The UN Development Program reports that the richest 20 percent of the world’s population consume 86 percent of the world’s resources while the poorest 80 percent consume just 14 percent.
The WTO began life on 1 January 1995, but its trading system is half a century older.
Since 1948, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had provided the rules for the system. (The second WTO ministerial meeting, held in Geneva in May 1998, included a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the system.)
The last and largest GATT round, was the Uruguay Round which lasted from 1986 to 1994 and led to the WTO’s creation.
Whereas GATT had mainly dealt with trade in goods, the WTO and its agreements now cover trade in services, and in traded inventions, creations and designs (intellectual property).
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an international organization of 161 members that deals with the rules of trade between nations. With Russia’s accession in August 2012, the WTO encompasses all major trading economies.
The work of the IMF and the WTO is complementary.
The WTO Agreements require that it consult the IMF when it deals with issues concerning monetary reserves, balance of payments, and foreign exchange arrangement.
The policies of the WTO impact all aspects of society and the planet, but it is not a democratic, transparent institution.
The WTO rules are written by and for corporations with inside access to the negotiations. The WTO would like you to believe that creating a world of “free trade” will promote global understanding and peace. On the contrary, the domination of international trade by rich countries for the benefit of their individual interests fuels anger and resentment that make us less safe.
WTO rules put the “rights” of corporations to profit over human and labor rights.
It is time that trade was put firmly in its place, so that it is viewed not as a goal in itself but as a means to achieving broader social, environmental and development goals.
At the very least, the world’s richest countries must honour their commitment to tackling their own damaging practices, particularly subsidies that drive down prices and increase poverty for farmers across the world.
Multilateral trade negotiations need fundamental reform, to be based on fair negotiations, not power play, so that developing countries have an equal place at the table. Genuine consultation with civil society in both the global north and south would no doubt produce other proposals for improvement.
If agreement can’t be reached on a small package of measures to help developing countries, as part of development agenda, then the relevance of the WTO and the multilateral trading system must be questioned.
The sad reality is that very often it is not in a business’s financial interests to act ethically. And no amount of persuasion will change that.The point, then, is not so much to persuade businesses that it is in their interests to act ethically and sustainably – they will work that out for themselves – but to make sure that it is.
Which means two things in practice: raising the benefits of acting ethically and sustainably, and raising the costs of not doing so. There are two principal ways, in a democratic capitalist society, of ensuring that the right incentives are in place for a business to act ethically: via the consumer and via the regulator (indirectly influenced by the citizen).
When humans get into big organisations it can be hard to apply moral values, and the incentives of the business context tend to hold sway. Especially when the boardroom is often far from a particular initiative that may be many thousands of miles away.
The big problem is the lack of global level regulation to match our now thoroughly globalised financial system. Such an international regulatory system is very far from being a reality, but if it is needed to guide, enable and sometimes restrict the activities of the financial sector, it is equally needed in other international sectors, from the extractive industries to manufacturing to agricultural trade.
Attempts at getting companies to sign up to voluntary measures (such as the UN Global Compact) are fine, but they are regarded as quaint by the majority of business people.
For every CEO who has a damascene conversion and transforms or builds their business along ethical lines (think Anita Roddick of the Body Shop) there are thousands who don’t. Lip service is paid, the odd children’s playground is built, the business of business goes on.
The point is to change incentives, and voluntary measures don’t do that. Only legal sanction or consumer action is strong enough, and consumer action is too erratic to rely upon.
In a globalised world, national level laws are clearly inadequate. People say international law is impossible, but they say that about everything worth doing. It is not only possible, it is vital, and is the major project of the 21st century. Without it, the global public cannot expect a private sector that works for people, not just for profit.
If you wanted clear evidence of the above just look at the Two trade Agreements recently negotiated The TTIP and TTP.
It would be foolish to assume that the world has entered an “end of crises” stage in its history.
Today, with the Web we should all beware of the challenges facing our existence, but are our World Organisations up to speed.
This series of post examines the biggest and there is none more powerful than this one. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) — yet few know how it works.
