What the world is reading

An Open Letter to the UN Secretary General

Boston Review

This open letter,signed by over 200 “big” names in academic and literary fields and includes signatories like Naom Chomsky and Nobel-prize winner Nadine Gordimer,argues that the recent elections in Iran were neither fair nor free. The author,Akbar Ganji,urges the United Nations to form an international truth-finding commission to examine the electoral processes. He cites several constitutional provisions which ensure that the ultimate authority rests with the Supreme Leader who can easily tweak and manipulate it to his liking.

I came to America longing for freedom and now I’m getting Obama’s ‘revolution’

World Tribune

The author,Lev Navrozov,who emigrated to the US from the Soviet Union in the 1970s,feels his second-home has not let him down where freedom is concerned. But he now feels concerned about the US’s recent engagement with China that falls under the broad framework of Obama’s revolution. “So instead of the American Churchill of today to be in charge of the survival of the USA,elected was a young man (reference to Obama) who called the USA a “partner” of the “People’s Republic of China”,which killed several times more people without any legal process than did Hitler’s “National-Socialist Germany.”

The Landmark Forum: 42 Hours,$500,65 Breakdowns

Mother Jones

Laura McClure takes a dig at the Landmark Forum’s expensive $500 catharsis,a come-to-terms-with-your existence programme that’s supposedly therapeutic. She describes her experience and of those around her at such a three-and-a-half-day ordeal. She says the programme had little effect on her; she neither ‘transformed’ nor ‘popped’ like microwave popcorn. “The company’s language of personal productivity,confidence,and communication…has become white noise in corporate America—and possibly in your personal circle,too,” she says.

Fixing Afghanistan

The Nation

Robert Dreyfuss says Americans should concentrate on withdrawing from Afghanistan,while allowing local chieftains to assume a greater role in the country’s political sphere. He writes,“…if the choices are either to spend decades,and hundreds of billions of dollars,creating a democratic Valhalla based in Kabul,or start winding down our presence…then I’d pick Option Two.”