Global

AUSTIN, Texas -- We Texans are sleeping more soundly at night now that Land Commissioner David Dewhurst is on the job as state director of Homeland Security, preventing attacks on important cultural monuments, such as the statue of the roadrunner in Fort Stockton. Dewhurst normally spends his time laboring on anti- litter campaigns, but he is fully qualified to ensure Homeland Security on account of he was once in the CIA doing something in Latin America we'd probably rather not know about.

On his regular watch, all Dewhurst has done for Texans' security is permit the Longhorn Pipeline Co. to build through populated areas without so much as an environmental impact statement, thus endangering the lives of thousands, if you believe those alarmist environmentalist types. Just the man for the job.

The usual bosh is getting into the press about the technological prowess of U.S. weaponry as deployed against Afghanistan. He's been getting some great scoops in his New Yorker dispatches, but in this instance, Seymour Hersh ran some amazing rubbish in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago about the capabilities of the Predator unmanned reconnaissance vehicle. So did Thomas Ricks in the Washington Post in a story titled "U.S. Arms Unmanned Aircraft/Revolution In Sky Above Afghanistan." The Predator is made by General Atomics, a San Diego-based company, and each plane costs $20.5 million, which is a bargain in this day and age, though you don't get much for your money.

Tortilla producers announced an increase in the price of tortillas of between 12.5% and 37.5%. Tortillas provide about 40% of the calories in a typical campesino diet. Tortilla producers blamed the price increases on middlemen who "change the price when they like." The price of tortillas is expected to rise to between 4 and 5.5 pesos per kilo. Since the NAFTA accords took affect in 1994, Mexico has gone from a net exporter of corn, the raw material for tortillas, to a net importer of highly subsidized corn from the US. Last year, Mexico imported 3 million tons of corn at a cost of US$2.85 million. As part of NAFTA, Mexico agreed to remove consumer subsidies, including subsidies for tortillas, and the price of this Mexican staple more than tripled before the recent announcement of increases.

The world economy is close to recession and developing nations will suffer the most severe impact, according to yearly prognostications published by the World Bank. The GNP of developing nations will grow by 2.9% this year, but only 1.1% in 2002, according to the report. If China, with annual growth approaching 10%, is removed from the mix, the developing world may be in recession in 2002. The report noted that "what makes this situation particularly risky is that, for the first time since 1982, the US, Europe and Japan are registering deceleration at the same time." The World Bank prescribed the same old medicine - increased "free" trade. The world economy grew by 4.5% in the 1970s, before free trade policies took hold, then grew by 3.5% in the 1980s and 2.5% in the 1990s, after the free trade model was in full bloom. Meanwhile, the Bank of Mexico predicted that steep declines in the industrial and service sectors would result in increased unemployment next year. Bancomer predicted a 3.5% decrease in industrial exports to the US this year. Manufacturing and services account for 90% of the Gross National Product of Mexico.

If to believe print and electronic media’s headlines, Pakistan ’s military ruler General Musharraf is facing near revolt at the hands of religious political parties after his governments divisive decision to support US in her war on terrorism. In the aftermath of September 11 cataclysmic events, President Musharraf, left with no choice but to support international community in its war on terrorism, declared his government’s decision to provide logistic support to US forces (thus allowing US forces to use its air bases besides air space) and to cooperate with US services in intelligence collecting and sharing, thus inviting wrath of Muslim radicals who are openly supporting Taliban’s puritan regime.

Episode I.

Let there be light!” said God, and there was light!
“Let there be blood!” says man, and there’s a sea!
English poet, Lord Byron (1788–1824)

As US and NATO forces continues pounding Afghanistan with cruise missiles and smart bombs, people who be acquainted with aftermaths of two previous wars fought by US around the world, fear after Gulf and Balkan war syndrome another Syndrome the ‘Afghan War Syndrome’. A state of vague aliments and carcinomas, linked with usage of Depleted Uranium as part of missiles, projectiles and bombs in battle field. People of Afghanistan , who had been dying in starvation up till now, are likely to savor a modern form of death; death owing to radioactive materials pulverized over barren mountains and harsh plains in modern world’s war on terrorism. And the fear is that Afghan people will not be alone to go through it. People neighboring Afghans are equally at risk. World has attained globalize outline, now, all crop and spoil are equally shared among people.

What Depleted Uranium Is?

AUSTIN, Texas -- I don't see how we can call the House "economic stimulus" package anything but war-profiteering. The bill is a disgrace, and the usual suspects from Texas -- Tom Delay and Dick Armey -- hold large responsibility for it.

What happened here, while we were all being exposed to anthrax-scare 24-7, is that corporate hitchhikers, who got left out of the earlier tax-cut package in favor of rich people, moved right in for the kill in the name of patriotism and economic stimulus.

The bill provides big tax cuts for big, profitable corporations -- IBM, General Motors and General Electric get a total of $3.27 billion in immediate tax rebate checks. A total of $25 billion in immediate tax rebates goes to large, profitable corporations, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. That's twice as much instant rebates to profitable corporations as the House, by two votes, decided to give the 37 million low-income families who didn't qualify for the original tax rebate.

The World Series provided a heck of a photo-op for George W. Bush when he threw out the first pitch one night, aiming at a large TV audience. For the most part, the game that followed was a pleasure to watch -- midway through a week that combined what's best and worst about major league baseball in an era of compulsive media spin.

Baseball may not quite be America's favorite sport anymore, but it still has plenty of emotional resonance. For that reason, politicians and corporations alike are eager to graft themselves onto the climactic games of the post-season.

The 2001 World Series attracted an abundance of the commercial hype that we've come to expect from pro sports, plus a gauntlet of patriotic imagery bordering on jingoism. The play-by-play included a steady flood of brand-name plugs -- "Budweiser, the official beer of Major League Baseball," the John Hancock "In Game Box Score," the "Nextel Call to the Bullpen" -- along with frequent overlays of Old Glory.

No sane nation hands to a wartime enemy atomic weapons set to go off within its own homeland, and then lights the fuse.

Yet as the bombs and missiles drop on Afghanistan, the certainty of terror retaliation inside America has turned our 103 nuclear power plants into weapons of apocalyptic destruction, just waiting to be used against us.

One or both planes that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, could have easily obliterated the two atomic reactors now operating at Indian Point, about 40 miles up the Hudson.

The catastrophic devastation would have been unfathomable. But those and a hundred other American reactors are still running. Security has been heightened. But all are vulnerable to another sophisticated terror attack aimed at perpetrating the unthinkable.