New Zealand Labour Leader Phil Goff on Afghanistan

Afghanistan

The US faces some critical decisions on Afghanistan, and is considering a range of options.

I pointed out Labour’s position to senior State Dept officials – we believe we were right to send our SAS in December 2001 to help drive Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11 and we are committed to winning hearts and minds through our Provincial Reconstruction Team.

Such development assistance is vital, though we face challenges when Afghanistan’s government is widely regarded as being corrupt. Our goal of a stable Afghanistan remains and we will continue to do all we can to help. The challenge is how best to add lasting value to that country without alienating the very people we are trying to assist.

Ignatieff will Support Tory Budget

@thecbc – “Ignatieff puts Tories ‘on probation’ with budget demand” http://bit.ly/NdO2C

New coalition is Harper & Ignatieff. NDP and Bloc Q. are left standing at altar by new Liberal leader.

Torys Fate in Hands of Ignatieff

@torontostar – “Government’s fate now rests with Ignatieff who says he is concerned the Harper government has underestimated the economic crisis” http://bit.ly/1tvX5i

NY Times (Carter Dougherty): Sweden’s Fix for Banks: Nationalize Them

NY Times (Carter Dougherty): Sweden’s Fix for Banks: Nationalize Them

The Swedes have a simple message to the Americans: Bite the bullet and nationalize. Officials in Washington are trying to figure out how to shore up American banks that once ruled the financial world but now seem to weaken by the day, despite receiving hundreds of billions of dollars in government aid. With Sweden’s banks effectively bankrupt in the early 1990s, a center-right government pulled off a rapid recovery that led to taxpayers making money in the long run. Former government officials in Sweden, many of whom come from the market-oriented end of the political spectrum, say the only way to solve the crisis in the United States is for the government to be prepared to temporarily take full ownership of the banks. Sweden placed its banks with troubled assets into a so-called bad bank, where they could be held and then sold over time when market and economic conditions improved. In the meantime, it used taxpayer money to provide enough capital to allow banks to resume normal lending. In the process, Sweden wiped out existing shareholders.

Harper Morphs into Bush

The Canadian P.M., Stephen Harper. seems to think that following Karl Rove’s roadmap of division, fear, and personal destruction is the only way to save his job. Harper not only mirrors Bush’s disastrous policies, he seems to think Canada has a President, not a prime minister.

Facing a certain loss in a vote of confidence, Harper has suspended parliament, suggesting those who would form a coalition government are engaged in treason. Sound familiar?

There were many times in the last eight years, I wished the USA had a parliamentary system, so we could put Bush out with a vote of “no confidence”. I guess the Canadians must also wish they had a …ooops…they do have a parliamentary system.

The NDP was looking for six posts in the cabinet under the new coalition.

The National has it all covered.

Labour Turned Out in New Zealand

After nine years in government, the NZ Labour party has been swept out of office by the Center-Right National Party.

Full coverage is available from the BBC.

It seems so sad that those who have set a good example while we have been suffering through 8 years of hell should be turned out. With the re-election of S. Harper and his Conservatives in Canada and the impending defeat of Labour in Great Britain, the leaders of the English-peaking world are out of synch.

Immigrants Come Here Because Globalization Took Their Jobs Back There

By Jim Hightower, Hightower LowdownSeal-the-border hysteria is everywhere. Instead of blaming immigrants for America’s problems, let’s look at executives on both sides of the border. Read more »

Australians Reject Bush Buddy Howard

Kevin Rudd and the Australian Labor Party have swept to a landslide victory over John Howard’s Liberal Party-National Party Coalition.  Howard, one of Bush’s last foreign supporters, even lost his own riding. Rudd has vowed to roll back so-called “Work Choices” legislation, a centerpeice of Howard’s domestic policy, and to bring Australian troops home from Iraq. Read More.  

Australian PM ambushed by bunnies

From the same folks who brought us the fake Bush motorcade:Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:22 am PDTAFP - Embattled Australian Prime Minister John Howard was accosted on Friday by comedians dressed as giant bunnies who encouraged him to “pull a rabbit out of his hat” to save himself from electoral disaster.  Full Story via Yahoo!

P.M. Howard Calls Election-Trails In Polls-Rudd and ALP Poised for Victory

Mr. Howard is about to lose his election for supporting Bush and his insane war in Iraq.

Other leaders of the “coalition of the willing” who have already gone or been toppled include former prime ministers Tony Blair of Britain, Jose Maria Aznar of Spain, Silvio Berlusconi of Italy and Poland’s president Aleksander Kwasniewski.

read the entire article.