Madeleine

The coffee’s freshly ground, there’s a wide variety of teas and the sticky buns are homemade.

  • “David Cameron and Barack Obama will on Wednesday agree tentative plans for British and US troops to end their ‘lead combat role’ in Afghanistan by the middle of next year. Their meeting comes amid growing anger in Afghanistan over the killing of 16 civilians on Sunday by a US soldier, and follows the funerals in Britain of six soldiers killed by a bomb earlier this month, taking the death toll of UK troops over the 400 mark.”
  • “An ‘experiment’ which involved using homeless people as mobile wi-fi hotspots has attracted criticism, forcing the advertising agency behind it to defend itself. A division of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) equipped 13 homeless people with 4G wifi devices in Austin, Texas. It suggested the public pay $2 (£1.30) for 15 minutes access to the net.”
  • “Israel and factions in the Gaza Strip have agreed to an Egyptian-mediated truce to end four days of cross-border violence, a senior Egyptian security official has said. The official told Reuters news agency on Tuesday that both sides ‘agreed to end the current operations’ including an unusual undertaking by Israel to ‘stop assassinations’ in a deal expected to take effect at 1am local time (2300 GMT Monday).”
  • “A newly built section of a high-speed rail line has collapsed in China’s central Hubei province following heavy rain, state media reports. The line was set to open in May and had been in use for test runs.”
  • “There were renewed fears that Syria was slipping towards all-out civil war last night after opposition activists claimed that scores of men, women and children had been butchered by regime militias roaming through a rebel neighbourhood in Homs – just 24 hours after the former United Nations chief Kofi Annan jetted out of Damascus saying he had drawn up a plan for ending the crisis.”
  • “El Salvador’s conservative opposition is on course for a narrow victory in the general election, officials say. With most votes counted, the Arena party had just under 40% to nearly 37% for the left-wing Farabundo Marti Liberation Front (FMLN). FMLN leaders have not conceded, saying the result is ‘practically a tie’.
  • “‘There is a special place in hell reserved for women who do not help each other,’ said former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking Thursday evening at the Lincoln Center. This was a major theme of the Women in the World Summit, a three-day festival devoted to women’s accomplishments organized by the inimitable Tina Brown and gathering what seemed to be just about every significant woman in the world.” 

Madeleine Albright? This Madeleine Albright?

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.
–60 Minutes (5/12/96)

  • “Vietnam is sending six Buddhist monks to re-establish abandoned temples on islands that are the subject of a bitter territorial dispute with China. The temples were last inhabited in 1975, but were recently renovated as part of efforts to assert Vietnamese sovereignty over the Spratly Islands. China, Vietnam and four other nations claim parts of the sparsely populated islands in the South China Sea.”

Prof Richard Wolff was interviewed by Rob Lorei, News Director of WMNF Tampa Monday evening on Rob’s call-in show. Click in the Select A Date box then click on 12 March.

Marx in the Morning today at noon or shortly thereafter at MyFDL.

The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.