| Resolution adopted by the ISSE/SEP Emergency Conference Against ...
On March 22, Socialist Equality Party member Nadarajah Wimaleswaran and his friend Sivanathan Mathivathanan disappeared while traveling between two naval roadblocks in northern Sri Lanka. Two weeks after their disappearance, the Sri Lankan government and military is maintaining a wall of silence on their whereabouts. There is every reason to believe that the Sri Lankan government is responsible for their arrest and possible murder. Last August, SEP supporter Sivapragasam Mariyadas was murdered at his home. The following resolution was passed unanimously by the International Students for Social Equality/Socialist Equality Party Emergency Conference Against War, held on March 31 and April 1, 2007, in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This conference demands that the government of Sri Lanka provide an accounting for the disappearance of Nadarajah Wimaleswaran, a member of the Socialist Equality Party of Sri Lanka, and his friend Sivanathan Mathivathanan in the northern Jaffna islands on March 22.
State budget crisis: Opportunity for leadership
There is great angst and anxiety in Michigan today. Seems that every economic indicator one looks at is heading in the wrong direction. Home foreclosures, bankruptcies and unemployment are up, home sales (if you can sell) and personal income are down and the domestic auto industry and auto suppliers are shedding jobs like many of us wish we could peel off a few pounds. And the very jobs that we believe are our future and salvation are pulling up stakes and leaving town as well. Comerica is heading west, Chrysler may go east to China, while Pfizer's departure from Michigan has many of its employees, and local and state government officials, heading to the medicine cabinet. .
N-Delta crisis blamed on bad governance
ABUJA—The National Coordinator of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), Ambassador Issac Aluko-Olokun, has blamed violence in the Niger Delta, other parts of the country and other African countries on lack of good governance. Speaking at the 4th edition of a series of workshops to validate the Country's Self Assessment Report (CSAR) of the APRM, in Abuja, yesterday, he said that violence in Niger Delta, other parts of the country and indeed the continent was a reflection of lack of good governance which must urgently be addressed if the continent was to witness an accelerated socio-economic development. His words: “Whether in Congo, Burundi, Sudan or even in the Niger Delta, the problem with us is lack of good governance. Lack of good governance manifest in many ways, including failure to apply public resources to the needs of the people and doing so in a transparent accountable manner." According to him, the APRM is an organ of NEPAD established to address the programme of lack of good governance in most African countries, noting that many decades after achieving political independence, Africa remains largely backward.
Critics round on Brown as G8 hopes fall short of dream
"The world can't wait. With all the knowledge, technology and wealth at our disposal, another generation must not be consigned to a life of misery and unnecessary struggle for the want of political will." - Cardinal Keith O'Brien Story in full IT WAS a vision of hope delivered less than 24 hours after one of Britain's darkest days. .
Nigeria: The Forthcoming Election - a Transition Into Hope Or Despair?
As we are about to go into another election, I have been agonizing about the prospects which this transition holds for our nation and the teeming population of our people, most of whom still wallow in abject poverty and have seen their aspirations and dreams shattered from one political dispensation to the other. We have been told that the economy has performed well in the past 8 years. Statistics have been brandished to convince the most ardent cynics and critics that good times are back. There has been celebration of an economic performance that is characterized by jobless growth, diminishing quality of life, high unemployment, dilapidating infrastructure and an expanding poverty cycle. But really, of what significance is an economic growth and development that does not translate into social development? Let the statistics convey whatever picture the owner may want to paint.
IMF, OECD see signs of slowdown in US economy
BERLIN (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund has revised down its forecast for U.S. economic growth by 0.4 percentage points, a German newspaper reported in its online edition on Friday. A report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development also pointed to a slowdown in the world's largest economy, and signaled a weaker outlook for G7 economies as a whole. The Financial Times Deutschland said it had seen a draft of the IMF's World Economic Outlook, to be published next Wednesday, which said the U.S. economy is likely to grow by about 2.2 percent this year. This compared with growth of 2.6 percent predicted in preliminary IMF figures last month. The newspaper said the draft sees U.S. growth picking up in 2008 to about 2.8 percent, down from 3.0 percent given in the previous figures.
|
