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Latest Developments, August 7

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Battlefield Yemen
UPI reports on the recent escalation of the American drone campaign in Yemen and the possibility of a US Joint Special Operations Command strike:

“JSOC is the special operations unit that killed U.S.-born Yemeni cleric and al-Qaida member Anwar al-Awlaki with Hellfire missiles in Yemen two years ago next month.
The unit, part of the U.S. Special Operations Command, cooperates closely with the CIA, which resumed drone strikes in Yemen 11 days ago to disrupt al-Qaida’s terrorism plot, the BBC and The Washington Post reported.
The campaign — with four strikes in rapid succession — ends a period in which U.S. drone activity in Yemen has been relatively rare, the Post said.
It’s not clear if the renewed attacks, including a strike in Yemen’s eastern Marib region Tuesday, curbed the danger, U.S. officials told the Post, acknowledging they didn’t know if senior al-Qaida operatives in Yemen had been killed.”

Outsourcing refugees
Al Jazeera reports that Australia (area: 7,692,024 km²) has signed a new deal with Nauru (area: 21 km²) which has agreed to take sea-faring asylum seekers off its hands:

“The memorandum of understanding is similar to a deal [Australian Prime Minister Kevin] Rudd struck with Papua New Guinea prime minister Peter O’Neill a fortnight ago.
Mr Rudd says refugees who arrive in Australia will be sent offshore for processing and will be free to ‘settle and reside in Nauru’.
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The announcement comes just a fortnight after asylum seekers being held on Nauru rioted, causing extensive damage to the facility there.
In its economic statement yesterday, the Federal Government said its offshore processing plan was expected to cost $1.1 billion.
The latest announcement is part of Labor’s move to ensure no asylum seeker that arrives in Australia by boat will be resettled in Australia.”

Somali oil
The Financial Times reports that Somalia’s government has given first dibs on oil exploration to former UK Tory leader Michael Howard’s “newly formed” company:

“The weak new government, the most representative in years, said earlier this year the broken state was too fragile to risk oil exploration because it was likely to pit different regions and warlords against each other. UN investigators also said in a report this year that inconsistencies in the legal framework regulating oil ‘risk exacerbating clan divisions and therefore threaten peace and security’.
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The UK has hosted a Somalia conference two years running, including a day dedicated to business deals attended by oil executives, and this year opened an embassy within the secure airport area in Mogadishu. A diplomat from the UK also beat Norway to head up the UN mission to Somalia.”

Drug deal
Intellectual Property Watch reports that Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche has agreed to reduce the cost of an HIV-related drug by up to 90 percent in some countries:

“In the past, [the Medicines Patent Pool] has received criticism for leaving key middle-income countries out of its licensing agreements. The prevalence of patients diagnosed with [cytomegalovirus] retinitis is 14.0% (11.8-16.2%) of people living with HIV in Asia, 12.0% (4.2-19.9%) in Latin America, and 2.2% (1.3-3.1%) in Africa, according to the MPP release.
Despite CMV prevalence in Latin America, major countries in the region such as Brazil and Mexico, are missing from the new agreement with Roche.”

Unaccountable peacekeeping
A new report out of Yale University argues the UN “caused great harm to hundreds of thousands of Haitians” by introducing cholera to a country it was meant to stabilize:

“ ‘The U.N.’s ongoing unwillingness to hold itself accountable to victims violates its obligations under international law. Moreover, in failing to lead by example, the U.N. undercuts its very mission of promoting the rule of law, protecting human rights, and assisting in the further development of Haiti,’ [co-author Tassity] Johnson said.
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The report calls for setting up a claims commission, as well as providing a public apology, direct aid to victims, infrastructural support, and adequate funding for the prevention and treatment of cholera. It also emphasizes that the prevention of similar harms in the future requires that the U.N. commit to reforming the waste management practices of its peacekeepers and complying with its contractual and international law obligations.”

War on coal
Princeton University’s Peter Singer argues that we will have to leave “about 80%” of known fossil fuels in the ground in order to save the planet:

“The dividing lines may be less sharp than they were with apartheid, but our continued high level of greenhouse-gas emissions protects the interests of one group of humans – mainly affluent people who are alive today – at the cost of others. (Compared to most of the world’s population, even the American and Australian coal miners who would lose their jobs if the industry shut down are affluent.) Our behavior disregards most of the world’s poor, and everyone who will live on this planet in centuries to come.
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In these circumstances, to develop new coal projects is unethical, and to invest in them is to be complicit in this unethical activity.”