It’s the must powerful because the economic and financial linkages which bind us together have brought substantial benefits to people around the world, but they have also had destabilizing effects.
The IMF works actively with the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and other international bodies that share an interest in international trade.
Because we live in an increasingly globalized world and the expansion of the role of markets and their increasing globalization will continue to transform the international economy.
As the Second World War ends, the job of rebuilding national economies begins.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) was founded in 1945 on multilateral principles, which stood in sharp contrast to the unilateralism and beggar-thy-neighbour policies of the 1930s.
Also known as the Fund, it was conceived at a United Nations conference convened in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, in July 1944.
The 44 governments represented at that conference sought to build a framework for economic cooperation that would avoid a repetition of the vicious circle of competitive devaluations that had contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s.
To Day the IMF’s primary purpose is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries (and their citizens) to transact with each other.
Also to serve three related purposes.
First, it would operate as a forum for multilateral economic cooperation, in recognition of the fact that one country’s policies affect other countries. Second, it would help countries to identify and adopt the macroeconomic policies that would help them to achieve and maintain high levels of employment and real income. Third, the Fund would provide temporary financial support, under appropriate safeguards, to help members address balance of payments difficulties without resorting to measures that could damage national or international prosperity.
The primary source of the IMF’s financial resources is its members’ quotas, which broadly reflect members’ relative position in the world economy.
Currently, total quota resources amount to about SDR 238 billion (about $334 billion).
With its near-global membership of 188 countries, the IMF is uniquely placed to help member governments take advantage of the opportunities—and manage the challenges—posed by globalization and economic development more generally.
The IMF tracks global economic trends and performance, alerts its member countries when it sees problems on the horizon, provides a forum for policy dialogue, and passes on know-how to governments on how to tackle economic difficulties.
However it has difficulty conforming to the new global power balance.
The US holds 16.7 percent of the voting power in the Fund, which gives it an effective veto over any major changes in its structure and activities. China meanwhile has a 3.8 percent voting share, not far from Italy’s, which has an economy one-fifth the size.
Its Managing Director Christine Lagarde is one of the few woman in the world of power.
Headquarters: Washington, D.C.
Executive Board: 24 Directors representing countries or groups of countries
Staff: Approximately 2,630 from 147 countries
Total quotas: US$334 billion (as of 9/4/15)
Additional pledged or committed resources: US $903 billion
Committed amounts under current lending arrangements (as of 8/27/15): US$164 billion, of which US$145 billion have not been drawn (seetable).
Biggest borrowers (amount outstanding as of 9/3/15): Portugal, Greece, Ukraine, Ireland
Biggest precautionary loans (amount agreed as of 9/3/15): Mexico, Poland, Colombia, Morocco
Since the debt crisis of the 1980’s, the IMF has assumed the role of bailing out countries during financial crises (caused in large part by currency speculation in the global casino economy) with emergency loan packages tied to certain conditions, often referred to as structural adjustment policies (SAPs). It now acts like a global loan shark, exerting enormous leverage over the economies of more than 60 countries.
These countries have to follow the IMF’s policies to get loans, international assistance, and even debt relief. Thus, the IMF decides how much debtor countries can spend on education, health care, and environmental protection.
Unlike a democratic system in which each member country would have an equal vote, rich countries dominate decision-making in the IMF because voting power is determined by the amount of money that each country pays into the IMF’s quota system.
It’s a system of one dollar, one vote.
The U.S. is the largest shareholder with a quota of 18 percent. Germany, Japan, France, Great Britain, and the US combined control about 38 percent.
The disproportionate amount of power held by wealthy countries means that the interests of bankers, investors and corporations from industrialized countries are put above the needs of the world’s poor majority.
The IMF is funded with taxpayer money, yet it operates behind a veil of secrecy.
Members of affected communities do not participate in designing loan packages. The IMF works with a select group of central bankers and finance ministers to make polices without input from other government agencies such as health, education and environment departments.
The institution has resisted calls for public scrutiny and independent evaluation.
IMF loans and bailout packages are paving the way for natural resource exploitation on a staggering scale. It does not consider the environmental impacts of lending policies, and environmental ministries and groups are not included in policy making.
