Category: USA
-
Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Update on the Mad Monk file
Popular ridicule spells political death for any political leader. That’s because it is almost impossible to overcome and undermines the capacity to lead and carry authority. In just 18 months Prime Minister Tony Abbott has managed to reveal himself as mad and bad. Now he’s a joke. What broke the back of his most loyal…
-
Rinehart scores jackpot with US state bank loan
Happy New Year and welcome to the wonderful world of Tony Abbott and his richest supporter, mega-billionaire Gina Rinehart. In case you missed it in the Christmas rush, the world’s richest woman has pulled another jackpot to the tune of $784 million. That’s the amount she has been given by a US Government agency, the…
-
Japan: Land of the Rising Gun
Prime Minister Shinto Abe’s right-wing government in Tokyo has announced military spending of $270 billion on drones, submarines, fighter jets and armed patrol boats. It is a military provocation against China at the instigation of militarists in the US State Department and the Pentagon. It forms part of their policy of “encirclement” and “containment” of…
-
Syria: US poised for yet another atrocity
The savagery and barbarity of US imperialism is once again to be unleashed on the people of the Third World. This time the target is the people of Syria. For two years they have suffered the bloodiest civil war imposed on them by regime-changers – principally the Western powers led by US, Britain and Israel.…
-
The IMF’s howler: Millions in poverty
The IMF’s howler: Millions in poverty To the millions of pauperised citizens of Europe, there has been an unprecedented admission of guilt by the International Monetary Fund (IMF): we got it wrong. In a New Year report entitled “Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers”, the IMF admitted that it had plunged nations of the Euro-zone…
-
School massacre, guns and reality
You’d need a heart of stone not to be moved by the outpouring of grief over the shooting of 20 children at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. However, the wall-to-wall coverage in the media in the US and here has been over-indulgent, ghoulishly invasive and gratuitously suspect. It’s as if the classroom massacre has…
-
Never mind Greece, what about France?
Eurozone finance ministers did a deal earlier this week to make a partial reduction in Greece’s debt and permit an 11th-hour, 34bn euro bailout. But the deal, presented as a win-win for Greece and its creditors, depends on Athens borrowing a further 14bn euros to finance a bond buyback scheme that the Greek finance sector…
-
Decoding the US ‘debate’
Like other political desperados, I watched all three US presidential debates “live” on television and, just for good measure, the vice-presidential debate as well. The debates left me deeply puzzled by American political life. During the Q&A on domestic issues – health, education and tax – I was totally confused while the debate on the…
-
The unfeeling toffs
SO NOW it’s London, Glasgow and Belfast. There were massive demonstrations on Saturday against the Cameron government’s austerity measures – 100,000 people took to the streets in the capital alone. Called by the Trade Union Congress (TUC), the day was a significant show of strength. At the rally, though there were signs that the TUC…
-
Australia joins US camp at UN
What is the meaning of Australia winning a seat on UN Security Council for the next two years? It means that the United States and Israel now have an extra vote on the Security Council. The declaration by the Gillard Government and Foreign Minister Bob Carr that their first objective will be world peace is…