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Global South

Can The Global South Build A New World Information And Communication Order?

May 19, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. , , ,
It is remarkable how the media in a select few countries is able to set the record on matters around the world. The European and North American countries enjoy a near-global monopoly over information, their media houses vested with a credibility and authority inherited from their status during colonial times (BBC, for instance) as well as their command of the neocolonial structure of our times (CNN, for instance). In the 1950s, the post-colonial nations identified the West’s monopoly over media and information and sought to ‘promote the free flow of ideas by word and by image’, as the 1945 Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) put it.

G7’s Coercion Claim Against China Slammed As ‘Absurd’

May 19, 2023 Chen Weihua, Friends of Socialist China. , , , ,
The United States and its Western allies have been the major perpetrators of economic coercion that have inflicted suffering on millions of people around the world, according to international experts and scholars. G7 leaders meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, from Friday to Sunday are set to issue a statement that includes their concerns about alleged economic coercion by China, Reuters reported, citing unnamed US officials. “The report that the G7 may call out China’s economic coercion is hypocritical given that the US is by far the world’s biggest deployer of unilateral coercive measures,” said Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist who served as a special adviser to the UN secretary-general from 2001 to 2018.

Hydropolitics: An Interview With Erik Swyngedouw

May 8, 2023 Sanaa Alimia, Red Pepper. , , , ,
Water is not, and has never been, a standalone issue. Over the past 20 or 30 years, in a context of increasing concern with access to water in terms of quality, particularly in the global south, there has been an extraordinary amount of activism around water: access, struggle, ownership, etc. What has that done to systematically change the configuration of access to water? Almost nothing. Clearly the highly triaged and uneven access and distribution of water is a major issue. It’s the number one cause of premature mortality in the world. Poor access to water is a concern that many activists share. Something has to be done. But the focus on the specificity of the issue is politically stifling.

Can The US Adjust Sensibly To A Multipolar World?

May 5, 2023 Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, World Beyond War. , , ,
In his 1987 book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, historian Paul Kennedy reassured Americans that the decline the United States was facing after a century of international dominance was “relative and not absolute, and is therefore perfectly natural; and that the only serious threat to the real interests of the United States can come from a failure to adjust sensibly to the newer world order.” Since Kennedy wrote those words, we have seen the end of the Cold War, the peaceful emergence of China as a leading world power, and the rise of a formidable Global South. But the United States has indeed failed to “adjust sensibly to the newer world order,” using military force and coercion in flagrant violation of the UN Charter in a failed quest for longer lasting global hegemony.

The IMF Debt Trap And How To Get Out Of It

April 30, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , ,
Political Economist Grieve Chelwa explains the reasons why countries of the Global South are forced to go time and again to the International Monetary Fund for aid. He talks about how the IMF is essentially a tool of US imperialism and how its policies are designed to keep countries in debt. He also talks about the changing nature of debt and the role of private players such as BlackRock. Grieve Chelwa also explains some of the ways countries in Asia and Africa can get out of this situation, and the kind of international frameworks and policies that will have to be constructed. Grieve Chelwa is the Director of Research at the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy of the The New School, a member of the Collective on African Political Economy, and one of the authors of the dossier, Life or Debt: The Stranglehold of Neocolonialism and Africa’s Search for Alternatives, published by Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Can BRICS Triumph Over The IMF And World Bank?

April 17, 2023 Ramzy Baroud, Mintpress News. , , ,
Who would have expected that the BRICS nations could rise as the potential rival of the G7 countries, the World Bank and the IMF combined? But that once seemingly distant possibility now has real prospects which could change the political equilibrium of world politics. BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. It was supposedly coined by the Chief Economist of Goldman Sachs in 2001 as a reference to the world’s emerging economies. It was then known as BRIC, with the ‘S’ added later when South Africa formally joined the group in 2010. BRIC’s first official summit took place in 2009. T

72% Of UN Security Council Backed Call To Investigate Nord Stream Bombing

April 11, 2023 Roger Stoll, Popular Resistance. , , ,
On March 27, 2023, the UN Security Council (UNSC) failed to pass a Russia-initiated Resolution calling for a UN investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline bombing. Russia’s co-sponsors were the People’s Republic of China, Belarus, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Eritrea, Nicaragua, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Looking closer at the numbers the result shows a global political divide between rich and non-rich, between “white” states and those “of color,” and between core states on one side and peripheral and semi-peripheral states on the other. This is true even on the Security Council, which represents less than a third of world population (32%).

