Women's equality and health organizations celebrated the creation of a new White House Council on Women and Girls this week. With an executive order, President Obama created the office to prompt "every government agency" to address "the challenges confronted by women of all ages," a White House press statement explained.

Like every other country on the planet, Mexico is being hit hard by the world financial, banking and economic crisis. As in other relatively poor countries, the impact is shaping up to be especially hard on those who have already lost the most from the neo-liberal policy package of free trade, privatization and austerity.

My job is to meet with people across Southern California and figure out what moves them, why they do what they do. There amidst the variations of a kitchen table, lazy couch, or occasional pristine Starbucks, I have found that unfortunately this thing of being moved is contagious.

In the last few months, I have found myself uttering the words "worst since the Great Depression" far too often: the worst twelve month job loss since the Great Depression; the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression; the worst rise in home foreclosures since the Great Depression.

Monthly inflation in Venezuela dropped to 1.3 percent in February from 2.3 percent in January, an indication that last year’s high rate of monthly inflation may be coming under control. Also, the unemployment rate in January was 9.5 percent, a decrease from what it was at the beginning of 2008 but represents a typical seasonal increase since December.

To hear some in the corporate media tell it, you judge a president by how the Dow Jones Industrial Average is performing – and, thus, Barack Obama is not doing a very good job.

The fact is, capitalism is bankrupt. It's run out of capital. 'I think we just have to admit we're broke,' says House Minority Leader John A. Boehner. A system that is supposed to be self-perpetuating – albeit with ups and downs – has come up short. It's not that the banks are just stubborn about lending out money.

With the 2nd G20 summit set for early April in London to deal with the financial turmoil, work on international rules has begun with a view to restructuring the global financial markets.

Communist Party Chair Sam Webb takes on anti-worker, right-wing entertainer Glenn Beck, who seems as empty-headed and allergic to the truth as usual.

Last February 20th, the US Department Of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that, on a seasonally adjusted basis, the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased by 0.3 percent during the month of January.

The manufacturing industry in Australia and the jobs of thousands of more workers suffered another blow last week when Pacific Brands announcement that it was shutting shop in Australia.

In the midst of the unfolding global economic crisis politicians, pundits, and bankers have engaged in much hyperbolic discussion about the prospect that major banks in the US may be “nationalized.”

The French Caribbean is facing serious turbulence. Guadeloupe, one of the French islands in the West Indies, has been completely paralyzed by a general strike since January 19. For more than a month, the population has been bitterly expressing anger towards the French government over the exorbitant cost of living.

About 300 chefs and other food professionals have signed a letter to the Obamas praising their commitment to healthy, sustainable food, a press statement by the Chefs Collaborative, a non-profit culinary organization, announced last week.

Taking his first bold steps to reverse the Bush administration's budget priorities, President Barack Obama released his administration's initial budget outline last week, which proposes to end Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, create a reserve health care fund, curb growth in military spending and dramatically improve funding for the needs of working families.

A common view of the current financial crisis of capitalism holds that it is essentially an aberration. Some attribute this aberration to specific mistakes committed in the past, for instance by the US Federal Reserve with regard to monetary policy. Some hold the lack of adequate regulatory mechanism as being responsible for this aberration.

Basically the labor movement supported it. The Buy American provision was changed a couple of times, but in its initial form it mandated that public projects in the stimulus package receiving tax dollars must have some domestic content.

On Monday February 16, 400 workers were stood down for a week in Albury, on the Victorian border, as their employer went into receivership. On the Friday they learnt that it would be for another week at least, and that many of them would not be coming back to work.

Joining a labor union provides the most direct path to improving a worker's standard of living. If done on a large enough scale, unionization could help revive the entire US economy, a chorus of voices have argued recently.

The friendship between the common people of Canada and the USA was underscored by the visit to Ottawa on February 19th of US President Barack Obama. Thousands of Canadians discouraged by officialdom from greeting the popular US President, nonetheless spontaneously converged on Parliament Hill.