Paranoid nation
The Economist calls the extent of the US government’s prioritization of security over liberty “unjust, unwise and un-American”:

“The indefinite incarceration of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay without trial was a denial of due process. It was legal casuistry to redefine the torture of prisoners with waterboarding and stress positions as ‘enhanced interrogation’. The degradation of Iraqi criminals in Abu Ghraib prison in 2003, extraordinary rendition and the rest of it were the result of a culture, led by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, that was both unAmerican and a recruiting sergeant for its enemies. Mr Obama has stopped the torture, but Guantánamo remains open and the old system of retribution has often been reinforced.
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Every democracy needs its secrets. But to uncover the inevitable abuses of power, every democracy needs leaks too.”

Latest Developments, June 19

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Bleak outlook
The World Bank has published a new climate change report exploring what “temperature increases will look like, degree-by-degree” for some of the world’s poorest people over the next century:

“In Sub-Saharan Africa, the researchers found food security will be the overarching challenge, with dangers from droughts, flooding, and shifts in rainfall.
Between 1.5°C-2°C warming, drought and aridity, will contribute to farmers losing 40-80 percent of cropland conducive to growing maize, millet, and sorghum by the 2030s-2040s, the researchers found.
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Loss of snow melt from the Himalayas will reduce the flow of water into the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra basins. Together, they threaten to leave hundreds of millions of people without enough water, food, or access to reliable energy.”

US troops in Mali
Sahara Media reports that American soldiers have arrived at the Amchach military base near Tessalit in northern Mali:

“According to sources contacted by Sahara Media, the soldiers’ arrival at this strategic base, which took place over the past two days, has the support of the French military.
These same sources say the US troops will be deployed to various points in northern Mali by month’s end.
According to Sahel watchers, this base had been a point of contention between Paris and Washington, both of whom wanted to set up a military base, though Algeria and Libya objected to foreign troops being stationed near their borders.” [Translated from the French.]

Partial transparency
The Center for Global Development’s Alex Cobham and Owen Barder have mixed feelings about this week’s G8 statement on “tackling financial secrecy”:

“It is disappointing that the G-8 did not agree to compile registries of beneficial ownership of companies and trusts, let alone to make them public. If individuals can own companies anonymously, it is too easy for them to set up shell companies and shelter their income from tax within them. We are confident it will eventually dawn on everyone that the only workable solution is registries of beneficial ownership, and that there is no reason that these should not be public.”

Going beyond aid
The Canadian Council for International Co-operation’s Fraser Reilly-King argues that while “aid alone” will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals or their post-2015 successors, strategies based on leveraging private capital should be viewed with caution :

“With the obsession around growth and the private sector, has come a strong focus on creating an enabling environment for private sector development. The World Bank’s (much criticized) flagship Doing Business Report ranks countries according to the ease of doing business. In practice, while it may encourage countries to streamline heavy bureaucratic processes that choke innovation, this has also led to excessive deregulation, flexibilization of work forces, and attacks on labour rights. For me, it is not about creating an enabling environment to develop the private sector (and stimulate investment), but rather creating an environment that enables the private sector (and investment and civil society and citizens) to contribute to development and poverty eradication. It’s a subtle, but extremely important, difference.”

Truth to power
Humanosphere reports that former Costa Rican president and Nobel laureate Oscar Arias told a US audience “your government is the most dangerous government on Earth”:

“Arias — in town to do a commencement speech for [the University of Washington Bothell], among other speaking events — had plenty of praise for the United States, for the generous and enterprising spirit of Americans.
But he also couldn’t help noting our country’s history of ‘supporting military dictatorships,’ of only doing foreign aid when we can see how it helps us and, as the world’s leading arms dealer and military power, of exporting violence.”

Green façade
The Dominion raises questions about Canadian-based Goldcorp’s attempts to “re-brand” its San Martin mine, which ceased production in 2008, as a Honduran ecotourism site:

“But the reality on the ground is a long way from the stories told in company documents and press releases.
A visit to the site in early 2013 revealed no evidence of a thriving hotel or ecotourism project. Instead, tall fences with barbed wire surrounded a space of land on the hill down from the mine. It cost $20 to enter the area and there were security forces guarding the site.
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Residents claim that Goldcorp’s San Martin Foundation should not fall under the definition of ecotourism. Members of the Siria Valley Environmental Committee fear that the site is acting as a placeholder for the mine to re-open in the future once new mining regulations come into place.

