Latest Developments, December 8

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Tabula rasa
The Economist reports on a controversial large-scale development experiment getting underway in Honduras.
“In a nutshell, the Honduran government wants to create what amounts to internal start-ups—quasi-independent city-states that begin with a clean slate and are then overseen by outside experts. They will have their own government, write their own laws, manage their own currency and, eventually, hold their own elections.
This year the Honduran legislature has taken the first big steps towards the creation of what it called ‘special development regions’. It has passed a constitutional amendment making them possible and approved a ‘constitutional statute’ that creates their autonomous legal framework. Mauritius has just announced that it will allow its supreme court to hear cases from the new entities (beyond that, in a relic of colonialism, is Britain’s Privy Council, to which the decisions of the island state’s supreme court can be appealed). And on December 6th Porfirio Lobo, the Honduran president, appointed the first members of the ‘transparency commission’, the body that will oversee the new entities’ integrity.”

Right to science
Intellectual Property Watch reports on a UN-sponsored event that highlighted the need for greater attention to the “right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its application.”
“A delegate from Pakistan said that the most important point was to address the issue of access and that the privatisation of science and knowledge has led to some concerns. In particular, he asked how the role of the private sector could be regulated at the international level, as the intellectual property regime was restricting the right to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its application.”

Dangerous tech exports
Agence France-Presse reports on the introduction in the US House of Representatives of a bill – the Global Online Freedom Act – intended to limit the export of Internet surveillance or censorship technology.
“‘There is a criminal cooperation between Western hi-tech companies and authoritarian regimes,’ [Reporters Without Borders’ Clothilde] Le Coz said.
‘The surveillance tools sold by these companies are used all over the world by armed forces, intelligence agencies, democratic governments and repressive regimes.
‘The leading exporters of these technologies include the United States, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom and Israel,’ she said. ‘Companies should have a responsibility when selling their technologies abroad.’”

Corporate negligence
The Canadian lawyers of a Guatemalan man have announced he is suing Toronto-based mining company HudBay – the third human rights lawsuit related to violence near a project it used to own in Guatemala – for alleged negligence over its handling of security operations.
“HudBay knew it was operating in a very violent country, but instead of hiring or training security staff with acceptable standards and supervision, HudBay’s Guatemalan subsidiary hired local security personnel with a track record of violence, supplied them with guns and deployed them without the controls or supervision we demand and take for granted in Canada.”

Mission impossible
The Overseas Development Institute’s Neil Bird reflects on the apparent futility of trying to get nearly 200 self-interested governments to agree on anything of substance at summits like the Durban climate talks.
“In some respects, these negotiations hardly matter. The global response to climate change continues to progress at a snail-like pace: just consider for a moment that this is the 17th Conference of the Parties, it is not the 3rd, 4th, 5th or even 10th meeting. How many more international gatherings will be required for the countries attending to agree a global compact that both protects the environment and offers hope to the poorest people who are most vulnerable to climate change?
Perhaps what we have learned most over the past decade is that global negotiations take on a life of their own and, at worse, appear little more than a self-serving exercise.”

Enduring colonialism
As controversy continues to swirl over living conditions in northern Canada’s Aboriginal community of Attawapiskat, Queen’s University’s Robert Lovelace argues “that while the misery is in the ‘North’, the source of the problem is in the ‘South’.”
“It is difficult in the face of human suffering to turn attention to the systemic and structural reasons that have led to this catastrophe, but this is the very time when thoughtful analysis is needed. The homes are small and cold. The tedium of poverty bears down day by day and those who have stolen your children’s future call the daily bread on your table a ‘handout.’ It is difficult to feel anything but shame through the numbing that is required to get by every day.
But there are reasons behind this suffering. There is a history. There is a structure to oppression, denial and indifference that houses this suffering and there is a system that perpetuates it.”

Business friendly
The World Bank’s Célestin Monga argues that improving “all the many ‘doing business’ indicators” is not the key to success for poor countries.
“By the way, China, Vietnam, and Brazil, which have been among the top-performing countries in the world for the past 20 years, are consistently ranked quite low when it comes to the ease of doing business; Brazil is 126th, Vietnam 98th, and China ranks 91st, behind such star economies as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Vanuatu.”