The focus on export growth to earn hard currency to pay back loans has led to an unsustainable liquidation of natural resources. For example, the Ivory Coast’s increased reliance on cocoa exports has led to a loss of two-thirds of the country’s forests.
The IMF routinely pushes countries to deregulate financial systems.
The removal of regulations that might limit speculation has greatly increased capital investment in developing country financial markets. More than $1.5 trillion crosses borders every day. Most of this capital is invested short-term, putting countries at the whim of financial speculators. The Mexican 1995 peso crisis was partly a result of these IMF policies.
When the bubble popped, the IMF and US government stepped in to prop up interest and exchange rates, using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street bankers. Such bailouts encourage investors to continue making risky, speculative bets, thereby increasing the instability of national economies.
During the bailout of Asian countries, the IMF required governments to assume the bad debts of private banks, thus making the public pay the costs and draining yet more resources away from social programs.
Is the IMF Obsolete?. Several years ago, even asking such a question would have seemed absurd.
Yet today, with the narrowing of risk spreads in an era of increasingly interconnected markets and more efficient risk management, is the IMF’s role still relevant? Has the rise of Asia, with its reliance on self-insurance by reserve accumulation since 1998, shown the Fund the door?
So is it time for it to consolidate merging with the World Bank. But that might make for conflicting irrelevant missions.
The IMF has thrived over the years by constantly reinventing itself to meet the evolving needs of global financial governance.
The United States, European Union, Japan, and China can do pretty much as they please—in terms of fiscal stance, interest rates, or exchange rates—either cooperating or not as suits their tastes.
For the big boys, the IMF can be no better than a scholarly scold.
A useful role, to be sure, but not a task that justifies a staff of thousands.
The IMF has lost a clear sense of mission and purpose, and it has lost the support of many members. Members have built reserves and made other arrangements to avoid borrowing from the IMF.
The new world order needs a credible, independent global institution to guide it, and make all the other entities—such as a revamped (and constantly reforming) G8 and G20—effective.
The IMF should be a natural to lead this new world order, but unfortunately there is no sign they are really seizing the moment.
Never in the history of the world has a bureaucracy on its own shut itself down. Could this be the first time? Should it be?
On the one hand, globalization and the rapid growth of emerging markets allow prosperity to be shared more broadly. On the other, many countries remain mired in poverty. There are also moves worldwide toward stronger regionalism in political, monetary and trade relations. Global trends toward democracy, broader participation in decision-making, and a growing prominence of civil society groups within and across borders have highlighted the importance of participatory process and outreach in decision-making.
With its near universal membership, it is the only organization that maintains regular discussions on economic policies with almost all countries. It has the capacity to conduct comprehensive economic policy analysis at the global, regional and country levels. And its members are committed to providing information and engaging in peer review.
The IMF is the only global multilateral institution that brings officials with monetary and financial responsibilities together to monitor international developments and to respond when problems arise.
It was taken for granted that one of the world’s largest international institutions, and certainly one of its most important, would forever be part of the economic and political landscape.
Now, this isn’t the case.
In the USA Congress has refused thus far to approve the Administration’s request for $18 billion to help replenish the IMF’s resources, which have been severely depleted by the various Asian rescue packages the Fund arranged earlier this year.
A shortage of resources is one reason (but certainly not the only one) why the Fund didn’t offer to provide Russia more money during late summer (after arranging a package in July).
Even if the US Congress eventually approves the $18 billion the acrimonius debate over the IMF’s funding and future this time does not augur well for approval of additional funding in the future.
In 2014, the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank was established as a rival to the IMF and World Bank.
In July 2014 the BRICS nations (Brazil,Russia,India,China,and South Africa) announced the BRICS CONTINGENT RESERVE ARRANGEMENT (CRA) with an initial size of US$100 billion. A framework to provide liquidity through currency swaps in response to actual or potential short-term balance-of-payments pressures.
Some experts voiced concern that the IMF was not representative, and that the IMF proposals to generate only US$200 billion a year by 2020 with the SDRs as seed funds, did not go far enough to undo the general incentive to pursue destructive projects inherent in the world commodity trading and banking systems—criticisms often levelled at the World Trade Organisation and large global banking institutions.