Health equality
Durham University’s Clare Bambra makes the case for taking on economic inequality as a way to improve public health:

“Ultimately, more equal societies have better health outcomes. While even the most egalitarian developed countries have health inequalities, all of their citizens are better off and live longer. The poorest and most vulnerable groups in social-democratic countries like Sweden and Norway are far healthier and live longer than their counterparts in neo-liberal countries such as the UK or the US.”

Dodgy accounting
Freedom from Want author Ian Smillie argues that current statistics on extreme poverty do not reflect improving global conditions since the 1980s so much as a big change in the World Bank’s math:

“The problem is that the figures used a decade or so afterwards for 1980, 1985 and 1990 are not the same figures the Bank was using at the time. In its 1980 World Development Report (WDR)—still available on line—the World Bank said that ‘The number of people living in absolute poverty in developing countries (excluding China and other centrally planned economies) is estimated at around 780 million.’ At the time, China had an estimated 360 million destitute people, so the global total was probably about 1.1 billion—the same as today.
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Over the past decade, however, the Bank began to tinker with the 1980-1 base. For example, ‘The Bank’s annual statistical report, World Development Indicators 2004 (WDI)… shows a drop in the absolute number of people living on less than $1 a day in all developing countries from 1.5 billion in 1981, to 1.1 billion in 2001.’
Are you following the numbers? The 1981 base had increased to 1.5 billion. And it kept rising thereafter to its current level of 1.9 billion. What remains constant is the 1.1 or 1.2 billion people living in poverty ‘today’ (whether that ‘today’ is 2013, 2004, 2000, 1985 or 1980).”

Latest Developments, December 11

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Syrian plan
The Independent reports on “secret Syria talks” aimed at drawing up plans to provide the country’s rebels with training, as well as military support from air and sea:

“The head of Britain’s armed forces, General Sir David Richards, hosted a confidential meeting in London a few weeks ago attended by the military chiefs of France, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE, and a three-star American general, in which the strategy was discussed at length. Other UK government departments and their counterparts in allied states in the mission have also been holding extensive meetings on the issue.
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The training camps can be set up in Turkey. However, the use of air and maritime force would, in itself, be highly controversial and likely to lead to charges that, as in Libya, the West is carrying out regime change by force.
Furthermore, any such military action will have to take place without United Nations authorisation, with Russia and China highly unlikely to back a resolution after their experience over Libya where they agreed to a ‘no-fly zone’ only to see it turn into a Nato bombing campaign lasting months.”

Weak deal
The Guardian reports that environmental and anti-poverty groups are unhappy with the lack of progress made during the UN climate talks that ended in Doha over the weekend:

“ ‘A weak and dangerously ineffectual agreement is nothing but a polluters charter – it legitimises a do-nothing approach whilst creating a mirage that governments are acting in the interests of the planet and its people,’ said Asad Rehman, head of climate and energy at Friends of the Earth. ‘Doha was a disaster zone where poor developing countries were forced to capitulate to the interests of wealthy countries, effectively condemning their own citizens to the climate crisis. The blame for the disaster in Doha can be laid squarely at the foot of countries like the USA who have blocked and bullied those who are serious about tackling climate change. Our only hope lies in people being inspired to take action.’ ”

Too big to indict
The New York Times reports that US authorities have decided not to indict banking giant HSBC over alleged laundering of Mexican drug money, for fear that “criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world’s largest banks”

“Instead, HSBC announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to a record $1.92 billion settlement with authorities. The bank, which is based in Britain, faces accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries.
While the settlement with HSBC is a major victory for the government, the case raises questions about whether certain financial institutions, having grown so large and interconnected, are too big to indict.”

Private aid
The Guardian reports on War on Want’s criticism of the UK’s increasing use of the private sector to deliver aid to Africa, a strategy the NGO contends “will do little to reduce poverty”:

“ ‘In fact [Department for International Development]-funded expansion of corporate control over agriculture in Africa is a sure way of increasing long-term vulnerability,’ [War on Want director John Hilary said].
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War on Want also attacks the government for using aid to promote the commercial interests of some of the world’s most profitable food, drink and agrochemical corporations.
The report says that DfID-sponsored programmes which have funded projects in Africa and Asia with multinationals include the alcohol companies Diageo and SABMiller and the food giant Unilever. It also tracks support for initiatives to develop sales networks for agrochemical companies such as Syngenta and Monsanto. DfID is, for example, set to contribute £395m to the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, an initiative that involves 45 of the largest multinational corporations investing $3bn (£1.86bn) in African agriculture.”

