by Mark Engler
Despite an increase in promised aid to tsunami-affected countries last week, the United States’ aid offering still isn’t topping the list. Australia, for one, has donated much more. But the United States could make up for its somewhat meager offering by forgiving debt payments for tsunami countries. A temporary moratorium on payments won’t be enough. It’s time to go farther-much farther-and end debt obligations for tsunami countries in Southeast Asia. Trouble is, we (...)
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Time To Cancel Tsunami Countries’ Debt
13 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
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Tsunami Relief ....for some.
7 January 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
1 commentVultures of the insurance industry By Leigh Johnson | Janury 7, 2005
SURVEYING THE immense loss of life and structural damage in coastal Southeast Asia from the tsunamis, the global insurance industry had a perverse response: Relief.
While survivors searched for lost relatives and clean water, insurers were celebrating that the tragedy wouldn’t have a “material impact” on their 2004 profits. At least 5 million people have been made homeless, but because few have insurance, the industry (...) -
Cuban Parliamentary Sessions End with Support to Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
26 December 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
Havana, December 25 (RHC) — Cuban Parliamentary sessions concluded on Friday in Havana with the presence of President Fidel Castro and with the approval of the budget and economic and social guidelines for 2005.
A total of 10.5 billion pesos will be earmarked for education, health and social assistance, culture, sports, sciences and technology - 68 percent of expenditures included in the budget.
Education (4.1 billion pesos), health and new programs to improve medical and assistance (...) -
Restoring Workers’ Rights Has Always Been a Moral Value
1 December 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
By Stewart Acuff National AFL-CIO Organizing Director
We should not minimize the imminent, destructive potential of a second George Bush term. We as progressives should do some serious thinking and listening about what happened on November 2 and what we should do about it. But there are a few things that occur immediately to me.
Before the election and now after it, I take hope and encouragement from the great energy and activism on our side. I cannot remember a national election (...) -
Audit: Halliburton lost track of government property in Iraq
28 November 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
By John Solomon WASHINGTON (AP) A third or more of the government property Halliburton Co. was paid to manage for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq could not be located by auditors, investigative reports to Congress show.
Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary ’’did not effectively manage government property’’ and auditors could not locate hundreds of CPA items worth millions of dollars in Iraq and Kuwait this summer and fall, Inspector General Stuart W. Bowen reported to (...) -
Saudis, Enron money helped pay for US rigged election
26 November 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
2 commentsBy Wayne Madsen Online Journal Contributing Writer
November 25, 2004-According to informed sources in Washington and Houston, the Bush campaign spent some $29 million to pay polling place operatives around the country to rig the election for Bush. The operatives were posing as Homeland Security and FBI agents but were actually technicians familiar with Diebold, Sequoia, ES&S, Triad, Unilect, and Danaher Controls voting machines. These technicians reportedly hacked the systems to skew (...) -
U.N.: Afghanistan Sees Increase in Opium
20 November 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
1 commentBy PAUL GEITNER
Heroin production is booming in Afghanistan, undermining democracy and putting money in the coffers of terrorists, according to a U.N. report Thursday that called on U.S. and NATO-led forces get more involved in fighting drug traffickers.
"Fighting narcotics is equivalent to fighting terrorism," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. "It would be an historical error to abandon Afghanistan to opium, right after we reclaimed it (...) -
Life in the Second Bush Administration
18 November 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
1 commentby Charles Shaw
Featuring: "The Four Horsemen of the Average Fixed Cost"
by Poet-in-Residence Ronnie Pontiac
Throughout the last forty years a legitimate Revolution was taking place in this country. It was quieter and more clandestine than the Socialist revolutions of the 60’s, growing from within, from the grassroots upward. It was by the Right, and they now have control of the nation. Orwell may be spinning in his grave, but Barry Goldwater is cackling like a madman in his.
In (...) -
End Game Democracy: America Sells its Soul & Loses the World
11 November 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
5 commentsBravo Zulu Bywyd 11-11-2004
An open letter to the world community:
" I say we had better look our nation searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease." —Walt Whitman, "Democratic Vistas"
Now we have come the End of the colonial experiment known as the "United States of America." It has ended as the founders had warned it would likely end, with concentration of wealth, corruption, and despotism despoiling its democratic foundations. Unfortunately, (...) -
Kerry Wins If All Legal Votes Counted in Ohio!
8 November 2004 par (Open-Publishing)
14 commentsYes you read that right, Kerry WINS if all legal votes are counted. Provisionals will count even though they are counted late and if the "spoiled" ballots can be won either by a Dem challenge (which they have decided against but maybe can be pressured on) or a citizen lawsuit(probably one or more people from Ohio) to count these ballots, then Kerry can WIN, even though he conceded! If the Republicans seemed to lose but they knew that all the legal votes were not counted you better (...)