The greatest amount currently on loan is to Mexico, and then Greece. But when you look at the loan as a percentage of GDP, Liberia then Iceland are the highest with 8.5% and 7.4% respectively.
The greatest amount to be paid back per member of the population is Iceland ($2,828.67 per person) and Ireland ($2,619.14 per person).
The IMF has made €2.5 billion of profit out of its loans to Greece since 2010. If Greece does repay the IMF in full this will rise to €4.3 billion by 2024.
Out of its lending to all countries in debt crisis between 2010 and 2014 the IMF has made a total profit of €8.4 billion, over a quarter of which is effectively from Greece.
All of this money has been added to the Fund’s reserves, which now total €19 billion. These reserves would be used to meet the costs from a country defaulting on repayments. Greece’s total debt to the IMF is currently €24 billion.
The International Monetary Fund is meant to be the firefighter of the world economy. Recently, though, it is China that has responded to the ringing of alarms. First, it lent Argentina cash to replenish its dwindling foreign-exchange reserves. Next, with the rouble crashing, China offered credit to Russia. Then Venezuela begged for funds to stave off a default. Strategic interests dictate where China points its financial hose: these countries supply it with oil and food.
If a government anywhere goes bust, it now has an alternative to the IMF.
Whether the IMF truly benefits the international economy is the subject of considerable debate. Much of the criticism centers on the IMF’s requirements to adopt certain economic policies in order to receive IMF loans, which may encourage poor countries to neglect social concerns in order to comply.
The IMF’s role grows more controversial. It gets a reputation – as a rich bully – bursting into emerging market economies, telling them how to live their life.
If you don’t pay back the IMF, the lender of the last resort to the world, then no one will lend you money. I mean really, no one. Ultimately they paid the IMF in full. Everyone pays. If you want to play in the international economy, if you want to have credit, if you want to have any kind of normal relationship with the outside world, you need to have a normal relationship with the IMF.
Through its notorious structural adjustment programs (SAPs), it has imposed harsh economic reforms in over 100 countries in the developing and former communist worlds, throwing hundreds of millions of people deeper into poverty.
Its fingers and those of the World Bank are all over the (The Trans-Pacific Partnerhsip and The EU trade and investment deal with the US – the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership – or TTIP.) both of which are quickly becoming the subject of increased interest and criticism. These two trade deals – the former being discussed between the US and Europe, and the latter between the US and Asian nations including Japan and South Korea – stand to change the face of global trade.
This agreement includes Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam to start. Eventually, its advocates hope, it will include every nation on the Pacific rim, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, Russia, and China.
The TPP is also a profoundly anti-democratic agreement which signs away our right to govern our own economy. Taken to its logical conclusion, this all ultimately amounts to the idea that the profitability of investments must be the supreme priority of state policy–overriding health, safety, human rights, labor law, fiscal policy, macroeconomic stability, industrial policy, national security, cultural autonomy, the environment, and everything else.
Who would fall for a brazen scheme that strengthens protection under the guise of free trade?
You’ve probably heard the old saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.
It is the holy grail, the fundamental principle that underpins much of modern economic thinking.
It may be too late to stop the TPP but we need to think beyond the narrow circle of its signatories.
Just to add to the mind-boggling complexity, ask yourself this: If you own a business and want to trade with Japan, should you access the recently inked Australia Japan deal? Or should you go with the TPP?
The TPP is being driven by America. Like most of these deals, it is politically driven. Fearful of China’s rise, America wants to corral its allies under a trade umbrella. In the process, it also wants to further the interests of American corporations and American workers.
It wants copyright laws and patents tightened and extended. These are agreements that offer protection to corporations and investors, usually justified on the grounds that innovation requires a reward not us the people.
When it comes to economic benefits, both of these Agreements can be and will be downright harmful.
The World Bank system was created as an integral element of the post-World War II Bretton Woods system of international and multilateral institutions. The Bank was designed to avoid future world wars by ensuring an open international trading system and global financial stability.