Suspended justice
Reuters reports that a French court has given no jail time to ex-soldiers it found guilty of murdering an Ivorian man in 2005:

“The incident – in which [Firmin] Mahe was suffocated with a plastic bag in an armored vehicle after his arrest – erupted into a diplomatic scandal after it was found the soldiers tried to cover up the crime.
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The court gave Colonel Eric Burgaud, who had given the order to kill, a suspended sentence of five years, while his adjunct who had admitted to carrying out the murder, Guy Raugel, received a suspended four-year sentence.
Brigadier Chief Johannes Schnier, who helped in the killing, was handed a suspended sentence of one year. Another soldier who drove the vehicle during the killing was acquitted.”

Continent-specific justice
Inner City Press reports on concern in some diplomatic circles that the International Criminal Court’s new prosecutor is picking up where her predecessor left off, targeting only Africans for indictment:

“Another Security Council source, from a country that has signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, expressed to Inner City Press dismay at the ‘mechanism’ announcement over the weekend that new ICC prosecutor Fatima Bensouda is now looking into indicting the M23 and its supporters.
Opponents of Joseph Kabila get indicted by the ICC, from [Jean-Pierre] Bemba to Bosco [Ntaganda], the complaint runs. And what has been accomplished? Let the ICC at least try an indictment in another continent and see how it goes. Or why not look at Kabila or those in his administration, as well?”

Bloc party
The Associated Press reports that not everyone was celebrating as European Union leaders gathered in Oslo to collect this year’s Nobel Peace Prize:

“Three Peace Prize laureates — South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and Adolfo Perez Esquivel from Argentina — have demanded that the prize money of $1.2 million not be paid this year. They said the bloc contradicts the values associated with the prize because it relies on military force to ensure security.
Amnesty International said Monday that EU leaders should not ‘bask in the glow of the prize,’ warning that xenophobia and intolerance are now on the rise in the continent of 500 million people.”

Institutionalized assassination
The Financial Times’ Gideon Rachman argues that the biggest problem with America’s drone strikes is not the remoteness of the killings but the secrecy surrounding them:

“To make the spread of drone warfare less likely – and to prevent abuses in America’s own programme – drones need to be reclaimed from the realm of covert warfare. The CIA may relish its conversion into a paramilitary force. But wars should be fought by the military and openly scrutinised by politicians and the press. Anything else is just too dangerous for a free society and for international order.”

Latest Developments, December 6

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Historical responsibility
The Associated Press reports that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has placed the onus for tackling climate change on wealthy nations:

“Ban’s comments echoed the concerns of China and other developing countries, which say rich nations have a historical responsibility for global warming because their factories released carbon emissions into the atmosphere long before the climate effects were known.
‘The climate change phenomenon has been caused by the industrialisation of the developed world,’ Ban said. ‘It’s only fair and reasonable that the developed world should bear most of the responsibility.’ ”

Resource alienation
The Daily Nation reports that Canadian firm Bedford Biofuels’ planned jatropha plantation on 120,000 hectares of Kenyan land “has raised questions about land ownership for the first time between neighbours”:

“ ‘When waters ebb, farmers plant rice. The Pokomo have planted rice for centuries. During the floods, pastoralists drive out herds… that’s the traditional way of using the land, keeps the ecosystem functioning,’ explains Ms Serah Munguti, communications and advocacy manager at Nature Kenya.
But environmentalists like Ms Munguti say the arrival of foreign companies like Bedford Biofuels, who come to the delta armed with ambitious plans for large-scale, intensive farming, might disrupt the system.
That, according to Ms Munguti, promises to heighten tribal tensions.
‘The conflict comes because everybody wants the water. The Tana Delta as it is today is a recipe for disaster,’ argues Munguti. ‘There is already conflict over limited resources. Then you look at all the projects that have been proposed and you can imagine what we are setting ourselves up for.’ ”

Middlemen
The New York Times reports that the US gave the green light for Gulf states to supply arms to Libyan rebels during last year’s civil war, but as a similar scenario plays out in Syria, America is worried that weapons are going to “some of the wrong militants”:

“The administration has never determined where all of the weapons, paid for by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, went inside Libya, officials said. Qatar is believed to have shipped by air and sea small arms, including machine guns, automatic rifles, and ammunition, for which it has demanded reimbursement from Libya’s new government. Some of the arms since have been moved from Libya to militants with ties to Al Qaeda in Mali, where radical jihadi factions have imposed Shariah law in the northern part of the country, the former Defense Department official said. Others have gone to Syria, according to several American and foreign officials and arms traders.”

