ALL THE LATEST NEWS

From Democracy Now! Headlines: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/7/16/headlines#7
US Has Delivered None of Pledged Aid Money to Haiti
CNN has revealed just four countries have delivered on any of the over $5.3 billion in new pledges collected at a major donor conference for Haiti’s reconstruction in March. Brazil, Norway, Estonia and Australia are the only countries to have paid so far, accounting for just two percent of the total pledged. The biggest donors, the US and Venezuela, haven’t paid anything so far. On Thursday, the United Nations’ top humanitarian official, John Holmes, said the UN is well short of its goal for building temporary shelters.

John Holmes: "Shelter, in particular, is at the front of people’s minds, and the almost 1.5 million people who are still living in tents or under tarpaulins are, to repeat myself again, in a very precarious situation. We need to accelerate the contingency planning for the hurricanes. We need to accelerate putting in place the arrangements and incentives for people to return to their houses and, in particular, for more transitional shelters to be built. We are planning some 125,000 and have so far built a few more than 5,000."

They’re All Grovelling and You Can Guess the Reason
Robert Fisk, The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-theyre-all-grovelling-and-you-can-guess-the-reason-2028720.html

The Fall of Obama
Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch Diary
http://www.counterpunch.org/
Obama had his window of opportunity last year, when he could have made jobs and financial reform his prime objectives. That’s what Americans hoped for. Mesmerized by economic advisers who were creatures of the banks, he instead plunged into the Sargasso Sea of “health reform,” wasted the better part of a year, and ended up with something that pleases no one.

Russ Feingold Explains Opposition to Financial Reform Bill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGMvt3jnCzw&feature=player_embedded

Mixed Messages from the White House
Pearl Korn, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pearl-korn/mixed-messages-from-the-w_b_635987.html
One day the President is called a progressive, the next he is a socialist, then a Fascist, then a non-American -- on and on the name-calling goes. Why do these labels even surface, and why do they seem to resonate with so many? One reason may be that while Obama preaches as a populist and even progressive on the stump, he governs as a Clintonian centrist in DC.

[Duchess Note: Many thanks to Judith in sharing many articles.]