The same as the Nato and the United Nations it is another World Organisation that should be either shutdown, reinvented or amalgamated.
Like the IMF the World Bank is empowered by the governments which control it (led by the U.S., the U.K., Japan, Germany, France, Canada, and Italy — the “Group of 8,” which holds over 40% of the votes on their boards) with imposing economic austerity policies in the countries of the so-called “Third World” or “global South.”
The World Bank, the IMF and central banks such as the Federal Reserve literally control the creation and the flow of money worldwide.
They want all of us enslaved to debt, they want all of our governments enslaved to debt, and they want all of our politicians addicted to the huge financial contributions that they funnel into their campaigns.
According to the World Bank Articles of Agreement, all its decisions must be guided by a commitment to the promotion of foreign investment and international trade and to the facilitation of capital investment. Here is a dated example.
The first country to receive a World Bank loan was France. The French loan was for US$250 million, half the amount requested, and it came with strict conditions.
France had to agree to produce a balanced budget and give priority of debt repayment to the World Bank over other governments. Before the loan was approved, the United States State Department told the French government that its members associated with the Communist Party would first have to be removed. The French government complied with this diktat and removed the Communist coalition government. Within hours, the loan to France was approved.
When the Marshall Plan went into effect in 1947, many European countries began receiving aid from other sources. Faced with this competition, the World Bank shifted its focus to non-European countries.
The size and number of loans to borrowers was greatly increased as loan targets expanded from infrastructure into social services and other sectors mostly for the personal interest of larger world nations ignoring the like Vietnam because they were communist who were fighting for their lives to reject democracy from running over their country.
To finance more loans, the Bank used the global bond market to increase the capital available to the bank.
One consequence of the period of poverty alleviation lending was the rapid rise of third world debt.
From 1976 to 1980 developing world debt rose at an average annual rate of 20%.
During the 1980s, the bank emphasized lending to service Third-World debt, and structural adjustment policies designed to streamline the economies of developing nations.
UNICEF reported in the late 1980s that the structural adjustment programs of the World Bank had been responsible for “reduced health, nutritional and educational levels for tens of millions of children in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.”
And it left millions of families poor and children unprotected subject to Mason sponsored Child Sex trafficking.
Beginning in 1989, in response to harsh criticism from many groups, the bank began including environmental groups and NGOs in its loans to mitigate the past effects of its development policies that had prompted the criticism.
It also formed an implementing agency, in accordance with the Montreal Protocols to stop ozone-depletion damage to the Earth’s atmosphere by phasing out the use of 95% of ozone-depleting chemicals, with a target date of 2015.
Less recently, a project in Seychelles to promote local tourism by the name of project MAGIC was launched in 2010. Its successor project TIME was scheduled to be launched in 2012. Nothing more of it was heard of it since and was a project that at least to me makes no sense in its disclosure.
Traditionally, based on a tacit understanding between the United States and Europe, the president of the World Bank has always been selected from candidates nominated by the United States. In 2012, for the first time, two non-US citizens were nominated.
In 1991, the bank announced that to protect against intentional deforestation, especially in the Amazon, it would not finance any commercial logging or infrastructure projects that harm the environment.
About that time, in order to promote global public goods and free trade commercial market, the World Bank tried to control communicable disease created by laboratories in Intelligence agencies around the world, but could not stop the tragic effects of Ebola.
Since then, in accordance with its so-called “Six Strategic Themes,” the bank has put various additional policies into effect to preserve the environment while promoting development.
The World Bank is best known for financing big projects like dams, roads, and power plants, supposedly designed to assist in economic development, but which have often been associated with monumental environmental devastation and social dislocation.
In recent years, about half of its lending has gone to programs indistinguishable from the IMF’s: austerity plans that “reform” economic policies by suffocating the poor and inviting corporate exploitation.
The World Bank Group is the second largest public development institution in the world. Reform is long overdue. However, the most influential players are the finance ministers of the G8 countries, above all the US Treasury which sees no need for reform.
In 1992, an internal World bank review found that more than a third of all Bank loans did not meet the institution’s own lending criteria.
