All Blog Posts from World Watch

Ever since Raul Castro became Cuba’s President in February 2008, people—at home and abroad—have been waiting for changes that would improve living conditions on the island. But the changes have been slow coming and there are indications that when they do take place they might not be the ones hoped for.

For three days this week, the official Communist Party daily, Granma, has front-paged statements made in the 1970s and 80s by former President Fidel Castro. They are all variations on the same theme: too many people being employed to do too little, and low productivity as the bane of the economy. He also warned that at some point there would be more university graduates than openings in their fields and that students should view their degrees as an honor but not necessarily as a ticket to a professional career.

Castro’s statement printed last Tuesday focused on “inflated” payrolls. Inside the same newspaper was an article announcing that the Ministry of Agriculture would be cutting thousands of bureaucratic jobs. Twenty-six percent of their employees - 89,000 people - it said, were office workers resulting in an “excess of unproductive personnel.”

Cubans fear that similar layoffs will come in many other sectors of the economy and that Granma’s publication of Fidel Castro’s views—if dated—on the issue are rather like trying to put the “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” on what are bound to be unpopular if necessary measures taken by his younger brother Raul.

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Many of those who backed Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics saw hosting the games as a potential a financial jackpot full of tourism dollars and new development.

But those economic rewards would have been hard-won in light of the worldwide recession.

Great Britain's capital will host the 2012 Games and, even with three years to go, the budgetary hurdles are proving too high.

London last hosted the Olympics in 1948, when times were tight after World War II. Those games were nicknamed the "Austerity Olympics."

Now, more than 60 years later, the label fits all over again.

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"The past year has been a different year," said President Felipe Calderón during his third state of the nation address Wednesday.

Different must be a euphemism for horrible. This was bound to be a difficult year to summarize for Mexico’s beleaguered President. In the past year he has been battered with several challenges: the world economic recession, the influenza outbreak, diminishing oil resources, the worst drought the country has seen in years, escalating drug violence, topped by the world’s belief that Mexico is ungovernable.

Surrounded by heavy security, Calderon delivered the annual address at the Palacio Nacional, rather than risk the jeering of an aggressive opposition at Congress, where the address was traditionally held. Calderon´s past addresses became almost undeliverable because of the heckling from opposition lawmakers after the disputed 2006 election.

In contrast, Wednesday´s beautifully choreographed address was all smiles and applause, far away from the heckles of opposition congressmen. His "informe" as the annual round-up of government activities is called, marked the crucial midway point in the conservative, pro-U.S. president’s six-year term. Calderon was eager to point out that despite the year’s "historic challenges," Mexico has been able to step up to the plate.

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President Obama’s trip to Guadalajara will focus on trade and drugs at a difficult time for the U.S. - Mexican relationship, in part because the administration has postponed its comprehensive immigration reform program until 2010.

The Mexico "three amigos" trip will focus on issues important to the U.S. domestic agenda even more than foreign policy – because Mexico remains the main transit point for drugs entering the U.S. and because Mexican drug gangs' principal source of guns is from the U.S.

For the Obama administration, visiting Mexico is high on the President’s agenda particularly since the U.S. Census bureau reported a few months ago that 14 percent of the U.S. population is Hispanic and Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment, with 25 percent of live births nationwide.

On the U.S. – Mexico – Canada agenda are other issues related to the proximity of the three neighbors and their North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ties, including climate change and the spread of the H1N1 swine flu virus.

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Group of Eight leaders said they deplore the violence in the aftermath of Iran's disputed election last month and remain "seriously concerned" about the situation.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the statement by G8 leaders "shows the unity of the G8 against the situation in Iran."

The G8 statement, seen by The Associated Press, said G8 leaders "deplore post-electoral violence, which led to the loss of lives of Iranian civilians." The leaders also "condemn the declarations of President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust."

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The United Nations' three-day Head-of-State Summit on the global financial crisis had promise. The goal was to convene a summit of world leaders at U.N. Headquarters in New York to assess the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression. Over 100 million people per year, the summiteers noted, will fall into extreme poverty.

On the first day, the message was clear: developing countries are the victims of the financial crisis and they need money. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, "surely, if the world can mobilize more than $18 trillion to keep the financial sector afloat, it can find more than $18 billion to keep commitments in Africa."

Security ahead of the "United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development" was tight. New York City Police blocked the perimeter of the U.N., and plans were readied for the red carpet treatment of presidents arriving at the General Assembly.

The problem was, almost no one showed up. Of the 140 nations participating, only a dozen presidents and prime ministers are attending, and it was postponed from early June because the "outcome document" – a set of proposals for the reform of the world financial system – had no consensus.

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The world’s best minds are wrestling with how to overcome the global financial crisis and its dire consequences. They are wasting their time. They should come to Russia and ask for advice from the man who has a 100 percent remedy against the global recession – simply to legislate it out of existence.

Meet Vladimir Laptev, the head of the Noginsk district in the Moscow region. This month, the Noginsk administration published Laptev’s decree, banning local government officials from using the phrase "financial crisis" in their public speeches and statements. The decree also recommends that CEOs of locally-based companies – both private and government-owned – "rethink their decadent sentiments and spirits and continue working towards stimulating production."

Russia's mass media which are mostly controlled by the state did not play up Laptev's decree. But the Russian blogosphere immediately exploded with sarcastic comments. "I had thought that such astonishing idiots exist only in fairy tales," wrote one blogger. "It is the same thing as censoring a report on a tornado: "A light summer breeze devastated twenty households and smashed thirty cars," another one remarked.

Russian analysts were more reserved, but no less critical. "Mr. Laptev turned himself into a laughingstock with this decree," Mikhail Delyagin, head of the Institute of Globalization Problems and a famous Russian economist, said. "It was clearly done out of hopelessness and despair. If you cannot cope with a problem, you choose to pretend not to notice it. Like an ostrich which buries its head in the sand in moments of danger."

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London producer Amy Guttman has done a two-part series for us on a couple ways Britons are trying to counter the economic effects of recession.

Billed as "Victory Gardens" during World War II, public allotments became hugely popular as a way to bolster the kitchen larder, and maybe even sell some produce on the side.

The souring economy has prompted a huge increase in demand for the public garden plots, and some very exclusive real estate has been opened up to eager gardeners looking for a place to turn their thumbs green.

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What if you have a global summit but there's no media to cover it? Like the tree falling in the forest, does it make a sound if no one's there to hear it?

Some, perhaps hundreds, of the journalists at the G20 were perilously close to not getting into the ExCel Center — the site of the meeting — because of a printing house problem.

Okay, I can confirm the meeting is going on. But it seems a pretty apt metaphor for the times.

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President Obama arrives in London Tuesday to join the leaders of the world’s richest countries to try to rescue a declining international economy.

As is the case with most summits, the G20 conclusions were written before any of the world leaders arrived, and the draft final communiqué, leaked to the Financial Times shows just how little optimism the members really feel about reaching a consensus on how to achieve their goals.

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