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Interview published by Le Monde

Latin America: 200 years of the infernal cycle of debt

23 November 2017 - by Eric Toussaint, Marie Charrel

Eric Toussaint, of the CADTM (Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt), explains the difficulties encountered by States overly dependent on raw materials. With a PhD in Political Science and speaking for CADTM international, Eric (...)
Zimbabwe witnessing an elite transition as economic meltdown looms

20 November 2017 - by Patrick Bond

In Harare, Bulawayo and smaller Zimbabwean cities, hundreds of thousands of citizens joyfully of Robert Mugabe at the age of 93. Initially refusing to resign, his rambling speech the following evening revealed a man either out of touch with (...)
Brazil: the debt dilemma

16 November 2017 - by Michael Roberts

Brazil faces a presidential election in October 2018. This will offer a new benchmark for which way Brazilian politics and the economy will go. Will a coalition of pro-big business parties and a president win or will a coalition led by the (...)
Haiti: From trafficking to debt

11 November 2017 - by Jérôme Duval

This Caribbean country is not in debt, it is a creditor. It is France which owes it money. Explanation by Jerome Duval, of CADTM. Translated by Jenny Bright. Poverty in colonised countries has greatly increased due to a transfer of debt: the (...)
Punitive Neoliberalism and Financial Melancholia in Puerto Rico

6 November 2017 - by Rafael Bernabe

BEFORE HURRICANE MARIA smashed into Puerto Rico with devastating force, the previous Hurricane Irma caused relatively manageable damage compared to its horrific impact in much of the Caribbean. Even so, the island’s electrical grid — before Maria (...)
Sri Lanka: Debt drives Jaffna mom, children to death

28 October 2017 - by Meera Srinivasan

Just as mounting household debt in Sri Lanka’s war-affected region began drawing national attention, a young mother in Jaffna, said to be heavily indebted, consumed poison along with her three children and died on Friday. Local media reports (...)
Campaign improves IMF debt assessments, but risk of crises continues to increase

20 October 2017 - by Tim Jones

The IMF and World Bank have agreed some positive changes to their system for monitoring debts of impoverished countries, though some large issues have been ignored. The system, known as the Debt Sustainability Framework, is important as it (...)
Hidden debts contribute to crisis in Congo

18 October 2017 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

The IMF has reported that the Republic of Congo’s debt is higher than previously thought, but has not shown by how much or who the hidden debt is owed to. The Fund and Congo are in discussion on a bailout and austerity programme. In a March (...)
Puerto Rico: Some Lessons of the Hurricane

6 October 2017 - by Rafael Bernabe

Crises raise new, sharp problems that unveil and accentuate both the admirable and the negative aspects of the societies they affect. They also pose new tasks and offer new perspectives on already established plans. The case of Puerto Rico and (...)
A legacy of liberalisation in Sri Lanka

4 October 2017 - by B. Skanthakumar

The Sri Lankan government recently released its ‘Vision 2025’ manifesto, heralding a new wave of economic reforms. Its timing coincided with the 40th anniversary of the island’s embrace of deregulation, trade liberalisation, and privatisation ahead (...)
Puerto Rico: Belonging to, But Not Part of

1 October 2017 - by Ed Morales

The Trump administration’s delay in sending real aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria is a distasteful display of colonialist racism. But it’s par for the course: our citizenship has always been second-class. “We’re American citizens. How can (...)
‘Africa Rising’ in retreat: Signs of new resistances

29 September 2017 - by Patrick Bond

Capitalism is bleeding Africa to death: illegal financial flows, legal financial outflows, FDI flows, foreign indebtedness, sub-imperial accumulation, new subsidies for infrastructure financing and uncompensated mineral and oil and gas (...)
Demand debt relief for hurricane-hit islands

25 September 2017 - by Jubilee Debt Campaign

A petition to all creditors, including the IMF and World Bank Over recent weeks, several countries in the Caribbean have been devastated by hurricanes. Some of those countries were already heavily indebted, often in part because of loans taken (...)
First as tragedy, now as farce: lessons from 12 August 1982

