AP reports today: “Developing nations’ hopes for forging a new, more just economic world order appear unlikely to be quickly realized as the United Nations’ Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis draws to a close Friday.” On Thursday, Ecuadorean President Rafeal Correa said member states should consider abolishing the International Monetary Fund. He…

National Transportation Safety Board officials have stated in recent days that they had warned the D.C.-area Metro that trains were in need of upgrades or replacement. Video is here. FRANK HAMMER Hammer is a retired GM employee of 32 years. He was president of United Auto Workers local 909 and also worked in the GM…

REESE ERLICH Just back from covering the Iranian election, Erlich is available for a limited number of interviews with major media. Foreign correspondent and author of The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis, Erlich said today: “This isn’t a ‘Twitter Revolution.’ That description trivializes the broad mass movement…

The British Guardian reports today that Mir Hossein Mousavi “appears to be planning a general strike. A discussion on his Facebook page says: ‘We are working on a general strike plan. Please help us with your ideas if you have expertise on this issue.’” BILL FLETCHER Fletcher is co-founder of the Center for Labor Renewal…

QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D., via Mark Almberg National coordinator of Physicians for a National Health Program, Young will be testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), on Wednesday. Young is past president of the American Public Health Association and is a master in the American College of Physicians. A…

RICHARD GROSSMAN Grossman’s work on regulation, corporations and governance includes the books Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (2001); Fear At Work: Job Blackmail, Labor and the Environment (1982) and the best-selling pamphlet Taking Care of Business: Citizenship and the Charter of Incorporation (1993). He said today: “Regulatory laws and agencies legalize corporate harms, rights denials and…

The New York Times reports: “The plan the president will formally announce on Wednesday would give the Federal Reserve greater supervisory authority over large financial institutions whose problems pose potential risks to the economic system.” ROBERT AUERBACH Professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, Auerbach wrote the book Deception and Abuse…

NICHOLAS SKALA Skala, a Juris Doctor candidate and Harry L. Kinser Scholar for Health Law at Northwestern University School of Law and a former senior research associate at Physicians for a National Health Program. He said today: “The Congressional Budget Office estimate predicts that the Senate’s HELP [Health, Education, Labor and Pensions] Committee [chaired by…

The British newspaper the Guardian reports today that Jimmy Carter, who has been in Israel and just met with top Hamas officials in Gaza, said of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent speech: “My opinion is he raised many new obstacles to peace that had not existed under previous prime ministers. … He still apparently…

Today, President Obama spoke before the American Medical Association. ANNE SHEETZ, MD, via Jim Rhodes A Chicago-based physician, Sheetz only does house calls to elderly home-bound patients. She is protesting with others today across from the AMA convention, where Obama noted that a single-payer option works in other countries but stated that we in the…