contributions

By Alan Howard
Last November in Vienna, fifteen years after the demise of the Soviet Union and well into the third decade of corporate-driven globalization, the international trade union movement was reorganized to eliminate its debilitating cold war political divisions and to enhance coordination across industrial lines made obsolete by globalization. The founding of this new organization, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 168 million workers in 153 (…)

By PAUL KRUGMAN
At just about every stop I’ve made so far on my book tour, what I’ve come to think of as The Question comes up. I talk about the origins of the long right-wing dominance of American politics, and the reasons I believe that dominance is coming to an end. Then someone asks, “How can you be optimistic about the prospects for progressive change, when big money has so much influence on politics?”
It’s a good question.
The public wants change. “If Americans have ever been (…)

Intoxicated by the Incense of Power
By TARIQ ALI
For anyone marinated in the history of Pakistan yesterday’s decision by the military to impose a State of Emergency will hardly comes as a surprise. Martial Law in this country has become an antibiotic: in order to obtain the same results one has to keep doubling the doses. What has taken place is a coup within a coup.
General Pervaiz Musharraf ruled the country with a civilian façade, but his power base was limited to the Army. And it (…)

Feds want Net snooping limits overturned
Posted by Anne Broache
November 5, 2007 5:25 PM PST
The Bush administration plans to fight a recent court decision that threatens to curb its powers to obtain logs of Americans’ Internet activities without court approval.
As expected, the U.S. Department of Justice on Monday filed a notice that it plans to appeal a September federal court ruling that declared the surveillance tactic, known as a national security letter, to be (…)

Markets fear banks have $1 trillion in toxic debt
By Sean O’Grady, Economics Editor
Published: 06 November 2007
A new phase in the credit crunch, one of “$1 trillion losses” seems to be dawning. The crisis at Citigroup and renewed doubts about some of the world’s leading banks disquieted stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday, with the fractious mood set to continue.
The FTSE 100 fell 69.2 to 6,461.4, with Alliance & Leicester (down 4 per cent) and Barclays (off (…)

Commondreams
Published on Monday, November 5, 2007 by The Telegraph/UK
This November 5 sees an international day of action to raise awareness of the human suffering caused by cluster bombs. Ten years after a treaty banning landmines, there is now an international process under way to ban cluster bombs.
Like landmines, cluster bombs kill and injure civilians after conflict.
The widespread use of these weapons in Lebanon last year drew the world’s attention to that once again. Like (…)

By BRUCE CRUMLEY
"Rien" — French for "nothing," famously the final diary entry by Louis XVI on the morning of his overthrow on July 14, 1789 — is exactly what the French are expecting out of Tuesday’s White House summit between President Nicolas Sarkozy and President George W. Bush. The visit is expected to largely serve as another exercise in atmospherics to showcase just how positive the U.S.-French relationship has become, despite nothing having substantially changed in policy terms (…)

Thousands remain stranded by Mexico floodwaters
Severe floods in the southern Mexican state of Tabasco were continuing to cause havoc and devastation on Saturday.
People evacuate a flooded area in Villahermosa, Mexico, Saturday. (Eduardo Verdugo/Associated Press) Officials estimate as many as 800,000 people are homeless after a week of heavy rain swamped the Gulf Coast state.
Rivers burst their banks late Thursday, submerging about 70 per cent of the low-lying state and 80 per cent of (…)

International Press Service (IPS) Ahmed Ali*
At least five million Iraqis have fled their homes due to the violence under the U.S.-led occupation, but half of them are unable to leave the country, according to well-informed estimates.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than 4.4 million displaced Iraqis, an estimate that many workers among refugees find conservative.
The UNHCR announced last week that at present 2,000 Iraqis are (…)

Gen. Petraeus & U.S. Engineers Confirm a Real Surge Would Drown 500,000 People
The Most Dangerous Dam in the World
By PATRICK COCKBURN
A catastrophic failure of the largest dam in Iraq would send a wave 65ft high hurtling down the valley of the river Tigris, killing up to 500,000 people, US engineers warned yesterday.
The dam, which is near Mosul in the north of the country, was built in 1984 on a bed of water-soluble rock and is in imminent danger of collapse. "In terms of the (…)