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Global South

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.

West Tells Global South ‘You Can’t Be Neutral’ In Ukraine War

February 21, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. , , , ,
In doing so, these Western officials are implicitly criticizing the vast majority of the countries on Earth, which are in the Global South, and which have maintained strict neutrality over the war. In a joint event at the Munich Security Conference on February 18, Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock declared, “Neutrality is not an option, because then you are standing on the side of the aggressor”. Baerbock emphasized that “this is a plea we are also giving next week to the world again: Please take a side, a side for peace, a side for Ukraine, a side for the humanitarian international law, and these times this means also delivering ammunition so Ukraine can defend itself”.

Havana Congress Plans Technological Sovereignty For Global South

February 12, 2023 Progressive International. , , ,
The Congress brought together over 50 delegates - scholars, diplomats, parliamentarians, and policymakers from 26 countries across all six inhabited continents, including Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. Following deliberations over two days on geopolitics, climate, finance, technology and trade through panels and keynote speeches, including from Andres Arauz, Clara Lopez and Yanis Varoufakis, the Congress agreed to focus on science, technology and innovation in the next 18 months. The Congress, part of the Progressive International’s project for a New International Economic Order, is held as Cuba assumes the presidency of the G77 bloc of 134 Global South countries.

Manifesto For An Ecosocial Energy Transition By People Of The South

February 11, 2023 Peoples Of The Global South, Resilience. , , ,
More than two years after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic—and now alongside the catastrophic consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—a “new normal” has emerged. This new global status quo reflects a worsening of various crises: social, economic, political, ecological, bio-medical, and geopolitical. Environmental collapse approaches. Everyday life has become ever more militarized. Access to good food, clean water, and affordable health care has become even more restricted. More governments have turned autocratic. The wealthy have become wealthier, the powerful more powerful, and unregulated technology has only accelerated these trends. The engines of this unjust status quo—capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, and various fundamentalisms—are making a bad situation worse.

Global South Artists Are Upending 72 Years Of CIA Influence On Art

December 25, 2022 Panthea Lee, In These Times. , , ,
His mouth is frozen in anguish, an infinite scream. His eyes bulge upward, overcome by horror, hands clutching his head. I cannot look away. His face is too forlorn, his backdrop too wretched. I inch toward the banner, dated 2005, which spans the full gallery wall. With my phone’s translation app, I make out some Indonesian text: “Iapa yang peduli dengan kejadian damai dan perang” — “who cares about the events of peace and war.” Surrounding these words are a contented crowd of children swinging from trees, farmers working fields, and musicians serenading their community. As I make my way across the drawing, people’s eyes deaden and hands rise to shield their faces. Behind them hangs a poster of George W. Bush with the words “remember weapons of mass destruction” and a string of skulls. Military tanks roll alongside UN vehicles. Bodies litter the ground.

Ten Surprisingly Good Things That Happened In 2022

December 24, 2022 Medea Benjamin, People's Dispatch. , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Continuing the wave of progressive wins in 2021, Latin America saw two new critical electoral victories: Gustavo Petro in Colombia and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil.  When President Biden’s June Summit of the Americas excluded Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, several Latin American leaders declined to attend, while others used the opportunity to push the United States to respect the sovereignty of the countries in the region.

Pakistan Demands Debt Cancellation And Climate Justice

December 13, 2022 Tanupriya Singh, Socialist Project. , , , ,
Even as the floodwaters have receded, the people of Pakistan are still trying to grapple with the death and devastation the floods have left in their wake. The floods that swept across the country between June and September have killed more than 1,700 people, injured more than 12,800, and displaced millions as of November 18. The scale of the destruction in Pakistan was still making itself apparent as the world headed to the United Nations climate conference COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November. Pakistan was one of two countries invited to co-chair the summit. It also served as chair of the Group of 77 (G77) and China for 2022, playing a critical role in ensuring that the establishment of a loss and damage fund was finally on the summit’s agenda, after decades of resistance by the Global North.

Sutton Community Farm And The Politics Of Community Agriculture

December 12, 2022 Rohan Rice, Resilience. , , ,
The UK farming sector is in the middle of an existential crisis. As a consequence of leaving the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, the Conservative government has had to draft a new agricultural support scheme to either match or replace the direct payments received by UK farmers from the EU. What will replace this scheme has been the subject of heated debate for years. Most probable is the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS). ELMS would offer ‘public money for public good’, meaning that farmers would receive payments if they could prove their farm was engaging in beneficial environmental practice, such as rewilding a section of their land. The scheme has its detractors across the political spectrum, yet to-ELMS-or-not-to-ELMS is a sideshow for much of the British public.

The Greenwashing Scam Behind COP27’s Flop

November 30, 2022 Basav Sen, In These Times. , , ,
As the annual UN climate conference, COP27, came to a close in late November, the talks produced a lot of lofty rhetoric but little concrete progress on the gravest threat facing humanity today. There was one very important positive development: After years of demands by poor countries in the Global South suffering the worst impacts of climate disasters, the COP27 agreement finally established a “loss and damage” fund for the wealthy countries most responsible for climate change to compensate poor countries for climate disasters. Much remains undecided, including the size of the fund, its governance structure and how much countries should contribute. And even if wealthy countries pledge contributions, there’s no guarantee they’ll keep their promises — they’ve already broken the promise made in 2009 of providing $100 billion a year in climate finance for the Global South.

