EconomicsJamaica: Hard Times: Tropical island shoulders many problems, looks mostly to tourism

There's no reformational Christian movement in Jamaica,  a country where one of the leading l+ts is the marxist intellectual C. L. R. James (now deceased),  known and beloved wherever Caribbean-born scholars dwell.   But  most budding scholars leave the island and others in the Carribbean (Mr James maintained a home in Trinidad, sponsored by the Oil Fields Workers union there but lived a good part of most years in his later life in London UK); the younger thinkers go to England especially for further education and  afterward find what academic jobs they can abroad.  The brain drain.  Otherw+z, on the island the preoccupations are music, ganja, and the economy.  Everyone seems to have it tuff.  That's why the entrepreneurial movement, fledgling tho it be, is so important to the culture and to the incomes of everyday people who suffer from the lowering of the quality of life. 

— EconoMix, refWrite Frontpage economics columnist

Jamaica struggles toward 

a sound economic future

by Nicholas DavisKingston, Jamaica
BBC News (Apr26,2k12)— reposted here by EconoMix

Portia Simpson-Miller's party made a campaign promise of making a new deal with the IMF within two weeks of re-election

Half Way Tree is always busy. The traffic intersection that seemingly splits Kingston into two is one of the best-known views of the city, the colonial clock tower in the middle where uptown meets downtown, rich meets poor.

As office workers head to their desks, a young man at the traffic lights hustles, shouting: "Cash for your gold, any little piece we buy, money for your gold."

Kingston is like most modern cities, its inhabitants rushing to work or making money where they can.

But for many people, life is tough; it's estimated that about 17% of the population live below the poverty line on just under $4 a day.

In the business centre of the city, New Kingston, Marvin makes a living driving a taxi he's rented after losing his job in construction.

"People in my community say we need to get jobs, but there are none around, no jobs at all."

He says he's lucky to have found something.

Sticking point

Unemployment is above 12% and the country is one of the world's most indebted, owing about $18bn (£11.2bn; 13.7bn euros).

PolitcsFrance: Prez Elections: Socialists win over Sarkozy's center/r+t in 1st round

France has conducted its Presidential election, resulting as usual in no absolute majority — so a second round is necessary between the two leading candidates emerging from the first round, all others struck from the ballot for the second round which will take place May 6.

France is on the precipice of possibly defaulting on its balance of payments from its national treasury and, on the other hand, its income.  It is the second largest as-yet solvent European nation among those whose national economies in Europe are intertwined with France's.  But the prospect of France being overwhelmed by its sovereign debt is dangerous to the entire West, not just still-solvent European nations.  Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland, and Portugal.  If France moves onto this list, it will affect not only Europe but the whole world.

The present President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is the best bet for the French to impose the necessary austerities, survive them, and correct the present aggregious imbalance.  There's not much room in this calculus for third parties.  Where will the voters for these smaller parties that competed in the first round of voting know go in two weeks t+m?  Of course, the smaller socialist, trotskyist, and communist elements may succumb to the siren song of François Hollande, who is campaigning on an Obama-l+k "happiness and we-can rhetoric" (we can't even call it a political platform).  But some of those voters will prefer the evem the dreader austerity of arch-enemy Sarkozy, to the smoke-and-mirrors of Hollande.

Let's take a momentary look at the stats for French parties in the lower-house of the French parliament, the National Assembly:

Union for a Popular Movement (313)     Socialist Party (186)     New Centre2 (22)     Radical Party2 (18)     French Communist Party (17) Radical Party of the Left (8)     Europe Écologie–The Greens (3)     Democratic Movement (3)     Left Party (3)     Movement for France (2) Arise the Republic (2)     National Centre of Independents and Peasants (2)     Citizen and Republican Movement (1)

Now the French Senate:

Socialist Party (143)     Union for a Popular Movement (132)     French Communist Party (20)     New Centre2 (13)     Radical Party of the Left (11) Europe Écologie–The Greens (10)     Radical Party2 (7)     Democratic Movement (5)     Modern Left2 (2)     Citizen and Republican Movement (1)

Of the partylets not even (yet) represented in the French parliament we at last come to the foremost distinctively Christian Democratic party:

Abertzaleen Batasuna,     Alsace First,     Breton Democratic Union,     Breton Party,     Christian Democratic Party1,     Ecology Generation, Independent Ecological Movement,     Independent Workers' Party,     New Anticapitalist Party,     Occitan Party,     The Progressives1, Republican Left of Catalonia,     Savoyan League,     Savoy Region Movement,     Unitarian Left,     Workers' Struggle

For Sarkozy the task is to winnow out for his own candidacy as many votes as possible from this cluttered political landscape in a population of 64,800,000.  Without the stats for yesterday's vote, we must deflect to those for those of the last Presidential vote.

