I was in Paris last week, reporting on the Task Force for Financial Integrity and Economic Development’s annual conference. After a fascinating day hearing how illicit financial flows and tax avoidance are destroying the developing world, American economist Jeffrey Sachs gave an excellent keynote speech over the video link. Particularly interesting were his points on [...]
Last night, the American House of Representatives passed legislation to raise the debt ceiling and heavily cut public spending – a historic move if you take into account the first has never been conditional on the latter. Today, the Senate unsurprisingly passed it. This trimming of the budget was inevitable considering the normalisation of neoliberal policies. [...]
Following Obama’s 45 minute speech about the Middle East and North Africa, I am left predictably bored by it all. We were told the U.S. would be “turning a new page” regarding its relationship with these states which are experiencing great upheaval right now. Hillary Clinton took the stage first and said “new” about 38 [...]
Massachusetts was not won by the Republicans, it was lost by Obama Yesterday’s big news from the far side of the Atlantic was the loss of one of the safest Democratic seats to Scott Brown, a man who represents possibly everything that should make us very worried about the Republicans. In Ted Kennedy’s former seat, [...]
Michael Moore says absolutely everything that needs to be said on Obama’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Hat tip here goes to Leon on Pickled Politics. Sunny, writing on the same website, makes some good points, but I continue to believe his support for the war and for the additional troops is [...]
It goes without saying that a leader’s first judge will invariably be his or her own people. Presidents and prime ministers live or die, come election time, by their policies, by how well they have adapted to events beyond their control and by how effectively they have handled the three most rudimentary tasks of government: [...]
The Obama administration will be breathing a sigh of relied today as the House of Representatives narrowly approved the President’s flagship health reforms. A battle still remains in the Senate, of course, and amongst the crazed zealots in the country crying ‘freedom’ whilst attempting to deny millions of the poorest Americans the right to basic [...]
Interview by Dan Swain and Lorna Finlayson Ted Honderich is Grote Professor Emeritus of Mind and Logic at University College London. Since 9/11 he has written several books on the subject of terrorism and war, most recently Humanity, Terrorism, Terrorist War, and has become a vocal advocate of the right of the Palestinians to a [...]
Guest post by Carl Packman “You know, you already sent 21,000 troops. You might send 65,000 troops. That’s not a Peace Prize-acting activity.” That’s what the lifelong civil rights activist and cautious Obama supporter, Dr Cornel West, had to say about the president’s surprise reception of the Nobel Peace Prize whilst promoting his new memoir [...]
America will not prove its openness through hosting the Olympics, but by engaging in diplomacy It must be difficult for Barack Obama to hear the words ‘no you can’t’, but that was exactly what he had to face today as the IOC chose Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics over his hometown of [...]
