Democracy Now!Tim Webb and Karen McVeigh, Common Dreams, April 14, 2011BP executives faced angry protesters as shareholders prepared to vote at its annual meeting in London, which is taking place a few days before the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon exp...
Robert Booth, The Guardian, April 13, 2011A Bahraini woman who witnessed her father, a well-known human rights activist, being seized by masked soldiers, beaten unconscious and then taken into custody, has told the Guardian that she is willing to die...
On Sunday thousands took the streets across Syria demanding that President Bashar al-Assad step down. At least 13 people were killed and many more arrested when Syrian forces attacked ongoing protests in two towns. In Yemen, at least 22 people were wounded Sunday when government forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh fired on pro-democracy
With all the excitement on other fronts, we’ve managed to neglect Tina Rosenberg’s extraordinary feature in Foreign Policy on CANVAS, the veterans of the Serbian Otpor! movement who have been teaching strategic nonviolent action to activists around the world—including Egyptians. Let it be neglected no longer. This is a really welcome, in-depth exploration of how
I wrote rather innocently a few weeks ago about the New York Times review of Joseph Lelyveld’s new biography of Gandhi, Great Soul. I wasn’t aware that, the same day I was writing, the Wall Street Journal published an incendiary review of the book by the British historian Andrew Roberts. (Roberts specializes in writing books
Last week, Fox News announced that Glenn Beck will lose his show later this year. While this decision was likely made for a variety of reasons, including his falling ratings, the ad boycott launched by Color of Change in July 2009, after Beck called President Obama a racist, clearly played an important role. In an
The current term for the weariness so many of us feel relative to the unremitting and devastating disasters to which we are exposed from day to day is “compassion fatigue.” As I contemplate the human cry from so many corners of the earth and feel...
If you were fooled into believing yesterday’s Tax Day announcement that General Electric planned to donate its entire 2010 tax return of $3.2 billion to the US Treasury, don’t feel bad. At least you didn’t publish an article about it on a news service picked up by thousands of media outlets. That ignominious honor belongs
According the latest survey of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, some 26.2% of families live in poverty and 14.1% live in deep poverty for a total of 40.3% living in poverty or deep poverty in the WB and Gaza. The situation in Ga...
In her interview on Radio Times this past Monday, Tina Rosenberg recasts peer pressure in a positive light and examines how it can be used for positive social and political change. During her talk, Rosenberg discusses the power of peer pressure for creating real social change, going so far as to call it a “social cure.” In addition to its uses in classrooms, hospitals, and anti-smoking ads, positive peer pressure can be used in movements for social and political change. Rosenberg specifically mentions the “social cure’s” role in Otpor’s movement in Serbia. Rosenberg explains that for Otpor, strong action...
Around 3,000 people marched through central Tokyo on Sunday to protest the Hamaoka nuclear-power plant, which is located about 200 kilometers southwest of Tokyo in Shizuoka Prefecture—the heart of a region that seismologists believe is well overdue for a massive undersea earthquake of a magnitude 8 or higher. After Bahrain’s interior ministry acknowledged that two
(Reuters) - In early 2005, Cairo-based computer engineer Saad Bahaar was trawling the internet when he came across a trio of Egyptian expatriates who advocated the use of non-violent techniques to overthrow strongman Hosni Mubarak. Bahaar, then 32 and interested in politics and how Egypt might change, was intrigued by the idea. He contacted the
Jeffrey Fleishman, LA Times, April 11, 2011The Egyptian military is learning a dangerous political truth: A revolution unfinished turns bitter and its heroes can be quickly recast as villains. What is unfolding in Cairo and across Egypt is an atmosph...
Kester Kenn Klomegah, IPS News, April 11, 2011Campaigners are asking the Azerbaijan government to introduce radical reforms early to avoid a popular uprising sweeping the Arab world. Opposition leaders and rights activists have mobilised large protests...
Xan Rice, The Guardian, April 12, 2011Riot police have fired teargas and water cannons, beaten demonstrators and arrested union leaders, activists and journalists in an attempt to stop pro-democracy protests in Swaziland, Africa's last absolute monar...
Malath Aumran, IWPR.net, April 8, 2011 I used to be a supporter of the regime before I became an activist five years ago. Like pretty much everyone in Syria, I bought the leadership’s propaganda and thought foreign critics of our country were just ...