Unlike the United Nations, where each member nation has an equal vote, voting power at the World Bank and IMF is determined by the level of a nation’s financial contribution. Therefore, the United States has roughly 17% of the vote, with the seven largest industrialized countries (G-8) holding a total of 45%.
Because of the scale of its contribution, the United States has always had a dominant voice and has at all times exercised an effective veto. At the same time, developing countries have relatively little power within the institution, which, through the programs and policies they decide to finance, have tremendous impact throughout local economies and societies.
The global rise in prosperity and personal freedoms over the past 65 years has been an immense human achievement despite a string of horrible regional conflicts and pockets of terrible suffering.
However we are now facing the latest “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” — climate change, food security, infectious disease and urban youth unemployment — are rapidly approaching. It is hard to believe that the seven billion people living in 200 nations on earth today will be successful in holding them off without strong truly global institutions.
Its time to make our global institutions look and feel more global.
If we ask the question are these institutions ready to meet the challenge? The answer from most analysts is “No.”
While the WTO is based in Geneva, Switzerland, both the IMF and the World Bank are headquartered in Washington, D.C. The time has come to move at least one of them out of the United States.
The almost universal perception that there is no significant difference between the IMF and the World Bank. They work so closely together and have so many overlapping activities that they look like conjoined twins.
Their missions, however, are fundamentally different. Separation could make each one more effective.
Because the World Bank’s operations are overwhelmingly in developing countries, a case can be made for moving the World Bank to Africa, Asia or Latin America.
The biggest obstacle to moving the World Bank out of Washington is the veto power that only the United States wields. So re-locating the World Bank is a political non-starter.
By enhancing the Bank’s legitimacy, it would help to make the World Bank more effective in meeting the global challenges that are likely to become more difficult in the years to come.
The huge gap between the world’s richest and poorest countries remains one of the great moral dilemmas for the west. It also presents one of the greatest challenges for development economics. Do we really know how to help countries overcome poverty?
At least a billion people on the planet live in desperate circumstances resembling conditions that prevailed hundreds of years ago. Our failure to alleviate their plight is morally reprehensible. But where, exactly, are the greatest concentrations of poor people? Data is hard to come by and even harder to interpret. How can one compare cost-of-living indices in different periods when new goods are constantly upending traditional consumption models?
Consider the impact of cell phones in Africa, for example, or the internet in India.
The World Bank investment policy consolidates the position of the corrupt, inefficient and undemocratic regimes of many developing countries.
The Bank has evinced willingness to deal directly with almost any government without sensitivity to their human rights record.
Given that developing countries are both shareholders and clients in the Bank, the agencies are unlikely to admit that loans to a particular regime will not achieve any benefit until a reformed government achieves power.
The negotiation process between the Bank and the regime is invariably closed and the circulation of Bank reports restricted to the participants.
The poor are disenfranchised from the very institution supposed to support their development.
It is not necessary to deny that some of the infrastructure projects supported by the IBRD, from the road-building schemes in the 1980s to the dam construction programmes of the 1990s, failed to reduce poverty and caused a degree of environmental damage.
Only 3% of the Bank portfolio is set aside to protect against the loss of revenue from defaulting debtors.
Faced with mounting attacks from all sides, the IMF and World Bank are scrambling to assuage critics. On Apr. 10, the IMF set up an independent review board to evaluate its policies. The World Bank is pushing an initiative to combat the global scourge of AIDS. And both are working on a new strategy for fighting global poverty. But in the end, more radical reforms may be needed to get the demonstrators off the streets and the politicians off the two agencies’ backs.
The IMF — along with the WTO and the World Bank — has put the global economy on a path of greater inequality and environmental destruction.
Over the past decade an estimated 3.4 million people have been displaced by bank-funded projects.
There’s always a price tag for development. But the question is: Who should pay the price?
Should poor people be the ones who sacrifice when the government tries to do a big project? Even the World Bank says the budget for a project should include money to cover people’s losses.
The World Bank’s role in the global climate change finance architecture has also caused much controversy. Civil society groups see the Bank as unfit for a role in climate finance because of the conditionalities and advisory services usually attached to its loans.
