More than 90 percent of the voters in the seven Mexican states that participated on Sunday in the second stage of the referendum on oil in Mexico, rejected privatization of PEMEX, the country's publicly-owned oil company.

The American nation has an excellent opportunity to change the nature of politics in our country this year. We have a real chance to build lasting alliances that will re-define the political landscape at every level of government and permit us to take back our government by the average citizen.

Energy policy and high gas prices has dominated the public debate over the past few weeks as both presidential candidates have tussled back and forth on the issue.

After initially approving an Obama campaign advertisement for use at Florida gasoline stations on Gas Station TV, a network whose self-described mission is to "reach captive audiences via video at the gas station pump with targeted advertising," the advertising driven video service refused to show the ad.

My feeling is exactly what I write in the article, which is to say, I am very hopeful, but I lack sufficient information to be more than hopeful. I wasn't saying that only others need more information, though many other people do, of course.

The Communist Party's program, "Election 2008: Help Make History," addresses the urgent situation and the tremendous opportunity to defeat the ultra-right in this election and create the conditions to turn the country around.

Pledging to implement policies that will boost the economy and protect the right of workers to join unions, Barack Obama spoke with thousands of labor activists by teleconference July 31.

There have been many policy missteps over the last twenty some years, and this has amounted to a mismanagement of the U.S. economy. The result has been an unhealthy mixture of greed, shortsightedness and market manipulation.

Everyone is now accustomed to hearing that the financial crisis in the United States and in Britain was caused by American financial institutions lending money to unsafe borrowers for buying houses.

The overwhelming rejection of the Mexican Calderon administration's energy reform, which included the privatization of Mexico's oil industry, expressed by referendum on Sunday July 27, continued to hold the country's political attention this week.

It has never happened before. For the first time in modern economic times, three major crises – affecting finances, energy and food – are coinciding, coming together and merging. Each interacts with the others, exponentially worsening the deterioration of the real economy.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez approved funds for the construction of a series of new infrastructure projects on his Sunday talk show Aló Presidente yesterday.

Brazilian president Lula da Silva underscored the good indicators of the Brazilian economy in spite of the world crisis and soaring food prices and said his administration’s policy is to increase production to combat inflation.

Since coming to power, and even before, the Cuban revolution has been characterized by its pragmatism within the context of very firm ethical principles. Undoubtedly this ability to correct errors and negative tendencies, without losing sight of the fundamental path, has been a big factor in the survival of the Cuban vision of social revolution.

The WTO negotiations have turned into a fight by developed countries to open markets in developing countries to favor their big companies. The agricultural subsidies in the North, which mainly go to agricultural and food companies in the US and Europe, will not only continue but will actually increase, as demonstrated by the 2008 Farm Bill in the United States.

An unprecedented discussion is sweeping the country about how to change direction for the common good. Tens of thousands of union members are knocking on the doors of millions of co-workers and their families to talk about the issues.

The federal minimum wage is due to increase today, July 24, to $6.55 per hour. Passage of the increase was one of the first accomplishments of the new Democratic-controlled Congress, and the wage is scheduled to rise again next summer to $7.25.

In the face of the latest disturbing economic news, congressional Democrats are crafting a second stimulus package, according to AFSCME's GreenLine Blog. Discussions on how to proceed with a new stimulus package began this week with meetings between Democratic leaders and economists.

The Beltline Affordable Housing Advisory Board (BAHAB) held the first citywide conversation on affordable housing as it relates to the BeltLine, on July 08, 2008, the first in a series of meetings seeking to generate feedback from the community over the coming weeks.

While preparing a lecture on the Great Depression, I saw TV news clips of George Bush saying that the economy was “sound.” He has actually said that a few times in the last few weeks.