Europe Loses Billions to Tax Evasion

By Julio Godoy

PARIS, Apr 19, 2012 (IPS) – Swiss banks are facing prosecution in several European countries, accused of complicity in tax evasion and money laundering schemes, especially with French, German, and wealthy Greek citizens.
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Speaking Out in Defence of UNCTAD

By Gustavo Capdevilla

GENEVA, Apr 2012 (IPS) – The reason the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is under attack is that rich countries do not want an organisation that carries out independent analysis, Rubens Ricupero, UNCTAD secretary general from 1995 to 2004, told IPS.
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Argentina’s critics are wrong again about renationalising oil

Mark Weisbrot – guardian.co.uk

In taking back oil and gas company YPF, Argentina’s state is reversing past mistakes. Europe is in no position to be outraged
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Letter to the Editor of The New York Times

Asoka Bandarage*

In his piece, ‘The Other Arab Spring’ (April 8,2012),Thomas Friedman makes important connections between environmental and social collapse and the emergence of conflicts in the Middle East. His analysis and solutions, however, are inadequate.
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U.S.’s Kim Prevails in First World Bank President Contest

By Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Apr 2012 (IPS) – Capping an unprecedented multinational contest for the post, the World Bank’s executive board upheld a nearly 70-year tradition Monday by selecting the U.S. candidate, global health expert Jim Yong Kim, to be the Washington-based agency’s next president. Read more…

World Bank Supports Harmful Water Corporations, Report Finds

By Johanna Treblin

UNITED NATIONS, April 16, 2012 (IPS) – Water privatisation has been proven not to help the poor, yet a quarter of all World Bank funding goes directly to corporations and the private sector, bypassing both governments and its own standards and transparency requirements in order to do so, says a new report released Monday.
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New bubble grows, with Fed’s help

James Saft*

The founders of Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, ought to get down on their knees every night and pray in gratitude to Ben S. Bernanke.
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At Summit of Americas, Governments “Are Listening” to the People

By Constanza Vieira

CARTAGENA DE INDIAS, Colombia, Apr 13, 2012 (IPS) – In preparation for the Sixth Summit of the Americas, the gathering’s Social Forum has held 25 meetings since September, as well as dozens of online working sessions, with the participation of some 7,000 people.
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IRAN: THE TIME HAS COME TO TALK

By Juan Cole – Asia Times

Blockades and the danger of disaster

[Introduction by Tom Engelhardt: Negotiators for Iran, the United States, Britain, China, France, Russia and Germany - the P5+1 or "Iran Six" - meet in Istanbul, Turkey this weekend, face to face, for the first time in more than a year. There are small signs of possible future compromise on both sides when it comes to Iran's nuclear program (and a semi-public demand from Washington that could be an instant deal-breaker). Looking at the big picture, though, there's a remarkable amount we simply don't know about Washington's highly militarized policy toward Iran. Juan Cole does a remarkable job of offering us a full-scale picture of the complex economic underpinnings of the present Iran-US-Israeli crisis and the unnerving dangers involved. ]
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Does Any One Care About 15 Millions Human Beings Starving in Sahel?

Human-Wrongs-Watch

Geneva-The world, in particular rich industrialized countries, is apparently unwilling to save the lives of 15 million human beings affected by the drought and conflict-related crisis in the Sahel region, with about 1.5 million are children who face the prospect of severe acute malnutrition. Read more…

Getting the Market to Tell the Truth

By Lester Brown*

WASHINGTON, Apr 11, 2012 (IPS) – Moving the global economy off its current decline-and-collapse path depends on reaching four goals: stabilising climate, stabilising population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the economy’s natural support systems.
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Iran talks have right mix for history

By Chris Cook* – Asia Times

“The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.”
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Protests Over Property Rise Across China

By Emily-Anne Owen

BEIJING, Apr 11, 2012 (IPS) – Zhang Haxia and her husband received a knock on the door in the middle of one night last December. They were dragged from their home in south-west China and forced into a van. When they returned nothing was left.
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Democracy to the test

Eric Maurice* -Presseurop

On 1 April, the European Union became more democratic. This is the argument of defenders of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) which came into force that day. From now on, EU citizens can “call on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal.”
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Working to Cope with Climate Change, Jamaica Calculates Costs

By Zadie Neufville

KINGSTON, April 2012 (IPS) – Jamaican authorities are aiming to transform an island that experts say faces one of the worst climate risks in the world into a nation “equipped to prepare for and respond to the negative impacts of climate change”.
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Banker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

By BENN STEIL* – The New York Times

PRESIDENT OBAMA recently nominated Jim Yong Kim, the president of Dartmouth, to be the next president of the World Bank — a privilege accorded to the United States since the bank’s founding in 1946. A European, in turn, gets to run the International Monetary Fund.
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From the Bicycle Theory to a Snowball Approach to Get the WTO Moving

By Chakravarthi Raghavan*

GENEVA, Apr (IPS/South Centre) Trade diplomats and trade officials face several uncertainties in 2012. Many of these have their source in the continuing serious global financial crisis and its deadening hand on the real economy. This, and the reality of the major role played by corporate finance capital in the electoral process of countries, ensures nothing will be done, at least not this year, to tackle the root causes of the financial crisis, with criminal fraudulence at its heart.
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World’s Dictators More Scared of Tweets Than Opposing Armies

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 6, 2012 (IPS) – In his keynote address to the Global Colloquium of University Presidents at New York’s Columbia University last week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke of the growing power exercised by the world’s younger generation in an age of high- speed technology and the information superhighway.
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Africa: EU Vying for Resources with Emerging Economies

By Benjamin W. Mkapa*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

GENEVA (IDN) – In September 2011, the European Commission proposed to remove 16 African countries from the EU Market Access Regulation 1528/2007. At the end of 2007, this regulation allowed those African countries which had initialled or signed an EPA (Economic Partnership Agreements) to enjoy duty-free access to the EU (European Union) market, as they continued to move towards signatory and ratification. Read more…

Camila Vallejo, the World’s Most Glamorous Revolutionary

By FRANCISCO GOLDMAN-New York Times Magazine

April 5, 2012. The hotel had a musty, Pinochet-era atmosphere — dark bar, heavy furniture, bartenders in white shirts and black ties — and drew mostly businessmen. But when the bartenders found out that my friends and I were going to the student march, they cut lemons for us and put them into plastic bags with salt. In case of tear gas, you were supposed to bite into the lemons to lessen the effect. With guarded smiles, they let us know they supported the Chilean student movement and especially its most prominent leader, Camila Vallejo. A bartender said, “La Camila es valiente”; he laughed and added, “Está bien buena la mina” — “She’s hot.”
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