In the (very, very) small mercies department the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organisation reported that the number of chronically hungry people fell to 925 million people.

Surprisingly, almost 40% of those people live in two of the world's most dynamic economies.

In the opposite of the small mercies department, or the world just got a little worse department, Tea Party rooted candidates are doing well in American primaries and immigration issues in Europe remind some of, well, Nazism.

This is shining a light on Newt Gingrich and Nicholas Sarkozy.

Whither immigration?

http://www.fujiarts.com/cgi-bin/item.pl?item=116621

The problem with hunger stories is how quickly they become fodder for ideological battles.

A couple of points.

One, global agricultural output continues to rise.

Two, the best remedy for hunger is state supported research on improving yields and market driven production and trade.

REGULARITY and repetition—of returning rains, of seasonal temperatures, of the cycles of life and death—are the essence of agriculture.  http://www.economist.com/node/16992151?story_id=16992151

Three, about 400 million of those hungry people are in two of the world's most dynamic economies, India and China with ample room to extend food safety nets.

FAO and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today said that the number of hungry people in the world remains unacceptably high despite expected recent gains that have pushed the figure below 1 billion.   http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/45210/icode/

Global trade and consumption of food underlines the fact that countries do not need to be poor to be huge importers of their calorie intake -- Japan  is an important example   http://faostat.fao.org/Portals/_Faostat/documents/pdf/map05.pdf.

So if Canada is a net exporter of calories, China and India have 400 million chronically hungry people, wouldn't it make sense to tilt Canada's economic future to exporting more calories to those two countries?

Well yes.

The Tea Party's impact on the primaries in the United States could be seen no better than in Delaware where the shoe-in candidate got bumped by one of Sarah Palin's (self-referred to as 'Mama Grizzly') favorite daughters Christine O'Donnell. (eds' note -- no it is not possible to keep making this stuff up).

HE WAS supposed to be a shoo-in. Mike Castle, the popular former two-term governor and tiny Delaware’s sole representative in the House, was the odds-on favourite to win Delaware’s special election to fill the seat Joe Biden held for 36 years.  http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2010/09/primary_upset

It may be however that the national politician best positioned to benefit is Newt Gingrich, and he is a scary guy, because unlike Sarah Palin smart people actually think what he is saying is grounded in fact and is true.

Former Republican congressional leader Newt Gingrich discusses the war on terror at the National Press Club.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZiw3qVdFzw&feature=related

There is so much nonsense in this rant by Newt but two things stand out for their flagrant violation of the facts.

The idea that the United States today or tomorrow or twenty years from now will be more "at threat" than it has ever been is the worst kind of hyperbole.

I would have thought that either July 1940 when Nazi Germany had the option of taking out the United Kingdom and sealing off Europe or anytime after the Soviet Union developed the hydrogen atomic bomb with the means of delivering it would have trumped anything the war on terror could offer up.

He also rewrites the history of the Second World War when he claims that the United States won it on their own.

That certainly would come a surprise to the Russians, and the Chinese, and the Finns, and the Yugoslavians, and the Greeks, and Philippinos, and the Poles (these are just some of the countries that had more than 2% of their total populations classified as military deaths).

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post on Gingrich's latest verbal -- well you know -- where he claims that "[Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]."

Is Newt Gingrich just pretending to have lost his mind, or has he actually gone around the bend?  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/13/AR2010091305307.html?wpisrc=nl_most

And coming to a theatre near you America At Risk.

America At Risk, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich, vividly demonstrates the dangers facing America, one decade after the attacks on 9/11. Today, Washington refuses to tell the truth about the war we are fighting. According to experts, we are at war with radical Islamists - and it is a war we are losing. By Citizens United Productions.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPBv1tZhd-E&feature=player_embedded

Less nutty perhaps but increasingly worrying is France's President Nicholas Sarkozy. Where do these people come from?

WHEN Nicolas Sarkozy first burst into the French political consciousness he was unlike any other recent leader the country had known.  http://www.economist.com/node/16990664

Something's rotten in the Elysée Palace. Thanks to Ken in Tokyo/Hong Kong for sending this in.

Sarkogate? Le Mondegate? L'Oréalgate? Evidence continued to pile up yesterday that President Nicolas Sarkozy's office abused its powers, and broke the law, to staunch newspaper revelations flowing from the convoluted (but endlessly fascinating) L'Oréal family feud and political financing scandal.   http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/sarkogate-all-le-presidentrsquos-men-2079263.html

So why Limogé in our title today?

Because that is the term used in France when a government official is dispatched far away because of some indiscretion.

From the same article above.

"The source, a magistrate working in the justice minister's private office, David Sénat, had since been limogé, or internally exiled, in classic French style: dispatched to a non-job in French Guyana."

 

Limogé from the town of Limoges, where General Joffre kept a residence for senior staff when they had been relieved from command."

(eds. we have a great friend who was moved to Dubai from London to start a branch office for a Canadian bank and then after a few months was 'Dubaied' out of the company.)

The French government was not happy being compared to Vichy's collaboration with Nazi Germany in European genocide.

France hit back at the European Commission on Wednesday in a row over Paris’s crackdown on Roma migrants, accusing a top official at the European Union’s executive body of overstepping the mark in her criticism.   http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/europe/france-boils-over-as-brussels-slams-roma-expulsions/article1708139/

Removing camps rather than sending people to them is a little different, non?

French officials insist that they are not singling out the Roma as an ethnic group in their summer-long move to dismantle illegal camps of travelers, but an Interior Ministry document suggests otherwise.   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/world/europe/13france.html?_r=2

Home.

Oh, and lose the burqa.

France risked the wrath of the Islamic world on Tuesday by banning burqas and other full-body robes worn by some Muslim women, in a long-debated move that shows the depth of concern over the rise of Muslim culture in Europe.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703376504575492011925494780.html?mod=WSJASIA_hps_MIDDLETopStoriesWhatsNews

Meanwhile in Germany the real issue is that like Japan (and China from 2020) the labour force is shrinking).

Where are the Germans going to come from?

A new book by Thilo Sarrazin, a board member of Germany's central bank, accusing immigrants of dragging down the country, has unleashed a new immigration debate. Yet neither side is addressing the real issue: Germany's rapidly aging population.  http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,714534,00.html

 

And young Greeks are leaving home to find work.

In two weeks, Alexandra Mallosi, 29, will be packing her bags and leaving the quiet Athens suburb of Holargos for Abu Dhabi to start a job as a hotel sales manager.    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/15/business/global/15drachma.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=globasasa23

Angst over immigration of course tends to happen in countries where there are many immigrants.

After the United States and Canada the two countries that granted the most new citizenships last year were, Germany and France.    http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_new_cit-immigration-new-citizenships

An American case for immigration done properly.

THE debate over Arizona’s controversial immigration law and Congress’s passage last month of another border security bill gives the impression that the only problem with our immigration policy is its inability to keep people from entering the country illegally.   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/14/opinion/14orrenius.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

Lebanon's dangerous time.

As Lebanon braces for the possible indictment of Hezbollah operatives for the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, the country’s economy is wobbling.    http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mortan3/English

 

Albert Edwards' bad news analysis of the markets. Thanks to David of Victoria for sending this in.

Market Still Deluding Itself That It Can Escape The Inevitable Dénouement -- Pdf below