Skyrocketing oil prices, a falling dollar, and collapsing financial markets are the key ingredients in an economic brew that could end up in more than just an ordinary recession. The falling dollar and rising oil prices have been rattling the global economy for sometime. But it is the dramatic implosion of financial markets that is driving the financial elite to panic.
As President Bush embarks on his journey to Africa, he is looking to secure his legacy in part through his administration’s development initiatives on the continent. One of those initiatives is the administration’s support for expanded debt relief for the continent.
The Bush Administration’s fixation on security and the “war on terror” is already escalating the militarization of U.S. policy in Africa in 2008. In his last year in office, President George W. Bush will no doubt duplicitously continue to promote economic policies that exacerbate inequalities while seeking to salvage his legacy as a compassionate conservative with rhetorical support for addressing human rights challenges including conflict in Sudan and continued promotion of his unilateral HIV/AIDS initiative. The third prong of U.S.-Africa policy in 2008 will be the continued and relentless pursuit of African resources, especially oil, with clear implications for U.S. military and economic policy.
In their recent Foreign Policy In Focus piece, “Divestment: Solution or Diversion?” activists Kevin Funk and Steve Fake criticize Sudan divestment as an ineffective diversion from the real bugaboo: Israel. If the “worst offending” companies bankrolling the Sudanese government’s genocide in Darfur are not based in the United States, Funk and Fake reason, the process of influencing companies and the Sudanese regime will inevitably be “convoluted.”
We would like to thank Daniel Millenson for his contribution to this dialogue on divesting from Sudan. Both the idea of linking investment decisions with human rights as well as the targeted nature of this campaign, reflecting a concern to avoid harming civilians, are commendable.
The Judeo-Christian tradition is filled with stories of individuals who have gained access to political leaders. Their advice to the powerful often secures the protection and wellbeing of marginalized people. Take the example of Queen Esther. She used her access to King Ahasuerus to protect the Jews from destruction. But Esther did not act alone. At every step of the way she relied on the advice of her cousin Mordecai who sat at the King’s gate protesting the policies of the King’s highest governor, Haman.
The race for the presidency has crystallized the debate about what to do about "globalization," a
short-hand way of describing the increasing tendency of firms to locate production abroad, often
for the purpose of exporting goods back to the United States rather than producing for the local
market. Firms not only have moved production abroad but also in collective bargaining negotiations
often use the threat of moving as leverage to obtain concessions from workers. While not a complete
explanation for the relative stagnation in industrial wages and growing income inequality in the
United States (and elsewhere in the world), it is perhaps the most visible, easily understandable,
and therefore the most inflammable aspect of globalization for American workers.
When confronted by the crime of genocide, human rights activists do not typically dash to state capitols. Since 1787, foreign policy has remained outside states’ bailiwick, with Congress and the President serving as more appropriate venues for foreign policymaking. So when the United States declared the atrocities unfolding in Sudan’s vast Darfur region to constitute genocide in 2004, activists rightly responded by flooding Congressional mailboxes and crowding the Washington Mall, demanding an end to the violence.
Development circles were not shocked last year when two studies detailed how the World Bank’s research unit had been systematically manipulating data to show that neoliberal market reforms were promoting growth and reducing poverty in developing countries. They merely saw these devastating findings, one by American University Professor Robin Broad, the other by Princeton University […]
Yania Marcelino was a six-year-old girl in the Dominican Republic when her mother left their family to find work in another country. She went first to Puerto Rico, then later to New York City to work as a seamstress. There she began sending money back to Marcelino and her three siblings and four cousins. The children often had to travel 15 or 20 kilometers to get to the wire transfer agency, and sometimes the money sent was lost.