AP reports: “On Sunday, the [Cuban] assembly will name the president, first vice president and five other vice presidents, and 24 other members of the Council of State. Fidel, who was re-elected to the National Assembly, could remain on the council but is unlikely to receive a top position.” PETER ROMAN Author of People’s Power:…

STEPHEN ZUNES Professor of politics at the University of San Francisco, Zunes returned from Serbia last week. He just wrote the piece “Kosovo and the Politics of Recognition.” Zunes said today: “Even among longstanding supporters of independence for Kosovo, the eagerness with which the Bush administration extended diplomatic recognition immediately upon that country’s declaration of…

The Times of London reports that the U.S. government’s “decision to destroy a defunct spy satellite orbiting Earth by firing a missile into outer space provoked a diplomatic row today, with both China and Russia accusing the U.S. of having carried out a covert weapons test.” ALICE SLATER Slater is director of the Nuclear Age…

* Arab League Going After Al-Jazeera? The Guardian in Britain reports: “The head of al-Jazeera has launched a scathing attack on Middle East governments, accusing them of framing new laws giving them powers to close down the Arabic-language news channel and other broadcasters.” JOEL CAMPAGNA Campagna is program coordinator on the Middle East and North…

AP reports: “Consumer prices rose by a bigger-than-expected amount in January, reflecting big increases in the cost of food and health care, the government reported Wednesday. “The Labor Department said that its closely watched Consumer Price Index posted a gain of 0.4 percent last month, matching the December increase and was higher than economists had…

GWENDOLYN MINK Co-editor of the two-volume Poverty in the United States: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics and Policy and author of Welfare’s End, Mink said today: “Although Obama insists he is the candidate ‘for change,’ his record on poverty issues does not offer bold new visions for economic justice. Quite the opposite, in fact: Obama’s…

“I would point to the fact that Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get…

* Polluting a Country, Polluting the World * Beijing Olympics A cover story in the current issue of Mother Jones magazine — “The Last Empire: Can the World Survive China’s Rush to Emulate the American Way of Life?” — documents the grim realities and the global environmental impacts of China’s economic boom. The article, written…

The Washington Post reports: “The Pentagon announced today that it has charged six detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison with conspiring to carry out the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and that military prosecutors will seek the death penalty for each.” MARJORIE COHN Cohn is the author of the book Cowboy Republic: Six…

STEFFIE WOOLHANDLER, M.D. QUENTIN YOUNG, M.D. Woolhandler is professor of medicine at Harvard University and a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. She said today: “Hillary and Obama are both right. Hillary’s individual mandates would, as Obama charges, financially punish uninsured families. Obama’s plan contains no individual mandate, but would, as Hillary charges,…