* Back after a fairly long absence, so much going on right now... but it's time to rectify a few things. No.1: ZNet is cool. No.2: Asia Times is cooler than I thought.
The ever-cool ZNet site, self-titled "A community of people committed to social change", highlights two very different accounts of the indigenous people's revolutions taking place across Northern Latin America. The first one looks at the emancipation of the indigenous people of Bolivia, comprising 70% of the population but not feeling at home in their own country. The article looks at their voting-in of their first indigenous president, Evo Morales, and the difficult path towards a new state organization untainted by 500 years of colonialism and various flavours of imperialism. Another looks at the internal racism within a US-leaning state such as Columbia, which discriminates against its own AfroColumbian people for the colour of their skin and the need for a social scapegoat. Eye-opening stuff.
Over at the Asia Times Online, that I read very rarely, I was pleasantly surprised by an article showing the veritable diplomatc minefield that the Europe-Middle East area represents for turn-of-the-(21st-)Century Great Powers US and Russia. The article entitled "Iran courts US at Russia's expense" shows the recent warming between the two regional rivals in the context of energy, Islamic political horse trading, Great Power realpolitik and local international territorial issues. Read the two pages of the article and before you know it, you're all smug and feel you've studied geopolitics in school or something. Easy-to-read, straight-up, academic without being stuffy, highly commendable with easily chewable information. For anyone who wants a heads-up on the political situation without demonisation or BS rhetoric from either side.
