Financial Predators v. Labor, Industry and Democracy
The Eurozone lacks a central bank to do what most central banks are supposed to do: finance government deficits. To make matters worse, the Lisbon Agreement limits these deficits to 3% – too small to...
View ArticleEmerging Powers expand ties with Africa
The end of the Cold War resulted in the strategic disengagement of western countries, including the United States, from Africa. They continued their trade, aid and assistance relationship with Africa,...
View ArticleHow Neoliberal Tax and Financial Policy Impoverishes Russia
Russian poverty is unnecessary. Like all poverty in today’s high-productivity age, it is the result of bad policy. There is no technological need for it, nor is Russia lacking in a full spectrum of...
View ArticleLatvia’s Economic Disaster as a Neoliberal Success Story
A generation ago the Chicago Boys and their financial supporters applauded General Pinochet’s anti-labor Chile as a success story, thanks mainly to its transformation of their Social Security into...
View ArticlePakistan: Civil Conflict, Natural Disaster, and Partisan Welfare
The earthquake that hit Pakistan’s Kashmir on October 8, 2005 lasted for 5 minutes, killed more than 73,000 people, and left 3.3 million people homeless. The victims criticized the government harshly...
View ArticleJapan’s Nuclear Gypsies: The Homeless, Jobless and Fukushima
The cleanup efforts in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in northern Japan have revealed the plight of the Japanese unemployed, marginally employed day laborers and the homeless. They are called...
View ArticleThe Gulf: Not All That’s Gold Glitters
Gleaming glass skyscrapers, state-of-the-art technology, and wealthy merchant families have replaced the Gulf’s muddy towns and villages populated by traders and pearl fishers that once lacked...
View ArticleChina in Africa: Environmental Implications and the Law
China’s rapid economic development over the last three decades has led to significant environmental pollution and some poor policy choices. With more than 1.3 billion people, China has the world’s...
View ArticleSaudi Arabia, Wahhabism and its Goal of Hegemony
Western government officials, former intelligence officers and pundits have long predicted the fall of the House of Saud. I am one of those. “This cannot last,” was my conclusion after my first visit...
View ArticleDrones: If Kill You Must
UAS (unmanned aviation systems), popularly known as drones, are playing an increased role in armed conflicts. They are used both for collecting intelligence and for deploying lethal force. Whereas in...
View ArticleCan the Internet Democratize Capitalism?
Technological fixes to time-honoured problems are all the rage these days. Bitcoin is meant to fix money, social media are seen as an antidote to Rupert Murdoch and assorted tyrants, networked robots...
View ArticleSalman’s Moral Rectitude or Everything You Wanted to Know about FIFA but...
Let me start off on a positive note. I have been one of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and FIFA presidential candidate, Sheikh Salman Bin Ibrahim Al-Khalifa’s, staunchest and most persistent...
View ArticleWhy Europeans Should Think Big
After the United States had lost its surpluses, some time in the late 1960s, the system of fixed exchange rates and highly regulated capital movements, which had nurtured capitalism’s Golden Age, was...
View ArticleEthiopia and China: When Two Former Empires Connected
Ethiopia was never colonized and along with China has a long imperial history. China’s imperial period came to an end with the fall of the Qing dynasty and formation of the Republic of China as a...
View ArticleThe Middle East and North Africa: A 30-minute Whirlwind Tour
What the dramatic and bloody developments in the Middle East and North Africa demonstrate is that there are no free lunches. These developments are the product of short sighted policies of, on the one...
View ArticleCreating Frankenstein: The Saudi Export of Wahhabism
There has long been debate about the longevity of the Saudi ruling family. My initial conclusion when I first visited Saudi Arabia exactly 40 years ago was: this can’t last. I would still maintain it...
View ArticleSomalia, Al-Shabaab, the Region and U.S. Policy
Let me take a moment to review the background to the current situation in Somalia. Somalia has been trying since the overthrow of the Siad Barre government in 1991, the same year Somaliland declared...
View ArticleThe Cyprus Story
This is the story of two friends, Rifat and Pandelis. Their story could be out of a movie. It should be. Unfortunately, it is not. Rifat and Pandelis are real, and so is their story. A story that...
View ArticleChina, Africa and Food Security
China and Africa together constitute more than a third of the world’s population. China is Africa’s largest trading partner and an important source of investment and aid. As a result, the China-Africa...
View ArticleChina and the Economic Integration of Europe and Asia
China’s “The Silk Road Economic Belt” and the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road,” or officially called the “one belt, one road” project aims to bring into being a new economic order on the Eurasian...
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