Betting the farm
A new report by the Oakland Institute asks if “you know what your pension fund is doing in Africa”:

“In recent years, the private financial sector has already invested between $10 to $25 billion in farmland and agriculture with little to no oversight; given current investment trends, this amount might double or triple in the coming years. Although agricultural funds are portrayed as positive social investment to help alleviate hunger and the effects of climate change, evidence demonstrates that large land deals are often detrimental to food security, local livelihoods, and the environment–yet little is known about the specific firms and funds driving this investment.”

Camp Integrity
Wired reports that following a $22.3 million no-bid deal, US special forces in Afghanistan are now based at a facility owned by America’s “most infamous private security company”:

You might think that Blackwater, now called Academi, was banished into some bureaucratic exile after its operatives in Afghanistan stole guns from U.S. weapons depots and killed Afghan civilians. Wrong. Academi’s private 10-acre compound outside Kabul, called Camp Integrity, is the new headquarters for perhaps the most important special operations unit in Afghanistan.
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But the commandos won’t be the only U.S. military tenants at Camp Integrity. A Pentagon agency called the Counter-Narcoterrorism Program Office also uses Camp Integrity as a base of operations to aid in its war on Afghanistan’s drug lords. Academi provides the office’s small Kabul cell with, among other things, ‘a secure armory and weapons maintenance service.’ ”

Duty to protect
Debbie Stothard of the International Federation for Human rights (FIDH) argues that since the UN adopted the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, “access to justice for those affected has not improved”:

“Company-based grievance mechanisms may be useful for preventing harm and facilitating resolution of minor problems, however, they can in no way replace State-based mechanisms in cases involving egregious violations.
Of course, the best solution for a victim is to have access to an independent court where he/she lives. However, too often, the judicial system where the harm occurs is weak or unable to provide for an effective remedy. This is why we also need to remind home states of multinational companies of their duty to protect and insist that they provide effective avenues to remedy in cases where host states lack the capacity or will to do so.
The UN Working group could explore and recommend how home States, as part of their duty to protect, could facilitate access to justice for victims of human rights abuses in third countries involving corporations under their jurisdiction.”

Major shift
Inter Press Service reports on the IMF’s change of heart regarding government measures to control cross-border financial flows, though critics say more changes are needed:

“ ‘Arguably more important is to ask if the IMF will similarly relent on its manic obsession with keeping inflation extremely low in developing countries,’ [Delhi-based development consultant Rick Rowden] says.
‘Is the IMF now also suddenly in favour of trade protection and subsidy support for building domestic industries? Are they suggesting developing countries actually should ‘discriminate’ and against foreign investors and tilting the playing field in favour of building up domestic firms? I think not.’
He continues: ‘While the IMF’s about-face on capital controls is promising, the oft-cited pronouncements of the death of the Washington Consensus are quite premature.’ ”

Treaty violation
Radio France Internationale reports that Chadian President Idriss Déby, on an official visit to Paris, sought to set the record straight concerning a French NGO accused of attempting to smuggle children out of his country:

“I never, repeat never, pardoned members of Zoe’s Ark. Let there be no doubt. We have a treaty with France. They were convicted, and I respected the treaty. The kidnappers were freed without our consent. It’s a violation of the treaty. I’ve never said it before but today I’m saying it: It’s a violation of the treaty. In principle, the kidnappers should not only serve time in France but must also pay €6 million in compensation.” [Translated from the French.]