Oppressed by carbon
Le Monde Diplomatique provides a write-up of a new book by “heterodox ecologist” Frédéric Denhez who rails against “the dictatorship of carbon.”
“Society obeys ‘mechanical’ rules: we knew the markets, free trade, gross domestic product (GDP); now we are discovering the measurement of carbon emissions as the indicator of the 21st century. The economic ruling class uses it to construct a narrative that pins blame on the individual and impedes all structural change. So we measure the emissions linked to the use of a product, but rarely those associated with its manufacture.
As a result, cash for clunkers promotes the destruction of cars that pollute less than the industrial process required to build new ones!’” (Translated from the French)

Latest Developments, December 7

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Climate loopholes
The Guardian reports that India is taking wealthy countries to task at the climate change talks in Durban, insisting they need to get serious about cutting emissions.
“To bolster its argument that rich countries must do more, India referred to a recent study by the Stockholm Environment Institute of the pledges made last year in Cancún by all countries. It shows that developing countries are pledging 30%-50% more cuts than the rich, and that the rich may be able to avoid taking any action whatever to meet their pledges by taking advantage of accounting loopholes.
Sivan Kartha and Peter Erickson of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) said: ‘Developing countries pledges amount to more absolute mitigation than all developed countries. Unless accounting rules for Annex 1 countries are made more stringent, then Annex 1 countries will be able to formally comply with their pledges with very little actual mitigation and possibly none at all.’”

Climate debt
The Inter Press Service reports on opposition in Nepal to the government’s acceptance of millions of dollars in loans for climate change mitigation projects.
“‘Nepal has one of the lowest greenhouse gas emission levels in the world due to its low industrialisation,’ [secretary of the All-Nepal Peasants’ Federation, Hari] Parajuli adds. ‘It also has forests covering nearly 40 percent of its land. Yet, the developed countries that cause pollution are now seeking to make Nepal take loans and pay them interest.’
Parajuli says the protests are also against the involvement of the World Bank.
‘We don’t regard it positively,’ he says. ‘It is not service-oriented but works for profit.’”

Naming land grabbers
A new Oakland Institute report argues that at while the EU and US give food and emergency aid to victims of famine and war, their development and energy policies harm Africa’s people and environment.
“Development agencies including USAID and the World Bank Group are often the architects of these [unregulated land] deals that promise benefits for Africans but fail to deliver. Furthermore, the research shows that US and EU energy policies that tout the benefits of agrofuels and carbon credits–key elements of these land deals–are actually making climate change a bigger problem.
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[The Oakland Institute’s Anuradha] Mittal noted that people can follow the supply chain to identify the bad actors–who claim benefits for Africa but seldom deliver: so-called developers who determine how land will be used (such as Iowa-based based AgriSol Energy and Texas-based Nile Trading Development), companies that grow non-food crops on the land (including Sun Biofuels and Addax Bioenergy), and groups that buy up agrofuels and timber (including major western airlines such as Lufthansa).”

Food speculation
A new report by the Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) argues for regulation of “purely financial speculation in commodity derivatives markets” that has spiralled out of control in recent years and is contributing to soaring food prices.
“SOMO calls on European governments to respect the precautionary principle enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty and to act decisively to bring back financial speculation in commodity derivatives markets. The European Parliament currently has an opportunity to do just this by strengthening the proposed Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and Regulation (MiFID and MiFIR).”

Calling out Soros
The FCPA Professor, the alter ego of Butler University’s Mike Koehler, accuses billionaire philanthropist George Soros of not walking his talk on foreign bribery.
“If the Soros funded Open Society Foundations believe that all corporations involved in [a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] enforcement action have a “bad or wrongful purpose,” that current standards “simply do not permit successful prosecution of innocent, mistaken or unknowing persons” and that companies involved in an FCPA enforcement action are corrupt, then why does Soros Fund Management LLC invest in so many FCPA violators or companies subject to FCPA scrutiny?
The Fund’s recent 13F filing (in a 13F filing institutional investment managers disclose fund holdings) indicates substantial investments in the following companies that have recently resolved FCPA enforcement actions or are otherwise the subject of current FCPA scrutiny:  Alliance One International, El Paso, Flowserve, Halliburton, Hewlett-Packard, KBR, Motorola Solutions, Parker Drilling, Pfizer, Tidewater, Weatherford International, Tyco International, and Lyondellbasell Industries.”

