy Yemen

In the London Review of Books, Tariq Ali tells about his recent trip to Yemen, after Obama and other US politicians started hinting that this country might become a new frontline yet in the ’war on terror’.
Recounting the country’s history since World War II, and in particular the war and (...)

, by OpenDemocracy , KALDOR Mary

Reconceptualising war

What if defeating the enemy was the justification for war, but not its real goal? What if its goal was a certain kind of power-brokerage? On Opendemocracy.net, Mary Kaldor attempts a redefinition of war in line with contemporary developments:
"Clausewitz defined war as an ‘an act of (...)

, by Foreign Policy in Focus

Obama Boosts Nukes

Despite his pledge to seek nuclear disarmament, Obama is investing big in the nuclear complex.
On February 1, the Obama administration delivered a budget request calling for a full 10 percent increase in nuclear weapons spending next year, to be followed by further increases in subsequent (...)

, by International Crisis Group

Reforming Pakistan’s Civil Service

If Pakistan’s deteriorating civil service is not urgently repaired, public disillusionment and resentment could be used by the military to justify another spell of authoritarian rule.
Reforming Pakistan’s Civil Service, the latest report from the International Crisis Group, analyses the (...)

, by Himal Southasian

Waiting for the Jaffna train

Even as the people of Jaffna – and those who were displaced – make use of their new freedoms of movement, they are confronted with the effect of decades of political stagnation. Read more

, by IPS

Israel Declares War on Peace NGOs

One year after the devastating attack on Hamas in Gaza a new wave of reports castigating Israel for war crimes has emerged.
Now, Israel is fighting back with a report on the reports, picking on international NGOs such as Amnesty, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Trocaire , Finn Church Aid, Diakonia and (...)

, by Tomdispatch.com

The Year of the Assassin

An American World of War: What to Watch for in 2010

According to the Chinese calendar, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger. We don’t name our years, but if we did, this one might prospectively be called the Year of the Assassin.
We, of course, think of ourselves as something like the peaceable kingdom. After all, the shock of September 11, 2001 (...)