en Espanol: El Legado de Iglesias y el Futuro del BID
The Iglesias Legacy and the IDB’s Future
read more
financial flows
The G-8 Debt Deal
Jubilee campaigns and debt cancellation advocates can be proud of their efforts. The Finance Ministers of the eight rich country governments as represented at the Group of 8 (G-8) have announced a deal on 100% debt cancellation of International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and African Development Fund debt for some impoverished nations.
The Tsunami’s Aftermath: Reconstruction or Economic Opportunism?
“How agonised we are about how people die. How untroubled we are by how they live.”
– P. Sainath,“The Unbearable Lightness of Seeing,” The Hindu, Feb. 10, 2005
Labors Foreign Policy Heads in a New Direction
Lost amidst the publicity about the breakup of the AFL-CIO at its convention last month were two events that, in their own ways, could point to a radically new foreign policy for American unions and workers.
Recent Visit Highlights Double Standards in Bush Administration’s Pro-Democracy Rhetoric
The recent visit of Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai to the United States highlighted the extent to which Vietnam remains wedded to the Chinese model of reform. Substantial, if often plodding, economic reform continues as an excuse for near nonexistent political reform. His visit also exposed the hypocrisy of the Bush administration which continued to call for widespread political reform in the Middle East in the same week it soft-peddled the need for the same reform in Indochina.
Debt and Corruption
There are few issues that have captured the airwaves in Nigeria more than the twin campaigns in favor of debt relief and against corruption. A photograph of Nigeria’s former top cop made the front pages only to be followed the next day by apologies for humiliating the man. The Senate president, the number three man in the government, got kicked out of office for allegedly helping to grease of palms of some Senators, so that a government ministry’s budget could be laced up with bogus figures. The Senate president did not go down alone. He is currently squirming in the dock with the former minister of education and some other senators. Another minister was sacked for underhand dealings in a proposed sale of government houses in the high-brow section of Ikoyi, Lagos . Many of President Obasanjo’s extended family members were scheduled to become owners of these choice quarters built with public funds.
From Keynesianism to Neoliberalism: Shifting Paradigms in Economics
Spoilers Gatecrash the Iraq Spoils Party
Despite new offers for broader participation in Iraq’s reconstruction bonanza, the United States-convened donors’ conference on Iraq ended in stifled disappointment, with only $13 billion raised–a far cry from the $36 billion target. To dampen expectations further, up to two-thirds of the total pledges will take the form of loans, not grants. And if the Afghanistan fundraising experience is any indication, many of the pledges could still end up being just more broken multi-million-dollar promises.
Debt, Africa and Global Economic Governance: Very Little from Evian
This year’s meeting of the Group of 8 (G-8) leaders is being held from June 1-3 in Evian (France). But the preparatory work leading up to the G-8 meeting had already shown that very little would emerge on three key crises that affect global development today–the Third World debt crisis, the African crisis, and the crisis of legitimacy of the global arrangements that drive the globalization process, including the G-8 itself.
Global Showdown in Evian
Evian, France–the world capital of designer water–may be a fitting city to host the heads of state from the eight most powerful industrial nations from June 1-3. But the image of wealthy leaders sipping “l’original” gourmet H20 will hardly help the G-8, as the exclusive group is known, to defend itself against charges of being an elitist and undemocratic forum.