Drone boom
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Trevor Timm argues that, with the unmanned aircraft market worth nearly $100 billion across more than 50 countries, the debate about drones needs to extend well beyond their use or misuse by the US military.
“Whether they are being used for surveillance or all-out combat, drones will soon pose serious risks for all of the world’s citizens. They can offer governments, police departments, or private citizens unprecedented capabilities for spying, and given their security vulnerabilities, the potential consequences could be endless.”

Treating symptoms
Dean Chahim, a University of Washington student and co-founder of the Critical Development Forum, calls on young people to engage in more political activism at home in order to change the global order.
“My generation has been sold a dogma of the individual as the solution to inequality and poverty. The older generation glorifies our individual achievements as “social entrepreneurs” while brushing the total failure of our economic system under the rug. Is it any wonder our youth think that if they start enough NGOs, go abroad two weeks at a time, design a new widget, or send a few bras – all will be well in the world?”

Spam tax
Oxfam’s Duncan Green mines the comments section of a Financial Times blog to provide a “lovely analogy” for a proposed financial transaction tax (Tobin/Robin Hood tax).
“Think of spam email: when sending emails is essentially free, sending out millions of spam emails can be profitable even if a fraction of respondents would take the bait. But if you had to pay even a nominal charge, even less than a penny, per email sent, that ‘business model’ would essentially become loss making in many cases. The Tobin tax would have a similar effect on a lot of this ‘phantom liquidity’ we get across many markets through high frequency traders – who, after all, are playing a zero sum game mostly, with their profits essentially being losses for a lot of other players. A small transaction cost might just be enough to discourage a lot of this socially useless activity.”

Latest Developments, December 6

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Nuclear testing ban progress
Reuters reports Indonesia has ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, moving the agreement, which has been agreed to by 156 countries, a step closer to becoming international law.
“Indonesia had been among nine countries – including nuclear weapons powers the United States and China, as well as India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran, North Korea, and Egypt – whose approval is needed for the law, negotiated in the 1990s, to take effect.”

Investment ethics
Norway’s Government Pension Fund, the largest in the world, has dropped an American and a Canadian company – FMC Corporation and the Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan – from its investment portfolio for buying phosphates mined in Western Sahara, which it describes in a statement as “particularly serious violations of fundamental ethical norms.”
“Potash and FMC purchase phosphate from the Moroccan company Office Cherifien des Phosphates (OCP). OCP extracts phosphate in Western Sahara, a territory which is not self-governed and which has no recognised administrator. In 2002, the UN’s legal adviser issued a general legal opinion on the legality of mineral resources extraction in territories which are not self-governed, which also included a specific assessment of this issue with regard to the situation in Western Sahara. The opinion stated that mineral resources extraction in territories which are not self-governed is only acceptable if it benefits the local population of the territory. The Council on Ethics takes the view that the interests of the local population are not served by OCP’s operations, and that it is this unacceptable situation which constitutes the core of the breach of ethical standards in the present case.
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In its decision to adopt the recommendation of the Council on Ethics, the Ministry of Finance has attached particular weight to the fact that the companies know the origin of the phosphate, that they specify that they want phosphate from the particular Western Saharan mine in question, and that it appears likely that the companies will continue to purchase this particular phosphate for the foreseeable future.”

Destabilizing mining
Two Canadian mining companies – Nevsun Resources and Sunridge Gold – have issued statements declaring there will be “no direct impact” to their Eritrean operations as a result of a UN Security Council resolution expressing “concern at the potential use of the Eritrean mining sector as a financial source to destabilize” the region.
“Nevsun’s President Cliff Davis states, ‘The State of Eritrea has been a strong partner and shareholder in the Bisha Mining Share Company, a subsidiary of Nevsun… By collaborating with international companies, Eritrea is developing a mining industry that provides direct economic benefits, skill enhancement and supply chain expansion. Through these cooperative efforts, sustainable development from the industry can positively impact the Eritrean economy for decades to come.’”

FDI vs. the environment
The Guardian reports on the controversy over Peru’s Minas Conga gold mine and how it highlights the challenges of balancing foreign investment-driven development with environmental protection.
“After days of violent protests, and following [former deputy environment minister José] De Echave’s resignation, the US-based Newmont Mining Corporation – the majority partner in the joint venture, together with Minera Yanacocha, behind the Conga plans – said it was halting construction in an effort to ease tensions. But CEO Richard O’Brien indicated that the company, which is South America’s largest gold producer, remains committed to the project.
At issue is the impact on the local watershed, as Yanacocha plans to divert water from four mountain lakes into new reservoirs to enable mining to proceed. Protests have been led by local farmers and residents concerned about the impact on the underground drainage network and natural water harvesting system. Cajamarca is Peru’s leading dairy and livestock region.”

