| Politics, price tag challenge Range-wide high-speed Internet project
The proposed Iron Range fiber optic network has captured the imagination of local officials in Ely, Tower, and numerous other communities on the Iron Range. A total of 11 communities have now signed on to the next phase of the project, although their commitments dont require funding at this point. But funding will eventually be required, and thats where the estimated $49.1 million project appears to face its biggest challenges politically. While local officials have expressed support for the project, Iron Range state legislators have been noticeably cool to the idea so far. Legislative support is likely to be key to the success of the proposal, which is being spearheaded by the newly-formed Iron Range Network Joint Powers Board. Legislators dominate the Iron Range Resources board, which makes their votes key in any effort to fund the fiber project.
Democracy vs. Growth in India
India is attempting a transformation few nations in modern history have successfully managed: liberalizing the economy within an established democratic order. It is hard to escape the impression that market interests and democratic principles are uneasily aligned in India today. The two are not inherently contradictory, but there are tensions between them that India's leaders will have to manage carefully. Students of political economy know that market-based policies meant to increase the efficiency of the aggregate economy frequently generate short-term dislocations and resentment. In a democratic polity, this resentment often translates at the ballot box into a halt or a reversal of pro-market reforms. In the West, such tensions have remained moderate for at least three reasons: universal suffrage came to most Western democracies only after the Industrial Revolution, which meant that the poor got the right to vote only after those societies had become relatively rich; a welfare state has attended to the needs of low-income segments of the population; and the educated and the wealthy have tended to vote more than the poor.
Bottom-Up Power
An odd thing happens on the way to an American election. For months politicians talk about the importance of voters, voting and the power of majorities. Then on election night--wham--suddenly the only person who matters is the candidate. Thanks to media that cover elections as if they were races, all the attention goes to the horses; there's little left for the people in the stands. Consider what happened in the wake of the Republican rout in the 2006 midterm elections. Just days after election night, the Sunday-morning TV talk shows were in full gallop, training attention away from the hordes of people and the organizing that had just flipped both houses of Congress and focusing instead on the few politicians who might be expected to run for President. The brighter the spotlight on the candidate, the dimmer the darkness that falls on everyone else.
Grocery lockout appears probable
Get-tough tactics, increasingly shrill rhetoric and bitter exchanges are escalating tensions as the Southland's big supermarket chains and union workers lurch toward a work stoppage neither side wants. With the threat of a devastating strike and lockout looming as early as next week, the United Food and Commercial Workers union and the Albertsons, Ralphs and Vons grocery companies seem on a collision course. .
Managing Globalization: Two economic giants, how many votes?
The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization - the United States manages to dominate all three groups and more, thanks to its economic might, or at least the economic might it had when those organizations were conceived. But how much of that power will it have to cede to China when that country outweighs U.S. productive capacity?
As of this moment, it looks inevitable that China will someday be the world's biggest economy, a status that will prove its adeptness at taking advantage of globalization. Its people will still have lower standards of living than those in the United States, Europe, Japan and several other countries, but it will be able to make a strong case for a parallel globalization of the power currently concentrated in Washington.
Marching on
The Republic of Djibouti is situated at the junction of the rifts of the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and East Africa. Most of the country is volcanic. Some sedimentary formations of the Mesozoic era -- Jurassic lime and chalky stones -- can be found in the southeast of the country, especially around the town of Al-Sabieh. Djibouti, comprising 710,000 inhabitants, holds huge mineral resources, most of which remain untapped. Djibouti's current president, Ismail Omar Guelleh, was born on 27 November 1947 in Direwada, Ethiopia. He is the son of one of Djibouti's first teachers and the nephew of Djibouti's first president, Hassan Gouled Aptidon. It was during Djibouti's fight for independence that Ismail Omar cut his teeth as a militant. Early into his political career, Guelleh devoted much energy to breathing new life into the Popular African League presided over by Aptidon.
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