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Excerpt: Four-score years ago our forefathers overwhelmingly elected Herbert Hoover to serve as President of the United States. He was inaugurated March 4, 1929, just in time to take the rap for not preventing the Wall Street crash of October 29, 1929, which according to the conventional wisdom, triggered the Great Depression.

Excerpt: According to the Britain's highest military commander in afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, "We're not going to win this war."

Summary: Falling from shoo-in status to widely rejected legislation within the space of four months, a resolution that would have opened the door for a naval blockade on Iran was officially shelved at the end of September, after several of its cosponsors withdrew their support. source: Truth Outread more

Summary: Would Washington support an Israeli attack? Recently, the administration has given clear signals that it would not. But then, why did the Pentagon announce last month that it planned to sell Israel 1,000 new GBU-39 bunker-busting bombs? They are small weapons that can be dropped from the wings of the fighter jets in Israel’s air force. Each can penetrate 6 feet of reinforced concrete. If several aircraft hit the same target the total penetration could be much deeper. source: McClatchy-Tribune News Serviceread more

Every year in late September I get a flurry of emails from council officials telling me that October is Black History Month and that a number of events are taking place to celebrate it. These are typically accompanied by flyers featuring pictures of Mary Seacole or Nelson Mandela. It?s very important that we should celebrate major black figures in history. But Black History Month has become very sanitised. It?s always the safest and least controversial figures that are put forward as its representatives. Even though there?s a lot of talk about Mandela ? who represents the overthrow of the racist apartheid system in South Africa ? there is little mention of the mass struggles of black South Africans such as the Soweto uprising of 1976. This is one reason why Black History Month is failing to connect with so many disaffected black youth. Another is the fact that more recent mass struggles of black people in Britain against racism ? which would be directly relevant to young people today ?

Strange times bring strange bedfellows. On the same day that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were putting the finishing touches to their plan to bail out the banks with up to 500bn of public money, the international labour movement marked the first ever world day for decent work. Events in more than 100 countries across five continents made it a genuinely global occasion, yet fears of imminent recession and accompanying job losses put any celebrations on ice. Instead the day was spent in sober reflection on the role decent work has to play in rebalancing the global economy and addressing the root causes of the crisis now threatening to spread across the world. For with the ink barely dry on the government’s immediate rescue plans, attention is already turning to the underlying economic problems that have allowed the current financial crisis to develop. Even now, the recognition is growing that fundamental changes are needed to the global economic system far beyond the reach of

In November 2007 the European Commission submitted a proposal to add three new criminal offences to the 2002 EU Framework Decision on terrorism.1 If agreed by governments, EU countries will be obliged to criminalise ?provocation?, ?recruitment? and ?training? for terrorism. Charges of ?recruitment? and ?training? will need to show a direct link with terrorist groups or activity (as defined in 2002), but the ?provocation? offence is extremely broad, as it does not require a direct encouragement to commit terrorist acts but applies to any statements which create a ?danger? of such acts being committed. According to the proposal: “public provocation to commit a terrorist offence” means the distribution, or otherwise making available, of a message to the public, with the intent to incite the commission of [a terrorist offence as defined in the Framework Decision], where such conduct, whether or not directly advocating terrorist offences, causes a danger that one or more such of

Excerpt: At least seven Iraqis were killed and five more were wounded in the latest round of violence. No Coalition deaths were reported, but a U.S. vehicle was bombed in Baghdad. Also, the US military reported a precipitous drop in journalists covering the iraq war from inside Iraq.

An entirely legal demonstration in solidarity with international Freedom Not Fear day was disrupted and halted in Liverpool this afternoon, and two arrests were made.

An upswing in insurgent attacks against Christians in Mosul has forced 500 families to flee in the last week, the governor of northern Iraq's Ninevah province said Saturday.