POWERFUL MULTI-NATIONAL AGRIBUSINESS CORPORATIONS AND A COMPLIANT AND CORRUPT LOCAL GOVERNMENT: RECIPE FOR WORLD LAND GRABS. (Foreign Policy in Focus) Recent protests in African country of Sierra Leone highlight a world pattern: the acquisition for mono-culture cultivation of tracts of land removed from the control of local farmers. Around 20% of the country’s arable land [...]
The world’s most popular — and profitable — social networking brand is increasingly coming under fire for its questionable tax practices even as it is earning praise and adulation from Wall Street on the day it becomes a publicly traded company. The Facebook stock IPO (initial public offering) has become a media and market phenomenon, [...]
A “LAKE SIDE SETTLEMENT” IN AFRICA HAS “MOVED” 22 KILOMETERS FROM THE BANKS OF THE CONTINENT’S LARGEST WATER RESERVOIR. (Africa News) Lake Chad in Nigeria and Chad continues to dry up at an alarming pace. The extended drought put the lives of 30 million people in the Sahel region at risk and precipitates an intense struggle [...]
The darkest and most frightening echoes of the 2008 financial crisis that rocked the global economy were stirred over the past week as mega-bank JP Morgan Chase broke the news of a stunning $2 billion loss in a trading debacle similar to the kind that conspired to wreak the American economy only three-and-a-half years ago. [...]
WHAT’S THAT IN THE SKY? A BIRD? A PLANE? “NOPE, JUST OUR LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT’S 25-POUND DRONE…” (Business Week) Unprecedented police control of the nation’s skies appears imminent after the Federal Aviation Administration and the Obama administration gave hearty approval to the request of undetermined “public safety agencies” to place unmanned drones weighing up [...]
FIGHT AT THE SUMMIT: IN THIS CORNER ANGELA MERKEL; THE DARK ANGEL OF DRACONIAN AUSTERITY MEASURES—IN THE RED TRUNKS FRANCOIS HOLLANDE; THE SOCIALIST PRESIDENT OF FRANCE. AND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE RING THE U.S.A.; BATTERED ON ALL SIDES BY A STRING OF NEVER-ENDING DISASTERS FROM ITS VAIN IMPERIAL ASPIRATIONS (Counterpunch) This how Gabriel Kolko “calls” the struggle today for international [...]
HOW DOES A CAPITALIST COUNTRY DEAL WITH A CRISIS IN EMPLOYMENT? BY CUTTING UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS, OF COURSE. (World Socialist) A political “deal” between the Obama administration and a Republican congress is now coming home to roost as some 200k American workers are slated to be cut off from “extended” unemploymet benefits—half of them in the [...]
WHILE THE U.S. SUPPORTS THE PROTESTS AGAINST “OUR ENEMY” (THE SYRIAN GOVERMENT) IT TOASTS ONE OF “OUR BASTARDS” (THE KING OF BAHRAIN) IN HIS CONTINUED SUPPRESSION OF PRO-DEMOCRACY PROTESTS IN THAT COUNTRY. (Asia Times) The Crown Prince of Bahrain receives full state “honors” on a visit to Washington just as a Bahrani leader says that the government will [...]
` IN BRITAIN THE QUEEN MADE A SPEECH BUT SHE DIDN’T SAY MUCH. (UK Independent) The Queen appears in Parliament to give her regular “speech” that articulates whatever is the policy agenda of the elected Prime Minister and cabinet. The speech given this week marks a signficant slow-down from drastic efforts at reform in the [...]
STUDENTS IN QUEBEC AGREE TO BE SCREWED BY THE GOVERNMENT. (World Socialist) Once again labor unions in the province betray the interest of the people whose union they supposedly represent. The government undertakes “austerity” measures to place the burden of deficit reductions on the backs of students through drastic tuition hikes. Violent student protest is finally muted [...]
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