Imagine life under these conditions: living in limbo under a foreign occupier. Having no self-determination, no right of return, and no power over your daily life. Being in constant fear, economically strangled, and collectively punished. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Israel has conducted state-sponsored genocide against the Palestinians for decades and intensively in Gaza, where an humanitarian disaster is taking place.
[see more]
The global financial crisis: implications for the South
"Is the United States a ‘failed state’? Its financial mismanagement has triggered a world wide crisis." Thus, Social Watch coordinator Roberto Bissio challenged some 300 civil society delegates, who met at the Ramada Plaza Hotel. The Civil Society Forum leading to the Financing for Development Review Conference is addressing the international crises that threaten our climate, development and social justice, developing recommendations for change to carry into the official Conference.
[see more]
A new study by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) compares the over $4 trillion that the United States and European governments have spent on bailing out financial firms versus the amounts they are spending on development and climate finance. The key finding is that the $4.1 trillion that U.S. and European governments have committed to support struggling banks and other financial institutions is more than 45 times the $90.7 billion they spent on development aid last year.
[see more]
The United Nations Charter was negotiated by 50 governments and opened for signature in June 1945. Article 26 of the Charter offers evidence of assumptions made about this new institution and how nations united and working together could actually prevent conflict and deliver peace and security, not just talk about it. Article 26 gives the Security Council and the Military Staff Committee the responsibility for creating a plan for regulating armaments and reducing military expenditures, a task it has neglected entirely.
[see more]
During 2008, many events took place in preparation for Doha Conference. The current international context offers a unique historical opportunity for a change to take place. The challenge to neoliberal model is no longer coming only from the margins and civil society voices. With a financial crisis of great proportions at the center of the debate, even mainstream conservative voices in politics are now claiming that there may have been too much liberalization in the global economy as we face greater instabilities and inequalities.
[see more]
Myriam Vander Stichele, SOMO, argues that the call made by the World Trade Organisation and some European leaders to finalise the Doha round at the same time of financial reform talks (so-called Bretton Woods II) completely ignores that this would impose on the South exactly the same recipe of deregulation and liberalisation of financial services that caused the crisis in the first place. In fact, Free Trade Agreements already signed by both nations in both the North and the South are already likely to make increasing regulation of the financial sector difficult, if not impossible.
[see more]
INSouth embodies an understanding, from a South perspective, of the new and emerging issues in the international arena, and the challenges and opportunities they pose for the South.
Economy and Financial Affairs
- Fri Nov 28 2008
Women's statement on financing for development, Doha
In the final day of the civil society forum in Doha, women’s rights organisations and networks have come up with a new statement to ensure that gender equality and women’s empowerment are at the centre of the FfD process.
Source:
GCAP
Economy and Financial Affairs
- Wed Nov 26 2008
Financial crisis is the focus of civil society forum in Doha
The Civil Society Forum leading to the Financing for Development Review Conference is addressing the international crises that threaten our climate, development and social justice, developing recommendations for change to carry into the official Conference.
Source:
Social Watch
