The following is from the author of Boomtown Columbus, Ohio’s Sunbelt City and How Developers Got Their Way

Joe Motil’s article in the Free Press published November 1st makes some excellent points. He is absolutely correct on how Columbus City Council is a closed shop; a case for breaking and entering, though it is very hard to do. What concerns me most here is Joe’s reference to City Council’s incestuous relationship with the developers. How to resolve this subordination isn’t clear, except that discouragingly, the solution is unlikely to be local.

We don’t see very much in the mainstream media about the situation in Palestine since the ceasefire of the 11-day war last May. In that short war, at least 230 Palestinians were killed, including 65 children and 39 women, with 1,710 people wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Twelve people were killed in Israel, including a 5-year-old boy and 16-year-old girl.

That the ceasefire is holding is good news. However, the conditions on the ground that led to that conflict continue, like the expulsions of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, and there are reports of increased violence. According to the October update of United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Violence continues during the ceasefire, with an additional 100 Palestinians killed in the West Bank and Gaza, and thousands injured. One Israeli was killed since the cease fire. Settler violence has increased, including injury and property damage.

From Panama to Puerto Rico, the emerging struggle for independence from US imperialism continues in Latin America today. Puerto Rico is still a colony, called by the imperialists a common wealth, and although Jimmy Carter had us finally withdraw from the Panama Canal, the US continues to meddle in Panama, and maintain division between Panama and the rest of Latin America whether it be Central (Meso) or South America.

This struggle includes the resistance against economic coercion in all forms, including the guerra economica (economic war in Spanish) also known as sanctions. The imperial term sanction makes it sound like a surgical procedure, but it is far more harsh. The blockades or embargoes under international law are in fact a form of warfare. According to the UN, US imposed sanctions on the Venezuelan people have killed 10s of 1000s.

“Could China’s economy collapse?” was the title of an October 15 article published by QUARTZ magazine. The article makes an ominous case of a Chinese economic crash and its impact on China’s and global economies. 

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Ancient Silk Road travelers cursed China's
largest desert as "Takla Makan," an ominous Persian-Turkic expression
which translates as "enter and you may never return."

Undeterred by its sandstorms and merciless terrain in the oblong basin
north of Tibet's glacier-packed peaks, China has announced completion
of the final section of a Taklamakan Desert railway loop line, the
world's first to encircle a desert.

Elsewhere, China is constructing maglev train systems, capable of
hurtling passengers and freight hundreds of miles per hour, including
an underwater route near Shanghai to reach tiny offshore islands.

These latest railways increase China's military, industrial,
agricultural and political prowess, amid escalating rivalry with the
U.S. over each nation's capabilities.

The Taklamakan Desert railway loop also allows Beijing greater access
to rebellious Kashgar, a distant southwestern city near vulnerable
borders with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan.