Hizbullah winning over Arab street That gap, fed by support for Palestinians, hatred of Israel, and anger at its close alliance with America, is already being exploited by the region's Islamist movements, turning TV images of dead civilians into political opposition to their own regimes. In particular, the peace deals signed by Egypt and Jordan with Israel make these governments less popular with their people.

Quick Overview

• The producer price index rose 0.5% in June and up 4.9% YoY, more than expected, while the "core" PPI rate excluding food and energy rose 0.2%.
  
  

• The Treasury Department said that foreign buys of long-term U.S. securities totaled $88.8 billion in May -- U.S. purchases of foreign securities totaled $19.2 billion.
  

• YoY Consumer prices in the U.K. were up 2.5% in June.
  

• Japan's index of services, increased 0.5% in May, stronger than expected.
  

• Chinese annual growth surged to 11.3 percent in the second quarter, bounding ahead at the fastest pace since the mid1990s on the back of strong investment and exports, the government said on Tuesday.
  
  

• Japan's economy -- already in its second-longest growth cycle of the postwar era -- will likely keep recovering with the end of deflation in sight, the government said in an economic white paper on Tuesday.

Is the USA Bankrupt?
Or, abandoning the Oxford English Dictionary for Ray Charles, are Americans "busted, broke...no bread...I mean like nuthin'?"

Attention Deficit Americans Are Being Misled to War

Israel’s over-reactions are calculated to start a wider war. Israel has asserted that the two soldiers captured by Hizbollah are being held in Iran. Israel blames Syria for Hizbollah’s acts. Both Israel and its neoconsevative allies in the Bush government blame Iran and Syria for "attacks on Israel" by Hamas and Hizbollah. No one, least of all Bush, blames Israel’s Palestinian policy.

Déjà Vu in Lebanon

Twenty-four years later, the Bush Administration and Israel have provided the world – and this writer – a remarkable feeling of déjà vu as Israeli forces ravage Lebanon and threaten to once again invade its southern portion. Once again, a president totally ignorant of Mideast realities, a craven US Congress, and an incompetent secretary of state have created a disaster in Lebanon.

Ford buyouts speed up
24,000 hourly workers will be gone by end of 2007

Super scandal may be brewing Alan Greenspan and his successor at the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, call this "systemic risk," a nice way of saying that a mortgage giant meltdown, probably caused by rapid swings in interest rates, threatens the international banking system.

Israeli strikes on Lebanon kill 42
..raising the death toll since Israel's offensive to 204, all but 14 of them civilian.

Quick Overview

• U.S. Industrial production was up 0.8% in June, stronger than expected.
  

• The New York Federal Reserve's regional index of business activity dropped from 29.0 to 15.6 in July, weaker than expected.
  
  

• India's merchandise exports rose 25.1% in June to $9.97 billion, prompting the government to raise its export target for 2007 to $126 billion.
  
  

• New Zealand's CPI rose 4.0% YoY-- the highest level for 16 years.
  
  

• The German newspaper Die Welt reported Monday that Europe's biggest computer maker, Fujitsu-Siemens, wants to go back to the 40-hour work week to save on production costs and keep the plants going, "If we respect the 35-hour week, we will not be able to maintain our factories at Augsburg and Soemmerda. " Fujitsu-Siemens chief executive Bernd Bischoff said.
  
  
  

• F.O. Licht predicted on Thursday that world sugar production will total 149.2 million tons during the 2005-2006 period, an increase of more than seven million tons compared to the previous harvest.
  
  

• OPEC expects world oil demand to average 84.6 million barrels a day in 2006 and 85.9 million barrels a day in 2007.
  
  
  
  
  
  

Europe can tell Israel how punishing civilians backfires
In 1949, Europeans spearheaded an international move to outlaw collective punishment. This came after two world wars in which they had witnessed whole towns and villages razed and civilians executed, conscripted for slave labour or deliberately made homeless. To break with this past, the Fourth Geneva Convention outlawed collective punishment and reprisals against non-combatants. How far away this all seems today. First in Gaza and now in southern Lebanon, the Israeli army has abandoned Geneva's restraints, retaliating against the kidnapping of its soldiers by blowing up power plants, oil refineries, airports and roads.

What's Really Going on in Lebanon Eric Margolis

Williams Confronts Kristol: ‘You Just Want War, War, War, And You Want Us In More War’

The Bush agenda comes into focus
It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration's response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Right-wing media divided: Is U.S. now in World War III, IV, or V?

Condi says Iraq has nothing to do with the instability in the Middle East: That’s Gross

US 'could be going bankrupt'
A ballooning budget deficit and a pensions and welfare timebomb could send the economic superpower into insolvency, according to research by Professor Laurence Kotlikoff for the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, a leading constituent of the US Federal Reserve.

A Beautiful Friendship?
Thanks to the work of the lobby and its allies, Israel gets more direct foreign aid -- about $3 billion a year -- than any other nation. There's a file cabinet somewhere in the State Department full of memoranda of understanding on military, diplomatic and economic affairs. Israel gets treated like a NATO member when it comes to military matters and like Canada or Mexico when it comes to free trade. There's an annual calendar full of meetings of joint strategic task forces and other collaborative sessions. And there's a presidential pledge, re-avowed by Bush in the East Room, that the United States will come to Israel's aid in the event of attack.

Another Stab at the Truth
Polls show that a majority of Americans believe President Bush and his associates intentionally misled the public in making their case for war. It's a terribly serious charge, if true. In fact, it's hard to imagine a more serious charge against a president.

Putin Tells Bush Russia Doesn't Need a Democracy Like Iraq's
Bush held up Iraq today as a model of democracy for Russia to follow. Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to say he wasn't interested.

• U.S. Retail sales were down 0.1% in June, more than expected. Excluding autos, sales were up 0.3%.
  

• U.S. business sales were up 1.4% in May and up 8.8% YoY
  

• The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index fell from 84.9 to 83.0 in July, morer than expected.
  

• Japan's central bank raised interest rates for the first time in six years on Friday, lifting its key rate to 0.25 percent from zero and affirming the end of a long era of deflation and economic stagnation.
  

• Canada's manufacturing shipments were up 0.3% in May.
  

• The National Association of Oilseed Processors said the U.S. crushed 131.3 million bushels of soybeans in June, more than expected.
  

• Canada confirmed its seventh case of mad cow disease.
  

• Sao Paulo's industry association reduced the estimate of Brazil's sugar crop to 370 million tons.