Economy

Mississippi cuts $1,3 billion from schools, gives $1.3 billion to Nissan “Since 2008, Mississippi has violated a constitutional mandate to adequately fund the state’s public K-12 schools,” Reader Supported News said on July 23. “Mississippi has spent $648 less per student than it did in 2008. Currently, Mississippi has underfunded its public schools by at least [US]$1.3 billion.

One of the most important public debates over the future of Venezuela’s revolutionary process has opened up after the publication of a document by recently ousted planning minister Jorge Giordani. In it, Giordani launched a series of scathing criticisms of the “new path” he says the government has taken since former president Hugo Chavez died in March last year. Giordani dropped the bombshell on June 18, a day after he was removed from the post he had held almost uninterruptedly since 1999.

Marta Harnecker, a veteran Chilean-born author and politcal analyst who as an advisor to the government of late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez between 2004-11, spoke to Jose P. Gurrero about the new left-wing government in El Salvador.

Before May 25, there were no elected representatives of what is called the “radical” left in Belgium, unlike in other countries in Europe. This anomaly has now been corrected. The Belgian Workers’ Party-Left Opening! (PTB-GO!) lists are sending two members to the Belgian federal Chamber of Deputies, two to the Walloon parliament and four to the parliament of the Brussels-Capital region.

The old rocker who owns the local music store has a t-shirt on display that reads: “When words fail ... music speaks.” One could also say that when speech fails, David Rovics sings. As Wally Brooker recently noted about the US folk singer: “What's striking about Rovics is his ability to bring first-hand reports of local struggles from around the world to each community that he visits.”

The article below draws its information substantially from ABC Radio National's Background Briefing program "Deep sea riches could spark Pacific mining boom" from October 20 last year by reporter Ann Arnold. You can listen to the program or read the full ABC Radio National Background Briefing program transcript. * * * If you had to pick one place in the world that could be considered safe from the rabid expansion of the mining industry, you might choose the deep sea floor.

So here it is, the latest album from prolific radical songwriter David Rovics All The News That's Fit to Sing.

When you travel through France, there’s one name that appears most in public space ― on streets, schools and metro stations. Not Jeanne d’Arc, Napoleon, or even World War II resistance leader and later president Charles de Gaulle. No, the name you can pretty safely bet you’ll find on some sign in the next sleepy village is that of Jean Jaures. Jaures was France’s most famous socialist leader and deputy, a tenacious and passionate fighter for workers’ rights and against war, anti-Semitism, clericalism and colonialism.

In Slovenia, the left has broken the vicious circle of anti-communism in the post-Yugoslav context. All the commentators say the United Left Coalition (ULC) was the biggest surprise in the July 13 parliamentary elections. But the path was difficult. The ULC was formed for the May 25 European elections. It is made up of the Party for Sustainable Development (TRS), the Democratic Labor Party (DSD) and the Initiative for Democratic Socialism (IDS). From early on, the ULC was marginalised by the mainstream.

The publication of a document highly critical of the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, authored by one of the longest-serving ministers in former president Hugo Chavez’s government, has triggered an unprecedented debate among Venezuelan revolutionaries. Jorge Giordani dropped the bombshell on June 18, a day after he was replaced as planning minister. This was preceded by his dismissal from the boards of Venezuela's Central Bank and state oil company PDVSA, the state oil company. He had held the post almost uninterruptedly since Chavez first came to power in 1999. .

NSW Premier Mike Baird has pushed ahead with plans to privatise the state's power network, without waiting for the results of the NSW election in March next year. The Stop the Sell Off campaign has condemned the move, saying it makes a mockery of the premier's claim that he would seek a mandate from voters before pressing on with the sale of 49% of the state-owned electricity network businesses Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy, Transgrid and Essential Energy.

A US drone attack in North Waziristan in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) killed 20 people on July 16. It brought the number of people killed by US drones in North Waziristan since June 12 to 50. The July 16 Nation reported, “five drones are still flying over the Datta Khel area and hampering the relief activities underway there. This … is fomenting a fear of the death toll rising.”