The Global South Is On The Brink Of A Disastrous Debt Crisis. Reform Is Urgent.

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

Ilene Grabel – ilenegrabel.com
Photo: © Tommy Collier Productions

12-16-2024 ~ The coming debt crisis will surpass that of the 1980s and disproportionately impact women, economist Ilene Grabel warns.

Countries across the Global South are experiencing climate, poverty and development crises — all made worse by the unbearable costs of debt servicing. Indeed, according to Development Finance International, “Citizens of the Global South now face the worst debt crisis since global records began.” Low-income countries, which have seen the amount paid on foreign debt payment increase by 150 percent since 2011, are being hit especially hard.

In the exclusive interview for Truthout that follows, Ilene Grabel, a leading economist in global finance and global financial governance, sheds light on the roots of the Global South debt crisis and offers specific strategies for easing the debt burden of developing countries. She argues that the obstacles to debt relief are purely political and ideological, as the global financial architecture is “morally bankrupt” and was designed to serve the interests of the rich at the expense of the poor. Grabel is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Denver and Professor of International Finance at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies of the University of Denver. She has conducted commissioned research for various United Nations agencies and NGOs, and is the author of the multi-award-winning book, When Things Don’t Fall Apart: Global Financial Governance and Developmental Finance in an Age of Productive Incoherence (MIT Press). Read more

What Is Driving State-Sponsored Attacks On Citizens Abroad?

• by: John P. Ruehl

John P. Ruehl – Source: Independent Media Institute

12-14-2024 ~ Kidnappings and killings of citizens by their own governments abroad are becoming increasingly common. The normalization of this trend will erode the sovereignty of all nations, as well as the safety of their citizens.

In July 2020, Iranian dissident Jamshid Sharmahd was visiting Dubai when he was suddenly abducted. Mobile phone data later traced his movements to Oman’s port city of Sohar, before the signal went silent. Days later, he reappeared in Iran, accused of leading a terrorist group and orchestrating attacks in Iran, charges his family denies. After years in detention, he was executed in October 2024.

Iran’s actions are part of a longstanding pattern. Since the 1979 Revolution, its government has targeted dissidents overseas. Notable cases include the 1991 stabbing death of the Shah’s last prime minister in Paris and the 1992 assassination of four Iranian-Kurdish dissidents at a Berlin restaurant. These operations appear to have escalated again, with an Iranian journalist kidnapped in Iraq in 2019, an opposition leader kidnapped in Turkey in 2020, and a thwarted attempt to kidnap an Iranian journalist in the U.S. that year as well.

Functioning governments exercise a monopoly on violence and detention within their borders, including lawful imprisonment and capital punishment. In conflict zones, these powers sometimes extend into contested areas, blurring legal distinctions. However, Iran’s extraterritorial operations mark a trend of smaller nations increasingly adopting tactics reserved for major powers, bypassing international protocols to punish citizens overseas. Read more

With Martial Law Defeated, Now Is A Decisive Moment For Change In South Korea

• by: Steven Lee

12-12-2024 ~ Late at night on December 3, soldiers stormed into South Korea’s National Assembly in armored vehicles and combat helicopters. Assembly staff desperately blocked their assault with fire extinguishers and barricades. South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol had just declared martial law to “eliminate ‘anti-state’ forces.”

Outside the National Assembly, people gathered from all over Seoul and beyond. Within the hour, thousands were violating the martial law’s ban on all political activities and protests. People shivered in the cold as they stood off against the army and police, armed with nothing but songs and chants. They needed to defend the National Assembly until the vote to revoke martial law. Their chants grew louder: “Abolish martial law!” “Down with the dictatorship!”

Yoon conceded to the National Assembly vote and people’s resistance on the morning of December 4. His short-lived self-coup plunged South Korea into a furor. South Koreans managed to stop the rise of another dictatorship. Now, they need to organize into a force that can impeach him and carry out the structural changes required to ensure a complete democratic transformation in South Korea. Read more

Not As Simple As 1, 2, 3: Humanity Has A Surprisingly Diverse Understanding Of Numbers

• by: Marjorie Hecht

12-10-2024 ~ Language plays an important role in understanding the concept of numbers.

Numeracy or numerosity, the ability to think about and use numbers, varies among human cultures and within populations, much like intelligence does.

Many known languages, for example, have no words for numerals above 2 or 3. A linguist who curated a database of the world’s languages in 2015 estimated that of the 6,880 languages for which there are published data on numerals, 1,093 had a counting system that ends at 2 or 3.

Compare that lack of a developed counting system to today’s technologically complex societies, where the average person encounters about 1,000 numbers an hour in daily life, as estimated by cognitive neuroscientist Brian Butterworth, professor emeritus at University College London.

At a simple level, we keep time, keep a calendar, memorize addresses and phone numbers, and at a more complex level, we calculate interest rates and stock valuations, election vote percentages, temperatures and rain accumulations, missile trajectories, and astronomical relationships. Read more

The West Celebrates Assad’s Fall, But What Comes Next May Be Even Worse

• by: C.J. Polychroniou

C.J. Polychroniou

12-11-2024 ~ How can the fall of the admittedly brutal Assad regime create a “historic opportunity” for the Syrian people when the country is now under the control of jihadists?

The toppling of Bashar al-Assad in Syria was cheered by U.S. President Joe Biden and other major Western leaders, like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, as it ended the reign of a brutal regime more than 13 years after Assad’s crackdown on anti-government protests ignited Syria’s civil war.

Indeed, Biden described Assad’s fall as a “historic opportunity” for the Syrian people, echoing Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS) that took over Syria, who said, “This victory, my brothers, is historic for the region.”

But wait. Isn’t HTS on the list of banned terrorist groups and Jolani a jihadist militant whose journey began in Iraq with links to al Qaeda and later to the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)? So why is the West cheering for al Qaeda and its allies? Read more

In Memoriam Johan Galtung (1930-2024)

• by: Kees van der Veer

Johan Galtung

12-09-2024 ~ “A very important reason for forbidding nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction is that they increase the threshold for what is acceptable.”

A conventional war is often defended by saying it did not go nuclear.
The international legal framework for warfare is already a victim of nuclear arms and can only regain its validity by forbidding that insult perpetrated on humanity. (Galtung 2017).

Professor Johan Vincent Galtung, who passed away on February 17, 2024, is generally know as the founder of the academic discipline or interdisciplinair field, of Peace Research. He started in 1964 the Institut for Fredsforskning (PRIO) in Oslo, Norway. But he himself was much more than an academic. During and after his academic career, he was appointed ten times Dr Honorios Causa and was holder of the Right Livelyhood Award (aka Alternative Nobel Peace Price) 1987.
Let me focus on a few of his many abilities, like his research, his contribution to social science and his practice in creative conflict solution. And memorizing him is for me not possible without paying attention to my personal relation with him.

For me, and for many social scientist, Galtung became an inspiration thanks to his book on Theory and Methods of Social Research (London: Allen & Unwin, 1967). In that book he introcuced the basic concept of the data matrix. In short, the units and variables to be explored are given by the research strategy. Data collection is viewed as an effort to fill the data matrix with values, one for each combination of unit and variable. By data processing the matrix is brought on a form suitable for analysis. Analysis itself is treated step by step from simple tabulation and computation of parameters through hypothetis-formation to theory-building. This serves as the basis for statistical inference and finally the generalisation of hypotheses. So this book presents on a systematic way the basis for multivariate analysis in social sciences! Read more