Sudan's 'Government of National Unity': Prospects for meaningful peace in Darfur and South Sudan
This past weekend's inauguration of a new 'government of national unity' (GNU) for Sudan, while unquestionably an historic event, hardly heralds immediate peace for either Darfur or Eastern Sudan, and does nothing to change the deteriorating situation on the ground in South Sudan, where critical transitional needs continue to be largely unfunded by the international community.
UN Working Group Denounces Imprisonment of Cuban Five as 'Arbitrary'
In an opinion released in late May, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, a group created by the UN Commission on Human Rights, criticized the treatment of five Cuban men arrested in Miami in 1998 as 'arbitrary.'
British Left Demands Blair Resign
The imperialist wars of conquest are waged to safeguard US control of scarce energy resources and to enhance Washington's global hegemony... Those who respond by attacking soft civilian targets are ruthless, reactionaries who are out of step with all decent human beings... Tony Blair must answer for his role in fanning the flames of this disastrous conflagration
China-Russia Joint Statement on 21st century world order
'The central task for mankind in the 21st century is to safeguard peace, stability, and security for all of mankind and to achieve comprehensive and coordinated development under the conditions of equality, safeguarding sovereignty, mutual respect, mutual benefit, and ensuring the development prospects of future generations.'
The G-8 Announcement: Great Expectations Betrayed
Africa Action also rejected as inadequate the $25 billion annual increase in aid to Africa by 2010. The complete failure to make progress on trade reforms and climate change, as well as the absence of a plan to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan, made this year’s G-8 Summit an ineffective response to Africa’s challenges.
Widening income gap: Most serious social problem in China
The widening income gap was the most serious social problem in China in 2004, according to a recent survey conducted by the Party School of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.
A New Dawn—or a New Scramble for Africa?
What is needed is more aid, and more shifts in wealth from the developed capitalist countries to poor countries...The US government has agreed to pay between $700 and $950 million more to the World Bank over the next three years. This is a drop in the ocean compared with what it spends every day in its occupation of Iraq.
Sovereignty Sinks in Latin America as Dollarization Rises
Dollarization, which is the official adoption of the U.S. dollar (USD) as the national currency has sometimes delivered a mixed signal to several Latin American nations. Globalization—the increased economic interdependence and integration of countries fuelled by the digital age—has led to intercontinental competition in the production of commodities and services. National currencies are no exception.
Vicente Fox: More a Caricature than the Real Thing
his past Sunday, July 3, represented a stunning indictment by Mexican citizens on how little President Vicente Fox’s government had progressed after five years in office, as the state of Mexico’s voters went to the polls to elect a Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) governor, Enrique Peña Nieto. Fox’s National Action Party’s (PAN) candidate, Rubén Mendoza Ayala, suffered a humiliating defeat in receiving an estimated 25 percent of the ballot, while Peña Nieto, won decisively with 47 percent.
Chicago Women Defy US Government’s Cuba Blockade
On July 11, nineteen-year-old Chicagoan Jennifer Suh and Trinidadian citizen Allison St. Brice, Suh’s 20-year-old Amherst College classmate, will board a yellow school bus on a mission to deliver humanitarian aid to Cuba – a criminal act under current US law.