COP27: Frontline Leaders Decry Lack Of Progress For Real Climate Justice

November 21, 2022 Olivia Burlingame, Climate Justice Alliance. , , ,
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt – As the UNFCCC 27th Conference of the Parties came to its conclusion with the adoption of the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan, climate-impacted peoples recognized critical progress while also decrying countries failing to confront the root causes of climate crisis at the scale required as the final decision maintained further openings for fossil fuels and false climate solutions that will devastate communities on the frontlines of extraction, climate crisis, and fossil-fueled violence. Members of the 60-member It Takes Roots delegation, which includes Climate Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indigenous Climate Action, Just Transition Alliance and The Black Hive at Movement for Black Lives, came to COP27 demanding climate reparations from Global North Countries to pay the climate debt they owe to impacted communities, respect for human rights and Indigenous rights, and an end to fossil fuels and false climate solutions.

We Are Faced With A Gang Of Assassins Who Control The Global Economy…

November 21, 2022 Chicago ALBA Solidarity. , , , ,
I want to conclude by referring to a meeting currently taking place there in Egypt, they call it the COP. This is COP number I don’t know what exactly, because since 1995 when they started doing these meetings there in Germany, because they were worried about global warming, about poisoning the planet, about the destruction of the planet. And they reach agreements, but they don’t fulfill any of them, and then they get back together and they make more agreements, and they don’t fulfill any of those either. Who does not comply? The countries that pollute the planet the most, the very ones that should comply with what the agreements mandate. Because countries like ours here in Central America and the Caribbean, which do not have high levels of pollution but are rather the victims of global warming, hence the hurricanes, the droughts, everything...

IMF Warns Of ‘Wave Of Debt Crises’ Coming In Global South

November 14, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. , , ,
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said a “wave of debt crises” may be coming in the Global South, and “the global economy is headed for stormy waters,” as the world faces a “geopolitical realignment” that will be “permanent.” The US-dominated financial institution warned “the worst is yet to come,” as the depreciation of most currencies against the dollar and rising interest rates make it hard for both governments and companies to service their dollar-denominated debt. The director of the IMF’s research department, Pierre‑Olivier Gourinchas, made these comments in a press briefing on October 11. Countries comprising a third of the entire global economy are expected to contract in 2022 or 2023, he prognosticated. “In short, the worst is yet to come; and for many people, 2023 will feel like a recession,” he said.

At COP27, Global South Calls On North To Get Serious About Climate Funding

November 12, 2022 Tanupriya Singh, People's Dispatch. , , ,
As the UN climate change conference COP27 progresses in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh, Wednesday, November 9, was observed as “Finance Day.” Climate financing for adaptation and mitigation, as well as funding for enduring Loss and Damage caused by adverse impacts of the climate crisis, have occupied center stage at this year’s summit. Loss and Damage funding is officially included on the agenda for the first time in COP history, albeit with important caveats and not without struggle. “This item and the outcomes thereof are without prejudice to the consideration of similar issues in the future,” reads a footnote to the agenda item. The outcomes do not involve liability or compensation, and include the Glasgow Dialogue on Loss and Damage – a three-year process established at COP26 after the US and the European Union (EU) blocked a stronger and much more urgent proposal by the G77 and China for a Loss and Damage (financial) Facility (LDFF) as part of the summit’s Financial Mechanism.

How Europe Is Destroying Its Own ‘Garden’

November 9, 2022 Ramzy Baroud, Mintpress News. , , ,
The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell is not particularly perceived by the EU’s political elite or mainstream media as a rightwing ideologue or warmonger. But seen through a different, non-western prism, it is hard not to mistake him for one. Borrell’s recent comments that “Europe is a garden” and that “the rest of the world is a jungle” were duly condemned as ‘racist’ by many politicians around the world, but mostly in the Global South. Borrell’s remarks, however, must also be viewed as an expression of superiority, not only of Borell personally, but of Europe’s ruling classes as a whole. Particularly interesting about the EU top diplomat’s words are these inaccurate depictions of Europe and its relationship with the rest of the world: “We have built a garden”, “everything works” and “the jungle could invade the garden”.

We Need A New Trade Union Of The Poor Rooted In The Global South

October 28, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , , ,
Chaos reigns in the United Kingdom, where the prime minister’s residence in London – 10 Downing Street – prepares for the entry of Rishi Sunak, one of the richest men in the country. Liz Truss remained in office for a mere 45 days, convulsed as her government was by a cycle of workers’ strikes and the mediocrity of her policies. In her mini budget, which doomed her government, Truss opted for a full-scale neoliberal assault on the British public with both tax cuts and unacknowledged cuts to social benefits. The policies startled the international financial class, whose political role emerged clearly as wealthy bondholders indicated their loss of faith in the UK by junking government bonds, thereby increasing the cost of government borrowing and raising the mortgage payments for homeowners.
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