Countries Worldwide Are Dropping The US Dollar

April 8, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , ,
The global de-dollarization campaign is gaining momentum, as countries around the world seek alternatives to the hegemony of the US dollar. China and Russia are trading in their own currencies. Beijing and Brazil have also dropped the dollar in bilateral trade. The UAE is selling China its gas in yuan, through a French company. Southeast Asian nations in ASEAN are de-dollarizing their trade, promoting local payment systems. Kenya is buying Persian Gulf oil with its own currency. Even the Financial Times newspaper has acknowledged that a “multipolar currency world” is emerging.

How The Global South Has Risen In The Face Of US Sabotage

April 5, 2023 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. , , ,
Ajamu Baraka is a former U.S. Green Party vice-presidential candidate, a longstanding political activist, and a spokesperson for the Black Alliance for Peace. He joins Lee Camp this week for an interview with “Behind the Headlines.” China’s rise, U.S. meddling worldwide, international resistance to Western domination, and much more are covered in the hour. “It would be unbelievable just a few years ago to see that the Chinese are able to broker an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, that countries in Latin America would actually openly criticize U.S. policies,” Baraka said, discussing signs that global power is shifting away from U.S. hegemony.

China’s Historical Destiny Is To Stand With The Third World

March 31, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. , , ,
On 20 March 2023, China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin spent over four hours in private conversation. According to official statements after the meeting, the two leaders talked about the increasing economic and strategic partnership between China and Russia – including building the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline – and the Chinese peace initiative for the war in Ukraine. Putin said that ‘many of the provisions of the peace plan put forward by China are consonant with Russian approaches and can be taken as the basis for a peaceful settlement when the West and Kiev are ready for it’.

US Threatened To Invade International Criminal Court

March 30, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , ,
Many countries in the Global South have denounced the International Criminal Court as a neocolonial institution, biased in favor of the West. Its leadership has been dominated by Europeans, and as of 2016, only Africans had been brought to trial at the court. In a rare point of agreement, the United States has also opposed the International Criminal Court (ICC) since its inception. The US is not a member of the ICC, and Washington has even imposed sanctions on its top officials and threatened to arrest judges and prosecutors. In fact, when the court first opened in the Netherlands in 2002, the United States passed a law known as the “Hague Invasion Act.”

US Shoots Itself In The Foot In Africa

March 13, 2023 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. , , , ,
The US can’t seem to understand that the rest of the world, including Africa, doesn’t like to be pushed around. African nations’ refusal to reinforce US foreign policy in the UN General Assembly is a case in point.  During the Assembly’s February 16 vote on a resolution “deploring” Russia’s action in Ukraine, nearly half the nations who abstained were African, 15 of the 32 , although only 54 of the UN’s 193 member nations are African. Those abstaining  were Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

With Us Or Against Us’ Fails In Munich And Bengaluru

March 9, 2023 Dee Knight, Covert Action Magazine. , , , ,
“You can’t be neutral” in NATO’s proxy war with Russia, foreign ministers of the U.S., Germany and Ukraine told leaders of Global South countries at the Munich Security Conference on February 18. “Neutrality is not an option,” said Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, “because then you are standing on the side of the aggressor.” In January Baerbock told the Council of Europe “We are fighting a war against Russia.” U.S. Secretary of State Blinken echoed his German counterpart, stressing “You really can’t be neutral.” Why not? What motivates this Mafia style pressure? “Nearly 90 percent of the World Isn’t Following Us on Ukraine,” blared a Newsweek opinion piece last September 15.

Africans’ Message To Imperialism: ‘We Are Not Your Flunkies!’

March 1, 2023 Mark P. Fancher, Black Agenda Report. , , , , , , , ,
In a remarkable display of independence, South Africa defied NATO on February 24th when it conducted naval drills with Russia and China on the first anniversary of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Writer and analyst Steven Gruzd, sensing the anger of the imperialists, speculates: “I don’t think Western nations are going to let this one slide.” But to date, South Africa has not been intimidated. Obbey Mabena, a veteran of the ANC’s armed wing, while not speaking for the South African government, told CNN: “By default, we are on the side of Russia. And to us Ukraine [is] what we call a sell-out. It is selling out to the west.”

The Global South Refuses Pressure To Side With The West On Russia

February 25, 2023 Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. , , , ,
At the G20 meeting in Bengaluru, India, the United States arrived with a simple brief. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said at the February 2023 summit that the G20 countries must condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and they must adhere to US sanctions against Russia. However, it became clear that India, the chair of the G20, was not willing to conform to the US agenda. Indian officials said that the G20 is not a political meeting, but a meeting to discuss economic issues.
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