May 10, 2008

Last month’s summit in New Orleans brought together President Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, all right wingers, for the fourth meeting of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of the Americas (SPP), which is a tri-national grouping designed to coordinate strategy to create a corporate friendly atmosphere.

The surprise results of Nepal’s elections are now giving way to the next, perhaps more challenging, step of piecing together a coalition to write a new constitution and move toward abolishing the monarchy. In the recent election, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) won the most seats — 220 out of 601 — in the Constituent Assembly that is tasked with writing the constitution and deciding on the political framework for the Himalayan nation. Nepal has been ruled by a Hindu king for more than 200 years.

In a blow to the revolutionary Bolivian government of President Evo Morales, overwhelmingly elected in 2005 as the nation’s first indigenous president, a much anticipated autonomy referendum in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz department gained approval by an estimated 80 percent of voters on May 4.

We thought the push to privatize Social Security was dead. Failing to privatize Social Security, the administration has slashed the agency’s budget. These tactics ensure that the next time we have to fight to save Social Security, the public’s view of the Social Security Administration (SSA) might not be so favorable.

TAMPA, Fla. — Arizona Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, unveiled his health care plan at the Moffitt Cancer Center here April 29, calling for private health savings accounts. An hour or so later, Florida union health care workers convened a news conference nearby to blast his scheme as a carbon copy of George W. Bush’s discredited “medical savings accounts.”

UN: World hunger is top priority

Afghanistan: U.S. troops tortured prisoners

Chile: Strike riles copper giant

Morocco: Factory fire kills workers

Japan: Court rejects military role in Iraq