New world order
The Global Institute For Tomorrow’s Chandran Nair argues the anticipated Asian Century must be much more than a simple changing of the guard.
“In previous centuries, Western economic growth was characterized by a comparatively insignificant minority having unfettered access to resources, and was thus built on fueling consumption. This was, after all, the idea behind colonialism, which succeeded economically by underpricing resources or even obtaining them for free.
But the planet simply cannot support five billion Asians consuming like Westerners. The earth’s regenerative capacity was exceeded more than 30 years ago, and we now use 30% more resources than the planet can sustain. Although we know this to be the case, the vast majority of Western economists and institutions continue to encourage China and India to consume more.”

Transforming knowledge
Demos’s Michael Edwards asks what the future holds for international development NGOs which are, as a rule, “still raising money in the rich world and spending it on projects in poorer countries” despite the changing global context in which they operate.
“Richer countries no longer provide an ‘end-point’ to aim for in the processes of development and social change, because they generate too much inequality and too many social and environmental failures to serve as an example. In fact, no contemporary society has figured out how to tie economic growth to human flourishing in a future that will be dominated by the demands of climate change and other collective problems that cannot be tackled by the ‘North’ or the ‘South’ in isolation. Therefore, existing systems of knowledge, politics and economics must be transformed, not simply expanded or made more accessible to the poor (wherever it is they live).”

Remembering Fanon
Jeune Afrique marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Frantz Fanon, author of The Wretched of the Earth, at the age of 36.
“When he arrived in Algeria, his only ambition was to be a different kind of doctor. But the way in which the French treated the indigenous population was not lost on him. It reminded him of his own experiences as a black man and Martinican. And when the National Liberation Front (FLN) launched its first attacks, in the early hours of Nov. 1, 1954, Fanon understood the significance of the events. In 1955, he initiated contact with the FLN. The psychological condition of Algerian victims of torture and other violent acts troubled him. In late 1956, he resigned before being expelled from Algeria, marking an irrevocable break with France. From that point on, he saw himself as an Algerian. Nationality is not linked to one’s place of birth, but to one’s will.” (Translated from the French.)

Latest Developments, December 5

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Unravelling social contract
A new report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says its member countries are experiencing their highest levels of inequality in over 30 years and calls on governments to revise their tax systems so that wealthy individual pay “their fair share of the tax burden.”
“Launching the report in Paris, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said ‘The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries. This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that greater inequality fosters greater social mobility. Without a comprehensive strategy for inclusive growth, inequality will continue to rise.’”

Ethiopia’s financial losses
Global Financial Integrity’s Sarah Freitas estimates that Ethiopian losses due to illicit financial outflows amounted to $3.26 in 2009, which was more than the combined value of the development assistance it received and the products it exported.
“What can be done? The first step the international community should take is to hamper the ability of corrupt and tax-evading Ethiopians to launder their money in the global financial system.  This could be accomplished by establishing a global system of automatic exchange of tax information. In this way, Ethiopian authorities could much more easily track the bank accounts their tax evaders have established around the world. Furthermore, the G20 governments could push for an end to shell companies by calling for beneficial owners of all companies, trusts and foundations to be known to government authorities.  This would make it far more difficult for the corrupt and the criminal to hide their ill-gotten gains behind a wall of corporate secrecy.”

