One of the largest oil producers in the world, Nigeria exports 1.1 million barrels of petroleum a day to the United States. The continuing BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has refocused attention on the vast Niger Delta, home to thousands of oil and gas installations and an array of militant groups waging armed struggle against Western oil companies, a kleptocratic state and ruthless military forces. read more »

After the Jan. 12 earthquake in Haiti, Western leaders announced bold plans for building a “New Haiti.” The reconstruction, they emphasized, would be “Haitian-led,” based firmly on the principle of respect for “Haitian sovereignty” and carried out through “full and continued participation” by Haitians, “consistent with the vision of the Haitian people and government.” read more »

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras—On June 28 of last year, soldiers burst into the Honduran presidential palace in the middle of the night, put Manuel Zelaya, the country’s leftleaning, democratically elected president, on an airplane and exiled him to Costa Rica. read more »

Amid the continuing fallout over the deadly confrontation on the Gaza aid ship, the Mavi Marmara, there is a critical historical lesson: There is only one real victim, and that is Israel. read more »

On May 30, Israeli commandos stormed an unarmed flotilla of a half-dozen ships bringing humanitarian supplies to the people of the Gaza Strip. At least nine activists are reported to have been killed and dozens more injured when Israeli troops opened fire on the passengers of one of the six ships. read more »

A nation of 28 million people, Nepal is in the middle of a tense standoff between a revolutionary movement and a weakened regime — and the moment of truth is fast approaching. Two power structures are at loggerheads in Nepal. One just finished filling the streets of the capital city with a massive civil uprising marked by both discipline and revelry. The other is backed by the rifles of the Nepalese Army and the heavy weight of feudal tradition. read more »

TIQUIPAYA, Bolivia — Bolivian President Evo Morales spoke for many developing nations last December when he rejected the United Nation’s Copenhagen Accord as “an agreement reached between the world’s biggest polluters that is based on the exclusion of the very countries, communities and peoples who will suffer most from the consequences of climate change.” read more »

TOTORCAHUA, Bolivia—Ten minutes down a dusty dirt road from the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change, Don Cristobal points to a plot of wilted corn on the same land his grandparents tended. read more »

As a Greek teaching at the City University of New York, I can’t help but notice the parallels between brutal budget cuts in Greece and the impact of the economic crisis in the United States. Economic and political leaders around the world are bent on resolving the latest capitalist crisis by shifting the burden onto those least responsible for its eruption. One of the most recent examples is on display in Greece, where cutbacks amid an economic meltdown have met widespread resistance. read more »

What would you do if your water bill shot up 200 percent to what amounted to a third of your income? When this happened to residents of Cochabamba, Bolivia, they started a revolt. This April marks the tenth anniversary of Bolivia’s “Water War.” read more »