Thursday, July 12, 2012

Ever New News

There is no doubt in my mind that the news is the best show in town.  And on condition that you are watching the right channels, it is ever new.

While American TV continues to belabor a Presidential election that is four months away, you can learn from France 24 that there are more than a hundred thousand Chinese living in Spain and moreover, that with the backing of the Peking government, they are making money hand over fist in a country more than twenty percent of whose workers are out of a job.  One star entrepreneur says  Spaniards have not been properly educated.  In the face of the Spanish economic downturn he tells an assembled group of countrymen that they must stick together.

Not compete, but stick together! Could it be that a Communist education is the best preparation for making it in the capitalist world?

A related story is Cuban President Raul Castro’s trip to Peking, first, and then to Moscow.  The purpose of this pilgrimage to the high seats of Cuba’s formerly Communist allies is undoubtedly to get some advice for Cuba’s turn from strict communism to an as yet unacknowledged form of social democracy.  Meanwhile we learn from RT that the President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, allowed himself to be removed from power on June 22 after a flimsy two-hour impeachment debate in order to avoid bloodshed promised by his opponents.  Lugo is a leftist and the U.S. has been trying to establish a base in Paraguay for several years.

France 24 devotes considerable air time to events in the Maghreb, that is Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.  Today it covers the first legal congress of the moderate Islamic Party Ennhada, which holds the largest number of seats in Parliament and governs in coalition with a center-left and leftist party. Echoing last week’s interview with Tunisia’s foreign minister mentioned in my previous blog, the report emphasized Tunisia’s persistent drive toward a moderate /socialist/Islamic form of governance.

Meanwhile, Egypt’s new Islamist President Mohammed Morsi chose Saudi Arabia as the destination of his first official visit abroad.  This looks like a typical Middle Eastern power play, since the Saudi monarchy is Israel and America’s staunchest ally in the region, while practicing Wahabism, the most conservative form of Sunni Islam, which inspired Al-Qaeda, while Morsi has to reassure the Egyptian revolutionaries of his moderate bone fides.

Finally, in a detailed analysis of the falling ratings of MSN, progressive Americans’ last best hope among the major channels, RT’s Liz Whal interviews Cenk Uyghur, who epitomizes its failure, while announcing that RT has risen to first place among foreign news channels in Canada.

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