Christian Parenti, whose latest book is The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, is a research fellow at the City University of New York’s Center for Place, Culture and Politics.
The indigenous social movements of Bolivia have ejected another president, the second in less than two years. What they are asking for is a constitutional assembly and the renationalisation of the country’s massive natural gas reserves, the second largest in South America. Bolivian petroleum and gas were state-owned until 1996.
Bolivian gas is more than a source of money in the eyes of...
Along the narrow tarmac road linking Kabul to Kandahar you could be in New Mexico: green valleys, with scattered trees turning orange and yellow; clusters of adobe-style walled compounds; and looming above huge barren mountains and empty blue skies. This small road is one of the few signs of progress in an appallingly underdeveloped country; indeed, it is one of only very few paved roads in...
On 30 January, the day of the election, in Amara in the old marsh region of southern Iraq, the sheikh advances and smiles and hugs me and kisses me: once, twice, pauses and, as I am about to step...
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