We read in the Boston Globe (Friday, January 4th) that the results of the Iowa caucuses among Democrats and Republicans are important for the unprecedentedly intense grassroots interest they reveal in the upcoming presidential election. But more to the point, to the extent voters in Iowa are still trying to make those two creaky old suits of armor work, they remain profoundly clueless. On the surface, they appear to be lining up once more to perform the symbolic ritual of Throwing the Rascals Out. This time, it is true, the Rascals are a smelly bunch of radical pro-corporates quaintly...
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In Swaziland more than a third of the population is in need of food aid, after its worst ever harvest, said a UN food agencies’ report. A prolonged dry spell has left around 400,000 vulnerable people in need of approximately 40,000 metric tonnes of food assistance until the next harvest in April 2008. This year’s maize crop is nearly 60 per cent below last year’s level, both reducing the availability of food as well as resulting in price surges that will curtail many families’ access to food in the country where nearly seven out of ten people live...
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Channel 4′s Unreported World draws our attention to the inroads that Chinese capitalism is making throughout Africa . China’s economic boom is resulting in the biggest scramble for Africa since the end of European colonialism. Trade between Beijing and Africa has more than quadrupled since 2000 and hundreds of new companies, many of them partly owned by the Chinese State, have set up. Thousands of Chinese workers are now in Central Africa, buying up copper and cobalt. Vital for the manufacture 0f Chinese-made goods such as mobile phones, MP3 players and laptops . And the result of this...
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The recent raucous presidential election of a year ago fading into the foggy past, our nation has had its deficient political attentions buzzed about, alighting on the replacement of two Supreme court Justices, illegal immigrants, scandals involving CIA agents, hurricanes, brain-dead women, faulty intelligence justifying the war in Iraq, and state and Congressional races, and host of “reform” issues – with the “The War on Terror” remaining that persistent low drone in the background. In trying to grasp the big picture, starting from Bush-Kerry in 2004, one finds it increasingly difficult to find just what each of our two...
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While not as big as the presidential election we see every four years, many states have important votes that will determine how capitalism will continue to be administered by the politicians, some of whom are being voted for today as well. Cities such as New York and my own San Diego have mayor elections, while the states of Maine and Texas have gay-rights measures. The workers Virginia and New Jersey vote for new governors, and perhaps the most famous state governor, The Govenator, is pushing for a set of measures that will give him the power to fix Caleeforneeya....
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