SEC contrivances
Butler University’s Mike Koehler, a.k.a. the FCPA Professor, writes about a recent court ruling in New York that pertains to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s practice of resolving cases – whether involving allegations of foreign bribery or not – without requiring an admission or denial of guilt from the defendants.
“In prior cases, Judge Rakoff has said that this policy contributes to a ‘facade of enforcement’ (SEC v. Bank of America) and is a ‘stew of confusion and hypocrisy unworthy of such a proud agency as the SEC.’ (SEC v. Vitesse Semiconductor)
Last week, Judge Rakoff, in denying the SEC-Citigroup settlement, again had pointed words as to the SEC settlement device typically used in FCPA enforcement actions.
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‘An application of judicial power that does not rest on facts is worse than mindless, it is inherently dangerous.  The injunctive power of the judiciary is not a free-roving remedy to be invoked at the whim of a regulatory agency, even with the consent of the regulated.  If its deployment does not rest on facts – cold, hard, solid facts, established either by admissions or by trials – it serves no lawful or moral purpose and is simply an engine of oppression.’
Judge Rakoff stated that the ‘SEC, of all agencies, has a duty, inherent in its statutory mission, to see that the truth emerges; and if it fails to do so, this Court must not, in the name of deference or convenience, grant judicial enforcement to the agency’s contrivances.’”

IP enforcement
Intellectual Property Watch reports that a group of civil society organizations has sent a letter to the World Intellectual Property Organization to express concerns over the UN agency’s “approach to enforcement” regarding piracy and counterfeiting.
“The signers highlighted a lack of transparency about WIPO technical assistance activities, the extensive link being made to public health and safety (which they called “questionable and tenuous at best”) as led by industry, and the possibility that WIPO enforcement activities might be undermining existing flexibilities in IP law. Signers included AIDS groups, digital civil liberties groups, and organizations working on development on the ground in countries around the world.”

Asbestos pushing
Canada’s biggest opposition party is criticizing the government for throwing its weight behind the country’s controversial asbestos industry during negotiations for a trade agreement with India.
“In response to questions from [International Trade critic Brian] Masse, the Chief Negotiator for the Canada-India Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement admitted Canada is currently working to eliminate tariffs on asbestos exports to India. Currently there is a 10 per cent duty on asbestos exports to India, the world’s second largest consumer of asbestos.
‘We already dump hundreds of thousands of tons of asbestos each year into developing nations – and now we want to make it easier for asbestos magnates to do so?’ said MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre). ‘This is deplorable and Canadians need to let their government know they will not put up with this any longer.’”

Blood diamond casualty
Global Witness has announced it has left the Kimberley Process, a certification program it helped establish in the hopes of cleaning up the international diamond trade.
“The Kimberley Process’s refusal to evolve and address the clear links between diamonds, violence and tyranny has rendered it increasingly outdated, said the group. Despite intensive efforts over many years by a coalition of NGOs, the scheme’s main flaws and loopholes have not been fixed and most of the governments that run the scheme continue to show no interest in reform.”

A greener Green Revolution
In a Q&A with the Inter Press Service, International Fund for Agricultural Development President Kanayo Nwanze calls for a new kind of agricultural revolution.
“The Green Revolution was successful because it focused on very clear messages: increased fertiliser use, increased improved seeds and irrigation. But we found out in the long term that it is not sustainable. So now we need to look for sustainable approaches to production that do not destroy the environment and are available to a wide spectrum of farmers in Africa and in the world as a whole.”

Transnational coordination
University of California at Santa Barbara’s William Robinson argues the current “global political economy can no longer be contained through consensual mechanisms of social control” and predicts a protracted period of conflict.
“It is noteworthy that those struggling around the world have been shown a strong sense of solidarity and are in communications across whole continents. Just as the Egyptian uprising inspired the US Occupy movement, the latter has been an inspiration for a new round of mass struggle in Egypt. What remains is to extend transnational coordination and move towards transnationally-coordinated programmes.
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In my view, the only viable solution to the crisis of global capitalism is a massive redistribution of wealth and power downward towards the poor majority of humanity along the lines of a 21st-century democratic socialism in which humanity is no longer at war with itself and with nature.”

Latest Developments, December 4

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Subsidizing Walmart
A new World Development Movement report alleges that so-called climate aid is being used to provide subsidized power to the world’s largest retailer.
“The report, ‘Power to the people?’, details how money taken from the UK aid budget has been used by the World Bank to finance wind farms in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, built without the consent of the indigenous people who own the land. The project produces enough electricity to power 160,000 homes, but is instead being sold at a discounted rate to Walmart. The project is 99 per cent controlled by French electricity giant EDF.”

