por Txente Rekondo 21 de agosto, 2009 Tras diferentes retrasos, las elecciones presidenciales afganas se han celebrado, y si en un principio las fuerzas ocupantes del país apostaron por una cita electoral “limpia y masiva”, tras los acontecimientos de las últimas semanas (divisiones internas entre los candidatos, aumento de las operaciones de la resistencia afgana, operaciones masivas [...]

by Will Lester August 19, 2009 WASHINGTON — A majority of Americans say the war in Afghanistan is not worth fighting, according to a poll released on the eve of that nation’s elections. An ABC News-Washington Post poll found 51 percent who said the war was not worth fighting, while 47 percent said it was worth it.

by Roger Cohen July 16, 2009 The least that could be said, in the sunny morn after Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s emphatic reelection as president of Iran, was that festivities of the kind associated with a victory by two thirds of the vote were on hold, discarded in favor of a putsch-like lockdown. Baton-wielding riot police in thigh-length black [...]

por Alain Gresh mayo 2009 El fondo del aire es rojo (1). Durante dos decenios, desde las sierras de América Latina a los arrozales de Asia, pasando por las montañas del norte de África, el mismo huracán parecía llevarse el viejo orden colonial y la dominación económica del Norte. En 1956, con una carcajada épica, el presidente [...]

por Editorial (Punto Final) 24 de julio, 2009 Sometidos a una permanente erosión ideológica y cultural por la acción combinada de la televisión, radio y casi todos los medios escritos, muchos chilenos parecen vivir un pesado sopor respecto a sus derechos más elementales y en la más absoluta ignorancia política. No parecen importar la desigualdad creciente entre [...]

by Sasan Fayazmanesh July 21, 2009 We often have a tendency to reduce complex social situations to simplistic scenarios, where there is only black or white and no shades of gray, only heroes or villains and nothing in between. Such seems to be the attitude of many Iran analysts, particularly those on the progressive side, toward the [...]

Woman claims to have seen piles of corpses, as tension rises in Tehran over Rafsanjani speech

versión en español abajo by Noam Chomsky July 9, 200 June 2009 was marked by a number of significant events, including two elections in the Middle East: in Lebanon, then Iran. The events are significant, and the reactions to them, highly instructive.

by Farooq Sulehria July 10, 2009 A columnist in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv told his readers on the day of election in Iran: “If you have friends in Iran, try to convince them to vote for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today. There is no one who will serve Israel’s PR interests better than him.” (12 June 2009)

by Sami Halabi July 7, 2009 Lebanon’s elections last month confirmed yet again that in this tiny Mediterranean country, sectarian politics are paramount. Long gone from the collective consciousness are the lessons of the 15-year civil war that began as a political and class dispute and descended into sectarian enmity. Forgotten also are the post-war years that [...]