Categoria

Human Rights

Civil rights

USA Downgraded as Civil Liberties Deteriorate Across the Americas

By Débora Leão and Suraj K. Sazawal (*) São Paulo/ Washington DC, Dec 15 2020 (IPS) – Few images better illustrate the recent decline in civil liberties in the United States than that of peaceful protesters near the White House being violently dispersed so Donald Trump could…

Health

Intellectual Property Monopolies Block Vaccine Access

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram (*) SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 15 2020 (IPS) – Just before the World Health Assembly (WHA), an 18 May open letter by world leaders and experts urged governments to ensure that all COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and tests are…

Corruption

The Costs of Merkel’s Surrender to Hungarian and Polish Extortion

By George Soros* – Project Syndicate German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been laboring under enormous pressure to prevent a veto of the European Union’s 2021-27 budget and COVID-19 recovery fund. But the compromise she reached with Hungary and Poland is the worst of all possible…

Human Rights

As Poles and Hungarians, we urge the EU to stand firm on the rule of law

By Mate Varga* – The Guardian Democracy is seriously under threat in our countries. The EU must stand up to the bullying tactics of Orbán and Morawiecki As European leaders gather in Brussels this week municipal buildings and monuments in Warsaw and Budapest have been lit up in…

Civil Society

The Biden Presidency: A New Era, or a Fragile Interregnum?

By Walden Bello* –  Foreign Policy In Focus Hewing to its centrist instincts will be a disaster for the Biden administration. The left must seize the initiative. Donald Trump embarked on an unorthodox course in economic policy that combined tax cuts for the rich with a…

authoritarianism

What does the MEP sex scandal tell us about Viktor Orban's Hungary?

By  David Walsh – Euronews The resignation of a scandal-embroiled politician is always going to make political waves and headline news. But what sets the case of Hungarian MEP József Szájer apart is not just the nature of the scandal he finds himself at the centre of…

authoritarianism

The Unholy Alliance between Authoritarianism and Big Tech

By Maria Ressa*  (Brief intervention at the webinar “From Repression to Resistance: Combatting the Lawfare against Press Freedom,” Manila, Nov 21, 2020) On June 15, 2020, I sat in a decrepit, windowless courtroom and listened to Judge Rainelda Estacio-Montesa deliver her…

Civil rights

Global health : Will it become the first “res publica” of the humanity?

By Riccardo Petrella* – Wall Street International The UN General Assembly has convened a Special Session on the Covid-19 pandemic at the level of Heads of State and Government on 3 and 4 December next. It took more than a year of discussions to overcome the opposition of certain…