June 2008

Employees at all levels are worried about the cost of food; low-paid workers and the old are reduced to sifting through supermarket rejects: the problem of purchasing power is destroying the credibility of governments everywhere. In France, Italy and Britain, the parties in power have been soundly defeated in local elections. In the United States, the Republican Party has lost three of its traditional strongholds since March, in elections for seats in Congress. It had held one for 33 years, (...)

An unexplained decision by the Lebanese government last month to challenge Hizbullah over its military capabilities provoked a Hizbullah-led alliance of militias to defeat those of the prime minister and a Sunni party. With the election of a new president, Michel Suleiman, the fighting ended, but Hizbullah’s participation in government is a blow for the US.

Syria opened peace talks with Israel last month, mediated by Turkey, the first since 2000. Meanwhile Syria’s young – under-employed and politically frustrated – are hoping for some more immediate, modest change. What they want is to work and live, here or elsewhere, be free to talk about politics, economy and society – and to dance.

The Islamist movement Hizb ut-Tahrir has revived by tapping energy among Europe’s immigrant communities and appealing to Muslims on the edge of Asia, and to Palestinians. But it is a marginal international grouping; could it retain its appeal if it engaged directly in politics or if its demands were actually met?

Class is the great unmentionable in the Obama-Clinton campaigns. US progressives want to diversify the elite across colour, gender and ethnic background, while accepting ever greater inequalities of wealth between the elite and the rest of the nation.

Just 15 numbers tell the history of the past seven years, in which a once wealthy and relatively secure nation near-bankrupted itself, pursued chimeras and funded chaos-causing wars that left it poorer and less safe then ever before.

Ukraine thinks it’s already in Europe but the EU, worried over Russian energy supplies, doesn’t endorse that presumption.And perhaps the EU has already grown too large, and too quickly, to retain its purpose and cohesion.

Renault’s Romanian factoryhands took on the management and won more than half of the pay rise they had demanded. Could their attitude affect industrial relations further west in Europe?

The case of Laos shows the extreme need for the new international ban on cluster bombs. Thirty years after the last bomb was dropped there in the secret war on Vietnam’s ‘other theatre’, the Laotians treat the unexploded ordnance as a natural resource to be exploited, dangerously, for its metal content.

The case of Laos shows the extreme need for the new international ban on cluster bombs. Thirty years after the last bomb was dropped there in the secret war on Vietnam’s ‘other theatre’, the Laotians treat the unexploded ordnance as a natural resource to be exploited, dangerously, for its metal content.

Nepal became the world’s newest republic on 28 May. The former Maoist rebels, the main winners of April’s elections, lead the coalition government which has abolished the monarchy.

Angola is an enormous building site, with some work in progress and far more promised, funded by oil and by the Chinese who want that oil. But the sudden towers and planned boulevards of luxury apartments will do nothing to house, feed and employ a nation where most are still poor.

The government, armed forces and vested interests in the Philippines have used the excuse of counter-terrorism to murder, kidnap and pressure trade unionists and farmers’ organisations. They want a nation of docile labour and emptied land that can be sold on the world markets.

Companies are already selling customers personalised genomics, individual genetic tests intended to predict future health and its maintenance. This is not a wise approach to mass healthcare.