11 September 2017 - by Mark Perera

As the saying goes, history repeats itself because no one was listening the first time. This month marks the 35th anniversary of an event that sparked a debt crisis across the developing world. It was a crisis triggered by low interest rates in (...)
Mozambique’s illegitimate hidden debt

6 September 2017 - by Claude Quémar

The report on the audit on Mozambique’s “hidden” debt (2 billion dollars) made at the request of the Attorney General of Mozambique, began to circulate in late June 2017, several months behind schedule. Only the findings are currently available. (...)
Judge Declares World Bank Immunity Cases “Wrongly Decided”; Indian Plaintiffs Ask D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to Review “Absolute Immunity” Doctrine

30 August 2017 - by EarthRights International

After a federal judge declared that cases giving the World Bank Group “absolute immunity” from lawsuits were “wrongly decided,” communities represented by EarthRights International (ERI) have filed a petition asking the full D.C. Circuit Court of (...)
Colonialism’s new clothes: The EU’s Economic Partnership Agreements with Africa

22 August 2017 - by GRAIN

Since 2002, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have negotiated a reciprocal free trade agreement known as the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU). While it was marketed as the magic bullet towards the (...)
Falling BRICS endanger their citizens’ health, starting with South Africa’s Jacob Zuma

21 August 2017 - by Patrick Bond

As he launched, South African President Jacob Zuma must have had mixed feelings. Strife-riven Brazil, Russia, India and China are more risky allies than Zuma reckoned when in 2010 he accepted Beijing’s invitation to join the club. “I was (...)
The Asian financial crisis: Lessons learned and unlearned

18 August 2017 - by Yilmaz Akyüz

Governments in both mature and emerging economies no doubt draw lessons from financial crises in order to adopt measures to prevent their recurrence. However, it is often the case that such measures are designed to address the root causes of the (...)
The unexpected Mozambican debt crisis: illegitimate debt back on the international agenda

17 August 2017 - by Bodo Ellmers

Mozambique’s default on commercial loans worth US$2bn has triggered the latest - and arguably most shocking - African debt crisis in recent times. While nearly all African countries suffer from low commodity prices and rising credit costs, the (...)
Exclusionary growth – Southeast Asian civil society to ASEAN: 50 years of exclusion is enough

14 August 2017 - by InterAksyon.com

MANILA – While officials of ASEAN governments and their dialogue partners met behind closed doors for the ASEAN and East Asia meetings, over 1,000 members of civil society marched Monday to call for an end to what they said had been 50 years of (...)
Mozambique should not pay the hidden debt

4 August 2017 - by Joseph Hanlon

English version of Portuguese article published in Savana, Maputo, 28 July 2017-07-30 by the Budget Monitoring Forum (Forum de Monitoria do Orçamento). The Mozambican government should not pay $1157 million in 2013-4 hidden loans to MAM and (...)
Argentina: The Elections And The Left

1 August 2017 - by Claudio Katz, Eduardo Lucita, Franck Gaudichaud

The Argentine legislative elections in August and October 2017 will be of huge importance for the entire Latin American region, with the government of Mauricio Macri establishing itself as a bastion of the neoliberal right after 12 years of (...)
Getting sucked into a quicksand of debt

16 July 2017 - by Meera Srinivasan

People in Batticaloa, one of the poorest districts in Sri Lanka, are badly hit by ‘predatory’ microfinance loans with exorbitant interest rates. “First, it was the tsunami that destroyed our community. Then came the war. Now, it’s microfinance.” (...)
Pablo Solón targeted: The Bolivian Government Must Stop Persecuting Those Defending Nature and Rights and Address the Real Problems

10 July 2017 - by Focus on the Global South

Pablo Solón, the Director of Fundación Solón, former Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, and former Bolivian Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), is being targeted by the Bolivian government for his vocal criticism of the government (...)