As the top of the economic ladder meet in Davos this week, the bottom rungs, sunk in poverty, deep in desperation, lacking basic human needs, and having lost everything and with nothing left to lose, are losing it. While stock markets across the globe, from which the one percent reap the riches, reach new highs,...
Tag: 21 January 2020
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IRAQ: MORE PROTESTS. U.S HERE TO STAY
Over the past four days, the street protests that began in October, but were halted following America’s assassination of General Soleimani at the Baghdad airport on 3 January, have continued. Adding to the over 500 killed and the thousands wounded by Iraqi security forces, another five demonstrators were reported killed and scores more wounded. Thousands...
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TARGET IRAN: U.S. MILITARY BUILDUP
There were already over 50,000 U.S. troops in the Middle East before the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, a buildup by the Trump administration despite the President’s promise as a candidate to “end all endless wars.” Since the assassination, the Pentagon has been increasing its ground, air, and sea forces in the region by...
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LIBYA: ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER
On Sunday, the two leaders of warring Libyan factions met in Berlin along with leaders and officials from Turkey, Russia, Egypt, France, Italy, UK, U.S., United Arab Emirates, Algeria, China, the Republic of the Congo, the United Nations, European Union, and African Union for an international summit in an attempt to stop the ongoing military...
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FRANCE: OLD STRIKES END, NEW STRIKES START
Last week, over 500,000 strikers continued the massive protest against proposed changes to the pension system, which is now over a month long. Ending the longest transport strike in the history of France this past weekend, other unions kept the fight going by cutting power to thousands in the southern suburbs of Paris. Last Friday,...
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FED: CYBER ATTACK COULD DEVASTATE FINANCIAL SYSTEM
Concerns about U.S. vulnerability to cyber attacks is rising since the assassination of Iran’s general Qasem Soleimani and with good reason: according to a research paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, a cyber attack on the nation’s five biggest banks could send the U.S. economy into turmoil. An attack that crippled banks’...
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CHILE: ECONOMY IN TURMOIL
Since October, Chile has been rocked by public protests against conditions ranging from economic inequality and rising prices to plans to privatize pensions and public education. Economic policies begun in the 1990s created wealth but also drew millions of people into debt, with most of the new wealth flowing to richest 1 percent of the...
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ARGENTINA: INFLATION SKYROCKETS, ECONOMY TAILSPINS
Argentina’s inflation rate ended 2019 at 53.8 percent, down from a peak of 84 percent during the year. It’s among the five countries with the world’s worst inflation pace. This month, bank deposits have been off their usual pace by about $40 million a day, compared to rising deposit rates in December. Worsening the tailspin...
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INTEREST RATE CUTS TO JUICE ECONOMIES
Turkey Inflation crept up above 11 percent in December, but Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has forced the country’s central bank to cut its benchmark one-week repo rate from 12 to 11.25 percent. Analysts had expected a cut no more than half a point. This is the fifth consecutive cut since July 2019. Because the...