SYNDICATION

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There's a Hidden Economic Trendline That Is Shattering the Global Trade System

Viewpoint by Marshall Auerback and Jan Ritch-Frel

Marshall Auerback is a market analyst and commentator and Jan Ritch-Frel the executive director of the Independent Media Institute. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

NEW YORK (IDN) – Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers has recently conceded: "In general, economic thinking has privileged efficiency over resilience, and it has been insufficiently concerned with the big downsides of efficiency." Policy across the globe is therefore moving in a more overtly nationalistic direction to rectify this shortcoming.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 04 July 2020

Photo: The Porcupine caribou herd in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Credit: Peter Mather/petermather.com

ARCTIC: Protecting the Sacred Place Where Life Begins

Viewpoint by Nick Engelfried*

BELLINGHAM, Washington (IDN) – As the Trump administration neared the end of its first year in office in 2017, it seemed environmental activists had lost one of the most hard-fought battles in the movement's history. Thanks to a last-minute manoeuvre by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Congressional Republicans succeeded in passing legislation allowing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Some of the worst fears of environmental and Indigenous rights groups for what might happen under the administration appeared to be coming true.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 03 July 2020

We Won't Have a Truly Global Economy Until People Start Taxing It That Way

Viewpoint by Marshall Auerback

The writer is a market analyst and commentator. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

NEW YORK (IDN) – Major talks between the United States and the European Union to establish a shared tax framework for multinational companies broke down on the issue of seeking to secure an agreement on digital taxation. Big tech, which is heavily a U.S. creation, has long been in the sights of European economies, as their profits and revenues have soared and they have increasingly become major components of the 21st-century economy.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 01 July 2020

Photo: Standoff in Washington. Credit: Eleanor Goldfield. Source: Consortium News.

Policing Is Irrelevant for Public Safety—Here Are Some Alternatives That Are Proven to Work

Society doesn't need a large group with a license to kill.

Viewpoint by Justin Podur *

Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer and a writing fellow at Globetrotter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. You can find him on his website at podur.org and on Twitter @justinpodur. He teaches at York University in the Faculty of Environmental Studies. He is the author of the novel Siegebreakers.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 25 June 2020

Photo: Portraits of Mao Zedong and Xi Jinping in a shop in China. Public Domain. Source: Wikimedia Commons

China's Disappointing Ways: From Mao to Present

Viewpoint by L. S. Herdenia

This article is the 11th in a series of joint productions of South Asian Outlook and IDN-InDepthNews, flagship of the International Press Syndicate.

NEW DELHI (IDN) – During the Chinese revolution, progressive forces of the world lent every possible support to it. At that time, it was widely believed that most of the Chinese people consumed opium and were always in a stupor. Additionally, the country’s economy lay totally shattered. It was said that the people in China went to the market with a bag full of currency note and returned with a pocketful of goods. It was the Communist party and its dynamic leader Mao Zedong who were trying to give a new life to the Chinese people.

: Suresh Jaura; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 25 June 2020

Photo: Anthony Quintano | Black Lives Matter Protest Times Square New York City June 7 2020. CC License via Flickr. Source: UN Dispatch Podcast.

How the Black Lives Matter Movement Went Global

By Mark Leon Goldberg, UN Dispatch Podcasts

NEW YORK (IDN ) – The Black Lives Matter movement has spread quickly around the world. Over the last several weeks, there have been BLM demonstrations in nearly every major city in Europe. Tens of thousands of people showed up for protests in Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris, and London, just to name a few. There were also many protests across Latin America, Australia – even Asian cities like Seoul and Tokyo saw Black Lives Matter protests.

So how did the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota spark an anti-racism and civil rights movement that extends far beyond the United States?

: UN Bureau; HUMAN RIGHTS; Racism; 18 June 2020

Photo: Peacekeepers exemplify ‘service, sacrifice and selflessness’, in face of pandemic. Source: United Nations Peacekeping.

Why COVID-19 Offers A Chance to Transform UN Peacekeeping

Viewpoint by Charles T. Hunt and Adam Day *

LONDON (IDN | The Conversation) – United Nations Peacekeeping may be entering a period of major change. Over the past four years, there has been a steady decline in the number of peacekeepers deployed worldwide. And two of the largest peacekeeping missions in history are beginning to draw down.

These two developments hint at the fact that UN peacekeeping may appear poised to shrink further. There are a number of factors driving this. They include budgetary pressures and a contested track record. Added to this have been the more recent financial and practical challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 18 June 2020

Photo: ECOSOC's 2020 Operational Activities Segment (OAS) on development issues took place through a series of virtual meetings from 19 to 22 May and on 27 May 2020, under the chairmanship of the Deputy Permanent Representative of Mexico, as ECOSOC Vice-President. Credit: UN

COVID-19 Puts to Test the UN Development System

By Elena Marmo, Global Policy Watch (GPW)

This article first appeared in the GPW's blog.

NEW YORK (IDN) – Across the UN System, all hands are on deck to address the impact of COVID-19 from immediate humanitarian and health needs, to medium and longer-term socio-economic policy. Various initiatives are circling one another, raising issues of governance, reporting and accountability. Member States in the ECOSOC Operational Activities Segment explored some of these questions as they related to the UN Development System (UNDS). At the same time, in the 28 May and 2 June meetings on Financing for Development, they also explored policy ideas, with an emphasis on accounting for vulnerability in macroeconomic analysis.

: Opinion Editor; UN INSIDER; 11 June 2020

Image: Extinction Rebellion. Credit: openDemocracy

Out of the Belly of Hell: COVID-19 and the Humanisation of Globalisation – Part 4: Next

Viewpoint by Anthony Barnett*

This article was originally published on openDemocracy. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News

LONDON (IDN) – In 1957-58, a flu pandemic killed around million people world-wide. In the UK estimates of the deaths it caused vary from 14,000 to 30,000. Before it arrived from Asia, a British Medical Journal report noted, “The public seems under the impression that nothing can be done to prevent the calamity”, and indeed nothing was done.

In 1968, the Hong Kong or H3N2 flu virus killed over 700,000 people worldwide, around 100,000 in the US. But there were no mass shutdowns of national economies.

: Phil Harris; OPINION; 09 June 2020

Image: Egyptian forces cross the Suez Canal at the start of the Yom Kippur War | CIA Image: Egyptian forces cross the Suez Canal at the start of the Yom Kippur War | CIA

Out of the Belly of Hell: COVID-19 and the Humanisation of Globalisation – Part 3: The Stepping Stones

Viewpoint by Anthony Barnett*

This article was originally published on openDemocracy. Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News

LONDON (IDN) – Nine moments forged the processes described above to shape the globalisation that has now gone into shock. In identifying them I’m not denying that there were many other events of global consequence, such as the end of apartheid, the wars of post-Yugoslavia, the triumph of Narendra Modi and his assault on India’s secular constitution, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands or the battles over Ukraine, to mention just five. Nor am I writing a history, I say nothing about Japan, for example, despite its importance and I am conscious of a North Atlantic bias, when the most grievous impacts have been imposed on the poorer, more populous countries.