Ballooning public service ranks about to burst: report
Growth in executive jobs reflects the growing complexity of government. Executives are older and retiring at larger numbers and departments have to get the next generation ready to take over.
Canada trailing developing world in 'mobile revolution,' study suggests
( The article glosses over some glaringly obvious points, one being access to a computer workstation would tend to encourage one to move online access to it : another, that cellphone charges - and phone charges generally - are a ripoff compared to fixed fee internet connection charges ).
The Globe and Mail
Veteran’s wife wants bureaucrats to pay for sharing medical info
The bureaucrats responsible for digging through veterans’ advocate Sean Bruyea’s medical files must be held accountable to stop such breaches of privacy from happening again, his wife said Sunday.
The privacy commissioner is launching a review of Veterans Affairs Canada.Mr. Bruyea, a Persian Gulf war veteran, is suing the federal government for $200,000.
Within days of testifying before the Senate in 2005 against the department’s plans to switch to a lump-sum compensation system for wounded veterans – which was ultimately adopted – he had trouble accessing his benefits, Mr. Bruyea said.He discovered he was no longer approved for visits to a psychologist or couples’ counselling under the system, he said, and the department demanded he undergo a psychiatric assessment at a hospital of its choosing.
“Something was being done with my medical file and it was clearly as a result of my advocacy for veterans,” he said.
Ms. Bruyea, who struggled to make ends meet while her husband was entangled with the government, said she had tried at times to dissuade him from speaking out, for fear of reprisals.
Afghanistan battles mental health issues
( It's all in your head ! What a travesty evading reporting real causes of stress : 'war' on the citizenry by foreign troops. Thank you LibroCons and NATO. )
Two-year colleges lack services to reduce unplanned pregnancies
Half of college-bound students go to community colleges, and fewer than one out of every four students who begin community college finish with a degree -- although some additional students transfer to four-year schools. As public officials talk about graduating an additional 5 million community college students, they neglect to champion one of the most significant things they could do: support efforts to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies.
( Comments are interesting )
Voltaire
Geopolitics of Republican Italy
Tiberio Graziani
Defeated during the Second World War, occupied by the United States after its liberation, integrated into NATO by force during the Cold War, compelled to dissolve into the European Union, Italy is today a prisoner of its past while international relations are speeding ahead. According to Tiberio Graziani, even though Rome may not yet be in a position to frame an independent foreign policy, the time is ripe to start contemplating an exit strategy in keeping with its historical and geographical characteristics.
Today Italy, being an Euro-Mediterranean country subjected to the interests of the USA, finds itself in a tricky situation because, being a member both of the European Union and of the NATO, not only suffers from the tension between the USA and the Russia involving the European continent, especially in the central-east area (see the Polish question concerning the “security”, or the energy problem), but also suffers from the consequences of Washington’s political strategies in the Near- and Middle-East.
Moreover, the subjection of Italy to the USA, that - it is necessary to insist on this point - is clearly shown by the limited sovereignty of the Italian State, enhances the typical weakness of the peninsular regions (due to the tensions between the continental part, even if of limited extension as in the Italian case, and those parts that are properly peninsular and insular), increases the centrifugal dispersion, making difficult even the basic State management.
The recent changes in the global geopolitical frame produced some effects that could allow the “release” of most of the countries that belong to the so-called Western system from the control of the “American friend”. As a consequence of this new global context and according to it, Rome could possibly develop an own geopolitical doctrine. It is well known that the reaffirmation of Russia at the global level and the main roles played by China and India caused a new balance of the relationships between the great Powers and laid the foundations for a new order, based on geopolitical continental units obtained through strategic agreements rather than armed forces.
These changes manifested also in the southern part of the eastern hemisphere, formerly considered the yard of the USA, where the relationships between Brazil, Argentine and Venezuela with the above mentioned Euro-Asian Powers prompted the hypothesis of the South-American continental unit.
As far as the Mediterranean area is concerned, the most important new geopolitical factor is represented by the recent turnaround of Ankara in its foreign politics towards the Near- and the Middle-East regions. The separation of Ankara from Washington and Tel Aviv could act, in the middle term, as an important factor in the process aimed at the establishment of an Euro-Asian geopolitical system. In fact, it represents the first real event able to trigger the process of disunity (or contraction) of the eastern system starting from the Mediterranean basin.
Given the actual conditions, if Italy really wanted to get out of the North-American tutelage, it should pivot on the two geopolitical poles represented by Russia and Turkey.
