Category: World News

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA – I think most Americans have little idea of the climatic conditions here in Saudi Arabia. We, with the exception of those who have experience in small desert towns, have nothing with which to compare this environment in Riyadh. It is stark, barren, bright, superheated, and dry to the nth degree. It is unforgiving, mean, murderous, virtually without plants, animals, water or shade. Somehow, Saudi Arabs have managed to adapt to and survive in this ultra-difficult setting for, I’m guessing, 5,000 years. It seems fair to say that’s worth a tip of the hat.

The biggest story of the week is the number of arrests made at Occupy encampments large and small across the whole country and the late night/early morning police raids that have generated so many of those arrests.

The most gripping example was the early morning dismantling of Occupy Oakland by police with riot gear. The whole world was watching as Iraq War Vet for Peace Scott Olsen was dragged to safety at a protest later that day after being left bloodied and prostrate on the ground by a police projectile. The image of someone in a wheel chair maneuvering through a cloud of smoke and tear gas was no less gut wrenching. Mayor Jean Quan decides to make nice with the occupiers the following day.

From Tehran to Scotland, from Hong Kong to the always fiery, militant youth of Rome, the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread across the globe. Tired and angry over decades of corporate owned capitalism, where wealthy stockholders and huge multi-national corporations set the agenda for political and economic policy decisions, plunging millions of middle-class families into poverty, exacerbating the conditions of the already destitute, and forcing millions of youth into either wage slavery or no future at all; the world’s 99% have taken to the streets.

Annual Conflict Resolution Conference Brought World Healers to Our Shores

Sister Pauline Acayo, is a large African woman. Large not merely in physical presence, but in the sense her heart is filled with love and compassion. George Gacharo is a young African man. Young not merely in the sense of age, but in the sense he is full of fire and energy for the work he does. Gidon Bromberg looks a bit like an Israeli Peter Sellers. And like Sellers’ comedic nature, his work is subtle and surreptitious in nature and he tells of it with a wry smile.

The Occupy Wall Street solidarity actions are indeed spreading across America.

As of today (Oct 4th) there are currently Occupy actions being planned – or are in process – in 148 cities across the U.S. Yes, that’s right, 148. Twenty-one are being planned in California alone. That’s 5 more than there was two days ago.

That’s actions in 46 states plus DC!

PARIS, FRANCE. September 27th this year, teachers in France from primary school to high school went on a national one-day strike. They weren’t asking for pay raises–though they certainly deserve them–they were on strike to demand the means to do their jobs.

There were around 150,000 demonstrators, including parents supporting their demands. The current rightwing government has already eliminated thousands of educational posts and proposes to eliminate another 14,000 next year. [Editor: Let’s be clear: France does not have a “socialist” government or education system.]

By Mike Davis / TomDispatch.com / September 13, 2011

1. Twin Towers

Two years from now the staffs of Vanity Fair and the New Yorker will move into the most haunted building in the world. There, the elite of American celebrity photographers, gossip columnists, and magazine journalists may meet some macabre new muses, aloft in the upper stories of 1 World Trade Center where 658 doomed employees were sitting at their desks at 8:46 AM, September 11, 2001.

By Randall Erickson / Special to the OB Rag

PARIS, FRANCE. In addition to the different forms of aid to the defavorized (a popular political euphemism often used now in place of the more descriptive and simple «poor»), some people have found their own ways to survive or improve their lives. Like in the United States, they scour the garbage bins behind supermarkets and find products that have been thrown out but are perfectly edible, and even non-food products. For reasons incomprehensible to me, some supermarkets pour bleach or other liquid products over the contents of their bins.

By Randall Erickson / Special to the OB Rag

PARIS, FRANCE. In my last dispatch, I gave some practical examples of how «socialism» or the welfare state, if you will, functions.

I should add that the price of visiting a doctor is about 30 dollars. Specialists cost a bit more. Doctors can stay in the government system or go independent and charge more, but that extra may or may not be taken up by the mutual.

By Juan Cole / Informed Consent / August 22, 2011

The Libyan Revolution has largely succeeded, and this is a moment of celebration, not only for Libyans but for a youth generation in the Arab world that has pursued a political opening across the region. The secret of the uprising’s final days of success lay in a popular revolt in the working-class districts of the capital, which did most of the hard work of throwing off the rule of secret police and military cliques. It succeeded so well that when revolutionary brigades entered the city from the west, many encountered little or no resistance, and they walked right into the center of the capital.

By Randall Erickson / Special to the OB Rag

PARIS, FRANCE. My previous dispatch may give a too idealistic image of life in France.

There are major and minor problems. Yes, like the United States, France has homeless individuals and families. They cannot afford available housing and may have trouble paying for food or even finding a school for their children because they don’t have an address.

Editor: Here are two articles from Europe about the state of America today – since the so-called “debt crisis” was resolved. One is from Der Spiegel – one of the most well-respected German newspapers -, and the other from the Guardian in Britain. The pictures of our country that these articles paint is extremely terrible : the German believes that the U.S. is no longer part of the “West”, and the British view is that there’s been a “billionaires’ coup” in America.

Once Upon a Time in the West

by Jakob Augstein / Der Spiegel (Germany) / August 4, 2011

This week, the United States nearly allowed itself to succumb to economic disaster. Increasingly, the divided country has more in common with a failed state than a democracy.

(Come inside for the remainder of this article.)

Anger, Deceit and a Billionaires’ Coup

By George Monbiot/ Guardian UK (Britain) / August 2, 2011

Anger and deceit has led the US into a billionaires’ coup. The debt deal will hurt the poorest Americans, convinced by Fox and the Tea Party to act against their own welfare.

(Come inside for the remainder of this article.)