Category: COVID-19

The UN’s Vague ‘New Agenda for Peace’

Vijay Prashad says that the report — apart from identifying the conflict between the unipolar and multipolar worlds, and showing concern over the metastasizing weapons industry — throws moral scaffolding over hard realities it can’t directly confront. 

Inscrutable Sanctions

Britain and the U.S. impose economic sanctions on dozens of governments they don’t like, write Erik Mar and John Perry. Some people in Nicaragua are being targeted on the basis of little or no evidence.

Austerity & a New Cold War With China

Vijay Prashad says the expanding IMF-driven debt crisis, which has converted the idea of “financing for development” into “financing for debt servicing,” bears watching while China waives debt to 17 African nations. 

The Poverty Trap

Lower interest rates and longer-term paybacks that match the pace of underlying social progress are key to successful development finance, writes Jeffrey Sachs.