The $700 billion bailout of Wall Street that was annouced last week by the Bush adminstration will add to a staggering national debt of $10,000,000,000,000, ensuring that it will top $11 trillions by the end of next year ($700 b + $600 b for federal deficit + cost of war). To pay back the debt, every American household will have to contribute $100,000!

The national debt is now approaching the US Gross Domestic Products (GDP), that is the total output of a year-worth of work for the American people, which is currently around $13 trillions. The US government pays $430 billions in interests to service this loan. This is equal to the annual health bill and 4 times more that what is spent on education.

The conflict in Palestine threatens to destabilize world politics and embolden fundamentalist demands for religiously exclusive political states. The principle of rule of law has suffered immensely under the climate of fear that followed the terrorist attacks on the American homeland on September 11, 2001. Extremists in both the East and the West are working hard to deepen the divide, and turn a political conflict into a religious war. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is being used by the far right in both Muslim and Western countries to justify bigotry and to demonize people on the other side of the divide.