Posted by smeddum on November 11, 2008
General Motors: end of the road?
Is it all over for America’s biggest car maker? As Barack Obama’s new administration looks into the deep hole of US car makers’ finances, Andrew English examines the available options
Andrew English
11 Nov 2008 Telegraph
“It’s a disgrace man, like some corporate train wreck. I feel ashamed.”
Early evening drinkers in the Pyramid Alehouse opposite the Seattle Mariners’ baseball stadium were in no mood to give the world’s biggest car maker an even break last night. And the next couple of weeks look to be make-or-break time for General Motors and the other “big three” US car makers, Ford and Chrysler, as Congressional Democrats seek to add car makers to the US Treasury’s $700 billion economic rescue package for financial institutions. This would give the car manufacturers access to short-term funds totalling around $25 billion. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: Destruction of real economy, Failing industries, General Motors | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on November 11, 2008
Jennifer Saunders accuses BBC of dumbing down comedy
Jennifer Saunders has blamed dumbing down at the BBC for prompting her to quit the Corporation together with comedy partner Dawn French.
By Charlotte Bailey
Telegraph 20 Oct 2008
Saunders, 50, said that financial restraints and competition from digital channels has meant that the BBC has been less willing to take on ambitious work, instead focusing on ‘populist’ comedy.
The mother of three, who is married to fellow comic Adrian Edmondson, told a newspaper columnist at The Daily Mail that the Corporation’s attitude to comedy has changed.
She said: “They are not making the kind of comedy we used to do – what they want now is populist programmes because there isn’t the budget to try the more ambitious things we were doing. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: BBC, dumbing down, Jennifer Saunders | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on November 11, 2008
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: dollar collapse, parody | 2 Comments »
Posted by smeddum on November 11, 2008
Telegraph 11/11/08
It has been widely speculated that the G20 will fail to reach a substantial agreement this weekend. Undoubtedly any major measures such as pegging the dollar to the gold standard will be hampered
by the Bush Admin. Brown has been looking for large funds for the IMF, while Sarkozy has been seeking to reform this institution. The idea of seeking an early warning system is a little too late for some economies including the US and the UK. The meeting will perhaps put more money in the bailout pot but that will at the most only slow down the depression. The G20 will make clearer the direction of the currency issue which is really the key to whether or not the effects of neoliberalism and deregulation are to be tamed for the rest of the world and thus giving it more stability and ability to aid the fast ailing economies of the west.
Gordon Brown, would-be savior of the ailing global economy, has begun ratcheting down expectations for a speedy global response.
The U.K. government said Monday that definitive agreements about how to address the economic crisis weren’t likely to emerge from a leaders’ summit in Washington this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Financial crisis, new Bretton Woods | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on November 11, 2008
China: Protecting domestic economy is top priority
11/11/2008
BEIJING (AP) — China’s government indicated Tuesday it would resist pressure to contribute to a global bailout fund, saying that ensuring the country’s economic stability is the most important step it can take to tackle the financial crisis. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: China, IMF | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 10, 2008
Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
9th November, 2008
The October 2008 financial meltdown is not the result of a cyclical economic phenomenon. It is the deliberate result of US government policy instrumented through the Treasury and the US Federal Reserve Board.
This is the most serious economic crisis in World history.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bailout, financial collapse | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 10, 2008
The Spectre of times to be: the UK appears to be on the verge of something like this.
Sarah Lyall
New York Times
8th November, 2008
REYKJAVIK, Iceland — The collapse came so fast it seemed unreal, impossible. One woman here compared it to being hit by a train. Another said she felt as if she were watching it through a window. Another said, “It feels like you’ve been put in a prison, and you don’t know what you did wrong.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Financial crisis | Tagged: bankrupt iceland, Iceland is broke | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 10, 2008
Russia Today
10th November, 2008
The EU will restart talks on a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Russia. Foreign ministers meeting in Brussels agreed that it’s in the objective interests of the bloc to continue dialogue with Moscow, though no date has been set.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Multipolar world | Tagged: EU, Russian diplomacy | Leave a Comment »
Posted by seumasach on November 10, 2008
MOSCOW, November 10 (RIA Novosti) – Mayors of 15 Czech cities are to ask U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to abandon the Bush administration’s plans to place a missile defense radar in the Czech Republic, a member of the European parliament said on Monday.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Drive to Global War | Tagged: missile defence system | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on November 10, 2008
STOP STIRRING IT ALL UP, MR DAVIES
Nov 9 2008 by Our Correspondent, Wales On Sunday
I COULDN’T believe it when I saw Monmouth Tory MP David Davies on television last week pontificating and complaining about the highly-acclaimed and award-winning film Hunger, and worse – it seemed to me – stirring up controversy about the Welsh Assembly Government.
Just in case you don’t know, Hunger has been directed by Turner prize-winning artist Steve McQueen and the film takes an uncompromising look at the last six weeks in the life of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Sandra Hebron for Time Out says it’s “a film of outstanding boldness and beauty and a compelling study of people in extreme circumstances resorting to extreme measures. McQueen is to be applauded for a brilliant and uncompromising film”. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: "War on Terror", Bobby Sands, David Davies, The Hunger | Leave a Comment »
Posted by smeddum on November 10, 2008
Golden fleeces
For centuries the West has plundered the treasures of the ancient world; now some nations are fighting back
By Michael Kammen
Boston Globe
November 9, 2008
LOOT:The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
By Sharon Waxman
Times, 414 pp., illustrated, $30
Have you ever wondered why the Rosetta stone (so crucial to our understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics), discovered by Napoleon’s army in 1799, is situated in the British Museum? Or why a Babylonian stele called the Code of Hammurabi, the earliest known legal code in human society (“an eye for an eye”), is located in the Louvre in Paris? Or how the beautiful bust of Egyptian queen Nefertiti ended up as the showpiece of a Berlin museum? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: art, cultural imperialism, museums | Leave a Comment »
In These New Times 