A Surprise Boost for Euro from China
by F. William Engdahl*
The embattled Euro has gotten a surprise boost from an unexpected quarter―China. The country with the world’s largest foreign exchange currency reserves, China, has pledged to support Greek debt as well as the Euro in what is clearly a geopolitical decision. In doing so, China has signaled it seeks to prevent the US financial warfare attack on Europe and to play the EU off against the USA in a geopolitical chess game of a fascinating dimension.
Wen Jiabao at a press conference early October in Athens when he stated, “‘China is holding Greek bonds and will keep buying bonds that Greece issues. We will undertake to support Eurozone countries and Greece to overcome the crisis.”
The last statement is far the most significant. It indicates that China has made a strategic decision to counter any future attempt by US-based hedge funds and banks to attack the weak countries of the Eurozone, including Ireland, Spain, Portugal or Greece. Early this year, as we noted at the time, Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs, working in tandem with the US-based credit rating agencies, Standard & Poors and Moodys and Fitch, exploded the Greece financial crisis at the precise time China and other major investors were beginning to have serious doubts about the fiscal stability of the United States and of the dollar.
Let me be clear. The Euro as it stands, the supranational European Central Bank and the EU approach to international financial stability is not merely a flawed construct. It is inherently programmed to crises. It was born as the product of flawed rotten political compromises in the 1990’s through the Treaty of Maastricht as an attempt by France and Italy and Britain to control an emerging German economic colossus after German unification.
However, the concerted attack by a group of New York hedge funds such as George Soros’ and others earlier this year, and the precisely timed credit downgrade of Greece to “junk” status were in my view clearly part of a concerted US strategy of financial warfare against that Eurozone, the only potential alternative to the dollar as world reserve currency. Should the US dollar lose its status as the world leading reserve currency—today it still counts for some 65% of central bank currency reserves—the United States would be ultimately doomed as world sole Superpower.
As if specially timed, US hedge fund speculator, George Soros, who is currently appealing a French court conviction for insider trading, [1] has come out publicly blaming the German government of Angela Merkel for austerity measures he says will lead the Euro Zone into a “deflation spiral,” demanding instead more of a US-style fiscal stimulus. Given the respect accorded to words from Soros in financial markets, the effect of his comments is likely to have a negative impact on the Euro-dollar trade.
The US-based credit rating agencies, Moodys and Standard & Poors also played a critical role in weakening the Euro earlier this year. At the time the EU governments announced agreement in principle on a Greek bailout package in order to stabilize the speculative attacks on the euro, on April 27, Standard & Poors announced an unprecedented rating downgrade of Greek government debt by three-levels to “junk grade.” That move insured that pension funds and other investors would be forced to panic sell Greek bonds, a move that greatly exacerbated the pressures on the Euro.
Venezuelan Journalist Alicia Herrera Denounces Bombing of Cubana Civilian Aircraft
I cannot avoid the pain and anger that invades me every October by the impunity of the criminals whose names I cannot pronounce; and whose terrorist actions have continued, thanks to the protection given to them by the millionaire extreme right wing Cuban American elements and US intelligence services.
“It is indignation to know that terrorists like Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles are free and continue their plans of destruction and death, while five Cubans have remained in prison for the last 12 years for protecting the Cuban people from criminal attacks.
“We must permanently mobilize to demand justice for the Cuban Five that are incarcerated in the US”, and justice for the victims of the bombing of the Cubana airliner in 1976.
Obama administration fingerprints on Ecuador coup attempt
by Wayne Madsen*
With Nobel Peace Prize laureate Barack Obama, coups against unaccommodating Latin American leaders would appear to be back in style. After Honduran President Zalaya’s overthrow in June 2009, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa was the latest target. An outspoken member of ALBA and Hugo Chávez close ally, Correa had been giving Washington a tough time. Behind the abortive coup, Wayne Madsen’s investigation not only unveils the modus operandi of the CIA, but also lays bare Mossad’s murky activities inside Ecuador.
Using the standard CIA playbook on toppling democratically-elected governments in Latin America, the Obama administration, which was not happy with Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa’s moves to increase state control over oil companies in the nation and his decision to oust the United States military from its airbase at Manta, appears to have suffered a major defeat in the failed coup attempt in Ecuador by police officers and Air Force personnel who were backed by rightist elements in the National Assembly and business community. Correa was re-elected with an overwhelming majority last year after he gave the U.S. military its walking papers from the Manta airbase. The Pentagon and CIA have been working to topple Correa ever since by pumping money into opposition political parties and other groups through NGOs funded by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy.
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