Some stats from the 2007 Presidential vote's 2nd round, which Sarkozy won: 

As of January 1, 2011, 63,136,180 people lived in metropolitan France, while 2,685,705 lived in overseas France, for a total of 65,821,885 inhabitants in the French Republic.^[2] Thus, metropolitan France accounts for 95.9% of the French Republic's population.

In the second round of the 2007 French presidential election, 37,342,004 French people cast a ballot (meaning a record turnout of 83.97%). 35,907,015 of these (96.16% of the total voters) cast their ballots in metropolitan France (turnout: 85.31%), 1,088,679 (2.91% of the total voters) cast their ballots in overseas France (turnout: 69.85%), and 346,310 (0.93% of the total voters) cast their ballots in foreign countries (French people living abroad; turnout: 42.13%).^[3]

The French National Assembly is made up of 577 deputies, 555 of whom (96.2% of the total) are elected in metropolitan France, and 22 of whom (3.8% of the total) are elected in overseas France. — Wikipedia

Bes+ds the left vote and centre-r+t vote for Sarkozy's UMP (Union pour un mouvement populaire into which much of the Christian Democratic party disappeared after its self-secularization), there is the rise of the far-r+t party Front National, led by the redoubtable dawter of its founder, Marine Le Pen, who bested her father's h+est vote-level and received what is considered an 18% of the votes in the 1st round:

A key victory of the night was for the Front National's Le Pen, who came third with around 18% of the vote, beating her father Jean-Marie's record success in 2002, and placing herself firmly at the heart of rightwing politics in France. She said "the battle of France has just begun" and "nothing will be the same again".

The lawyer and twice-divorced mother of three had presented herself as the modern face of her party, trying to strip it of unsavoury overtones after her father's convictions for saying the Nazi occupation of France was not "particularly inhumane".

She had initially stressed economic issues, calling for France to leave the euro, but in recent days returned to her hard-right stance on curbing immigration. At her final rally in Paris, supporters had shouted: "This is our home, our country!"

Sarkozy's chances now hang on bringing over voters from Le Pen. However, not all her voters will automatically turn out for Sarkozy in the second round; there is a strong anti-establishment feeling among many.

Sarkozy gave a defiant speech, going on the offensive and betraying no hint of having been beaten. He styled the result as a "crisis" vote, by a French population which was "suffering". In a clear overture to Le Pen's voters, and the extreme-right motto of loving France, he said: "I call on all French people who put love of their country above partisan considerations, to unite and join me." He vowed to tighten border controls, stop manufacturers from leaving France, make work pay and defend law and order.  — "Françoise Hollande on top but far r+t scores record result in French election," by Angelique Chrisafis in Paris, Guardian UK (Apr23,2k13)

The Christian Democrats are linked to the UMP of Sarkozy, but not dissolved into it.  Notice in the Guardian quote's headline that Sarkozy is not even mentioned, just the two extremes of left and far r+t. L+k most of the French press, the English edition of AlJazeera uses Sarkozy's name in opprobrious connotation, "French show their disapproval of Sarkozy" by Yasmine Ryan, AlJazeera (Apr23,2k12).  I think the Christian Science Monitor frames the issue and Sarkozy's problem better, "Will the far r+t be the kingmaker in France's presidential election? (+video)" by Robert Marquand,
CSM (Apr23,2k12):

PARIS

French President Nicolas Sarkozy told roaring crowds last night that it is “crunch time” now that the presidential election has been narrowed down to a May 6 runoff between him and Socialist challenger François Hollande, to whom he lost by one point in the first round of elections yesterday.

• 

  In Pictures: Muslim in France

Related stories

• 

  France presidential elections: the candidates challenging Sarkozy
• French elections: Socialist challenger Hollande takes Round 1, promises growth
• French presidential elections will be referendum on Sarkozy, the man

A high 81 percent turnout rate in national elections combined, unusually, with low voter enthusiasm captured something of the political disillusionment. But also the high stakes for the future at a time when five governments in Europe have collapsed over fallout from the ongoing debt crisis. 

Mr. Hollande captured 27 percent of the vote, with Mr. Sarkozy just behind at 26 percent. The election has become a referendum on how the No. 2 economy in Europe – which the International Monetary Fund hinted has the potential to drag down the world economy – will deal with the eurozone crisis going forward. Hollande campaigned for stronger growth policies while Sarkozy has hitched his wagon to the austerity prescription favored by Berlin for the past year.

Updated: Table of Contents / Index (Apr22,2k12)

Today's Index (April 21,2k12)

Table of Contents / Index

Today's Index (April 21, 2k12)

refWrite Frontpage

   New Today is Earth Day

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     Mar4,2k12:  Abraham Kuyper.

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refWrite Backpage New Music: Streets of Philadelphia - The Boss

     Mar4,2k12: Sat+r:  Stand-up comedian lampoons Shakespeare 8-).

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This series was begun April13,2k11.