Disagreement over cluster munitions
The Economist reports on the recent failure of US-led efforts to negotiate a new agreement on cluster munitions that would be less restrictive than the current ban that has been signed by 109 countries and, therefore, more acceptable to the countries that account for 85 percent of the world’s stocks of such weapons.
“The 50-plus countries that opposed the draft protocol, and the campaigners who egged them on, complained that the text still allowed the use of cluster munitions known to cause unacceptable harm. The International Committee of the Red Cross said the American proposal would simply stimulate the development of devices that met the new standards but might still be lethally unreliable; and backsliding from the Oslo rules would set a bad precedent.
The big countries were cross. America (which has argued that a total ban on cluster munitions would make life impossible for NATO) expressed “deep disappointment”. Russia grumbled that opponents were “irrational” and China said they would bear indirect responsibility for future cluster-bomb casualties.”

Outsourcing military missions
Researcher/journalist Jody Ray Bennett argues that the US State Deparment’s awarding of a contract to the controversial DynCorp private security company in the Democratic Republic of Congo is very much in keeping with recent American foreign policy.
“When asked why DynCorp had been awarded a contract back in 2004 to operate in the Sudan, an anonymous US government official told CorpWatch: ‘The answer is simple. We are not allowed to fund a political party or agenda under United States law, so by using private contractors, we can get around those provisions. Think of this as somewhere between a covert program run by the CIA and an overt program run by the United States Agency for International Development. It is a way to avoid oversight by Congress.’”

Blue Helmet mercenaries
Daivd Isenberg, author of Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq, looks into the pros and cons of using private military contractors for UN interventions and uses a Stephen Wittels quote to support his point that such troops are only as good as their contract.
“Because the State Department failed to build into Blackwater’s contract strong incentives to treat Iraqis respectfully, the company did not. Indeed, Blackwater had every reason to shoot first and ask questions later with regards to Iraqis since any civilian could, in theory, have been an assassin, and contractors were, for the first few years of the war, immune to prosecution. It should also come as no surprise that in this consequence-free environment, Blackwater employees adopted excessive aggression as their default disposition, even when it served no apparent purpose. Had their assignment and their conduct been properly engineered in their contract from the outset, a strong argument can be made that Blackwater would not today be known as a collection of ‘cowboys.’”

African leadership
Voice of America reports that African leaders are calling for changes in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
“African Union Social Affairs Commissioner Bience Gawanas says it is time the continent has a greater say in how the fight against sexually-transmitted diseases is fought. Gawanas told a World AIDS Day observance at AU headquarters that the continent most affected by the epidemic must take ownership of the battle to eradicate it.”

African generosity
Globe and Mail columnist Gerald Caplan writes about how much of the West’s wealth has come at the expense of Africa.
“There is not a single African nation that does not suffer from a dearth of trained teachers, health workers and public servants. Meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of highly trained Africans now working in the West and more are coming as rich countries increasingly demand well-trained immigrants. Like that of other rich countries, the Canadian immigration model, as The Globe’s editorial puts it, “aims to attract the best and brightest from around the globe.” So while International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda announces “new CIDA initiatives for Africa … focused on helping Africa fulfill its future potential,” Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is wooing Africans who could make Africa’s potential a reality.
Is this bureaucratic carelessness or rank hypocrisy? Canada’s case is typical of most rich countries. African governments spend preposterously large sums hiring foreign consultants on short costly contracts to perform the work that could have been done by their own lost experts. Is it necessary to point out that those sums often come out of the foreign aid that we, the so-called “donor” countries, provide? So a nice chunk of our aid goes to pay our own citizens to do work in Africa that Africans are doing in our own countries.”

Manifesto of the appalled economists
The Inter Press Service reports on the growing number of “appalled economists” who are calling on world leaders to change course in the current battle against sovereign debt.
“Although the ‘manifesto of the appalled economists’ was first intended to serve as a basis for debate amongst economists on European economic policies, it has rapidly become a manifesto for thousands who have signed it, not just in Europe, but also across continents and countries from Australia to Brazil. The manifesto is also being discussed in numerous forums.
In the paper, [André] Orléan and his co-authors complain that ‘the neoliberal paradigm is still the only one that is acknowledged as legitimate, despite its obvious failures.’”

Capitalism’s future
Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff asks if capitalism is sustainable and how it can be improved.
“It is ironic that modern capitalist societies engage in public campaigns to urge individuals to be more attentive to their health, while fostering an economic ecosystem that seduces many consumers into an extremely unhealthy diet. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control, 34% of Americans are obese. Clearly, conventionally measured economic growth – which implies higher consumption – cannot be an end in itself.”