Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Labor, Trade, & Finance

Why NEPAD and African Politics Don’t Mix

by , | Oct 2, 2005

It is now over two years since the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) was launched in Abuja, Nigeria and perhaps time to review the progress that this project for supporting development in Africa has made. Stripped to its bare bones, the NEPAD is a "partnership" with the developed world whereby African countries will set up and police standards of good government across the continent–whilst respecting human rights and advancing democracy–in return for increased aid flows, private investment, and a lowering of obstacles to trade by the West. An extra inflow of U.S.$64 billion from the developed world has been touted as the "reward" for following approved policies on governance and economics.

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Europe Protests Bitter Cuts

by , | Oct 2, 2005

Europe’s war between unions trying to protect the remnants of the welfare state, and governments bent on shredding them further, brought a million people into the streets on Sunday. Half a million came out in both Berlin and Rome, while smaller numbers demonstrated in France and other German cities. For the first time, they’ve coordinated demonstrations in a multi-country response.

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Corporate Welfare for Jumbo Shrimp

by , | Oct 1, 2005

Pity the U.S. shrimp industry. Over the last decade, shrimp have evolved from a delicacy only the rich could afford to the most popular seafood in America. The problem is, Gulf Coast trawlers can only catch 10% of the country’s demand. The rest comes from imports, and 230 U.S. companies, joined together in the Southern Shrimp Alliance, feel that is unfair.

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The World Bank’s Great Gamble in Central Africa

by , | Oct 1, 2005

The first tanker loaded with Chadian crude oil embarked from the Cameroonian port of Kribi on October 5th, 2003. The landlocked Central African nation of Chad will receive around $2 billion over the lifetime of the oil fields developed by a consortium led by energy giant Exxon-Mobil. Through its financial backing of the project, the World Bank is putting to the test a new approach to an old African problem: the marriage of oil, embezzlement, and political corruption. Through a carefully orchestrated plan to impose transparency and good governance on the elected Chadian officials, the bank aims to ensure that the money is used to benefit the nation’s people, who are among the poorest in the world.

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Chvez Reconfirmed

by , | Oct 1, 2005

Ryan Murphy, creator of television’s popular reality TV show Nip/Tuck, has a theory based in Greek tragedy of why viewers tune in to see volunteers request extreme plastic surgery and wind up hideously disfigured. “It’s a cautionary fairy tale. It says, ‘Be careful what you wish for’,” he told USA Today recently.1

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