Earth Day: Origins in Lenin: Evangelicals reject anomalies in scientific evidence on climate change

Today is Earth Day.  See the comment by Politicarp in the refWrite Calendar for April.  Scroll down to the blog entry for April 22, c+ting the newest empirical anomaly of more ice not less in areas of the Himalayas.  Let's celebrate the day, whether Lenin is at its root or not.  Let's celebrate even in face of the anomalous new evidence claimed.  Let's not get twisted up becawz our previous position is prevailing, or not.  Stewardship of the Earth and the climates in which all humans must live is the main point.

— Owlb, refWrite general editor

PoliticsEgypt: Military junta: Disqualifies 3 leading Prez candidates and 7 more out of 23

Egypt's military junta has arrogated to itself the role of arbiter for acceptable candidacies to the office of the country's President, after the displacement of former dictator Hosni Mubarek.  The Presidential election is scheduled for May 23-24.

An interesting development in the wake of the junta's action is the possiblity of a split between two potential candidates with Muslim Brotherhood backgrounds.  A third MB figure is among the leading disqualifieds, Khairat el-Shater (English spellings vary), who had been incarcerated as a criminal under the previous Mubarek régime.  At first the Brotherhood had planned not to run any candidate at all, which incensed a prominant member to leave the organization, Abdel Moneim Abouel Fotouh, currently Secretary-General of the Arab Medical Union, and considered by some to be "a moderate."

   Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh Abdel Hady

Dr. Fitouh left the Muslim Brotherhood and its political wing called the Freedom and Justice Party (headed by Mohammed Mursi).  After the MB's externally-sudden shift from non-contestant in the election to favour the running of its own candidate, it nominated as well an alternative but emphasized Kairat el-Shater as its first choice.  The Brotherhood was aware of El-Shater's disfavour with the junta, since the Mubarek days.

  

   Kairat el-Shater

Pictured in a photo (above, AP photo by Nasser Nasser), El- Shater on Friday called for "a million-man march" to "the [public] squares of liberation again to complete the march of the revolution."  The cagey MB, named alongside El-Shater alternative candidate Mursa in order to have a back-up plan;  apparently he had gained no  criminal status.

   

   Omar Suleiman

Another of the 3 leading disqualifeds, Omar Suleiman was "spy chief" for Mubarek and briefly served as stand-in when Mubarek was forced to stand down.  Suleiman has h+ standing with the junta, as a result, but low esteem among Islamicists and Salafists.

The third of the leading candidates dumped by the military thru its puppet electoral commission is Hazen Abu Ismail who is "an ultra-conservative Salafist," an Islamicist ideology which woud impose a strict and punitive Sharia-law régime.  Civil r+ts woud be curtailed severely, and the extermination of Christians and homosexuals seem to be major intentions.  In comparison, the Muslim Brotherhood is somet+ms laid out as "pragmatic Islamicism" — evoking a parallel to the ruling Islamicist party of Turkey, the latter also in conflict with its military over secularism.  But the comparison between ideological puritianism and Muslim pragmatism does not hold up well.  

   Amr Moussa, World Policy Conference, December 2k11

Interestingly, while the 3 and another 7 have been disqualified, another figure, one active in government under Mubarek,  Amr Moussa, had left his post as foreign minister to become Secretary-General of the Arab League (which itself is now trying to end Syrian govt repression, after the organization had largely supported the previous Egyptian repression under Mubarek, and that of Sudan before the secession of South Sudan).  The junta disqualified anyone who had been part of the Mubarek régime during the last 10 years; Moussa changed posts 11 years ago.  So he has not been disqualified (yet) from running.  Among all the candidates, he seems most l+kly to work for internal peace in Egypt, including perhaps a more conciliatory approach to the country's 6 million Christians who are largely on the outs+d of the political process, living in dread of an Islamicist repression that seems to be waiting in the wings.

Also, at this juncture, the process of wr+ting a new Constitution for the country has been delayed; Parliament has not been assembled, and the 100 member commission for Constitution wr+ting is being boycotted by the 2-person delegation to represent Christians, becawz the process is considered by them and many secularists, to be a sham.  Individual and communal liberty will not be guaranteed to those not locked into the Islamic fortress-mentality.  (On this, please see ForeignPolicy.com, Apr16,2k12); also ComparativeConstitutions.org email newsletter, Apr16,2k12.)

At present, refWr+t is endorsing a Muslim non-Islamicist, Amr Moussa, for President of Egypt.

— Politicarp, refWrite's frontpage politics columnist

Follow @Owlb, refWrite frontpage general editor

Cross-posted to refWrite-experimental.

Main news sources & background materials: 

"Mass protests brewing in Egypt, after 3 leading Presidential candidates are disqualified," by Patrick Goodenough (Apr16,2k12) CNSnews.com

"Egypt's transition imbroglio" by Nathan Brtown (Apr16,2k11) Foreign Policy via ComparativeConstitutions email newsletter

Wikipedia — articles on Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, Omar Suleiman & Amr Moussa

YouTube (see refWr+t's YouTube collection of politics videos yUT2ube — subscribe!)