Latest Developments, October 24

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Unspeakable issue
The New York Times reports that, for the first time since 1988, climate change did not come up during the US presidential debates:

“Throughout the campaign, the candidates have talked a great deal about energy, but it has essentially been a competition in who could heap the most praise on fossil fuels. They tended to avoid any explicit linkage between their energy proposals and climate risk.
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‘No candidate has been able to portray climate change policy as a win-win,’ Eugene M. Trisko, a lawyer and consultant for the United Mine Workers of America, said on Tuesday. ‘That’s because they understand that the root of climate change mitigation strategy is higher energy costs. It’s an energy tax, and that’s something you don’t want to talk about in a debate.’ ”

Disposition matrix
The Washington Post reports on a new American database, the “disposition matrix,” suggesting the US government intends to continue carrying out targeted killings for years to come:

“The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the ‘disposition’ of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.
Although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create it reflects a reality setting in among the nation’s counterterrorism ranks: The United States’ conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.”

Phantom menace
Human Rights Watch’s Bill Frelick and Bangkok-based human rights lawyer Michael Timmins slam the apparent spread of Australia’s “punitive asylum policies” to neighbouring New Zealand:

“The bill provides for the near-automatic detention for six months and beyond of so-called ‘mass arrivals’ (11 people or more) by boat or other unscheduled craft who are ‘potentially illegal.’
What mass arrivals? Notwithstanding 18th and 19th century Europeans who might have met the bill’s ‘mass arrivals’ definition, no modern-era boatload of asylum seekers has ever reached New Zealand. Even if one were to arrive, this would in no way overload New Zealand’s existing asylum system. The hypothetical ‘risk’ does not justify the abdication of principle.”

Justice deferred
The Wall Street Journal reports that the UK looks set to adopt deferred-prosecution agreements, a tool much used by US prosecutors in the fight against corporate wrongdoing, such as the bribing of foreign officials:

“Under a deferred-prosecution agreement, criminal charges would be dropped after a period of time if an organization complies with the terms of a deal, which could include the imposition fines, disgorgement and orders to implement measures to prevent future wrongdoing.
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The [US] agreements don’t require a judge’s involvement, and there’s no one to question the fairness of the agreement or to second-guess its terms, as Dealbook’s Peter Henning pointed out in September.
Under the U.K. proposal, however, a judge will have the power to block an agreement if they don’t agree that the settlement is appropriate, the consultation report said.”

Stolen oil
Reuters reports that a Nigerian politician has begun campaigning for a global solution to his country’s oil-theft problem, given that an estimated 90% of Nigeria’s pilfered crude ends up on world markets:

“Oil companies say so called ‘bunkering’ — tapping into oil pipelines to steal the crude — and other forms of oil theft are on the rise in Nigeria, despite an amnesty that was meant to end a conflict there in 2009 over the distribution of oil wealth.
Yet while local gangs hacking into pipelines to steal small quantities for local refining are the most visible sign, it is industrial scale oil theft involving collusion by politicians, the military, Western banks and global organised crime that is the real drain on Nigeria’s resources, [Niger Delta politician Dele Cole] said.
‘International theft is diverting huge quantities … and the sophistication of the exercise — from breaching the pipeline, to having barges, to knowing when ships are at the port, to being paid — is major,’ he said.”

Unwanted comeback
Reuters also reports that malaria “is being transmitted from person to person within Greek borders” for the first time since 1974:

“Species of the blood-sucking insects that can carry exotic-sounding tropical infections like malaria, West Nile Virus, chikungunya and dengue fever are enjoying the extra bit of warmth climate change is bringing to parts of southern Europe.
And with austerity budgets, a collapsing health system, political infighting and rising xenophobia all conspiring to allow pest and disease control measures here to slip through the net, the mosquitoes are biting back.”

Better than nothing
The BBC reports that 10 EU countries – including Germany, France, Italy and Spain – plan to forge ahead with a financial transaction tax despite failing to obtain the support of all 27 member countries:

“Governments across Europe have been implementing drastic austerity measures to cut debt levels, and taxing banks is seen by some as an important way to raise revenues, particularly while the economic recovery remains so fragile.
Opponents argue that unless it is adopted universally, the tax would drive business to financial centres that did not impose the tax.”

Stacked deck
The University of London’s Simon Reid-Henry argues that, while dependency theory has faced some valid criticism over the years, its focus on “the problems of uneven starting points and the structural unfairness of global capitalism” remains relevant today:

“And the underlying critique of western chauvinism (that western-style capitalist democracy is the best model for the rest) remains pertinent when people persist in talking of development ‘ladders’, for example. Perhaps more important, Frank’s belief that we too readily overlook the way that too many of the privileges of the rich nations are not only unearned but predicated upon the prior and active removal of that wealth from others is, if anything, making something of a comeback in these days of heightened discussion of inequality.”