The Bank’s undemocratic governance structure – which is dominated by industrialised countries – its privileging of the private sector and the controversy over the performance of World Bank-housed Climate Investment Funds
The World Bank working in partnership with the private sector may undermine the role of the state as the primary provider of essential goods and services, such as healthcare and education, resulting in the shortfall of such services in countries badly in need of them.
As an increasing shift from public to private funding in development finance has been observed recently, the Bank’s private sector lending arm – the International Finance Corporation (IFC) – has also been criticised for its business model, the increasing use of financial intermediaries such as private equity funds and funding of companies associated with tax havens.
As the World Bank and the IMF are regarded as experts in the field of financial regulation and economic development, their views and prescriptions may undermine or eliminate alternative perspectives on development.
There are also criticisms against the World Bank and IMF governance structures which are dominated by industrialised countries.
The World Bank hasn’t even adopted specific human rights policies, and doesn’t recognize that it has organizational responsibilities to abide by international human rights law.
Before I sign off on this post I should mention the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) established on 17 May 1930, is the world’s oldest international financial organisation. The BIS has 60 member central banks, representing countries from around the world that together make up about 95% of world GDP.
The BIS was created out of the Hague Agreements of 1930 and took over the job of the Agent General for Repatriation in Berlin. When established, the BIS was responsible for the collection, administration and distribution of reparations from Germany – as agreed upon in the Treaty of Versailles – following World War I. The BIS was also the trustee for Dawes and Young Loans, which were internationally issued loans used to finance these reparations.
After World War II, the BIS turned its focus to the defense and implementation of the World Bank’s Bretton Woods System. Between the 1970s and 1980s, the BIS monitored cross-border capital flows in the wake of the oil and debt crises, which in turn led to the development of regulatory supervision of internationally active banks.
The BIS has also emerged as an emergency “funder” to nations in trouble, coming to the aid of countries such as Mexico and Brazil during their debt crises in 1982 and 1998, respectively. In cases like these, where the International Monetary Fund is already in the country, emergency funding is provided through the IMF structured program.
The Bank for International Settlements is an organization that was founded by the global elite and it operates for the benefit of the global elite, and it is intended to be one of the key cornerstones of the emerging one world economic system.
Its head office is in Basel, Switzerland and there are two representative offices: in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and in Mexico City.
The mission of the BIS is to serve central banks in their pursuit of monetary and financial stability, to foster international cooperation in those areas and to act as a bank for central banks.
Given the continuously changing global economic structure, the BIS has had to adapt to many different financial challenges. However, by focusing on providing traditional banking services to member central banks, the BIS essentially gives the “lender of last resort” a shoulder to lean on. In its aim to support global financial and monetary stability, the BIS is an integral part of the international economy.
The BIS is a global center for financial and economic interests. As such, it has been a principal architect in the development of the global financial market. Given the dynamic nature of social, political and economic situations around the world, the BIS can be seen as a stabilizing force, encouraging financial stability and international prosperity in the face of global change.
In the old days World Bank and maybe in the future will act as a lender of last resort to the banking sector during times of bank insolvency or financial crisis.
As the face of hunger has changed, so has its address.
The Wealth of Nations and the inheritance for humankind and all forms of life rest with World Organisation that are out of date – this should explain to many as to the disappearance of an equal World.
Money Talks as is evident with the latest Trade deal TTPI.
However, in today’s modern economy we are witnessing a rapidly expanding array of services with mobile technologies as their backbone, but what a World we are making. Our priorities are driving by growth at all costs, and a media owned by our Capitalist culture. We produces 1.3 billion metric tons of garbage each year, and that number is expected to double by 2025.
Is it not time that we the guardians of the Planet got together to shut some doors by tabling a peoples UN resolution to place a World Aid Commission on all High Frequency Trading, on all Foreign Exchange Transactions (over $20,000) and on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions ( See previous posts)
The chances of this ever happening are minuscule as self-interest is deep rooted.
In the past 60 plus years, many changes have taken place with society, technology and governments but world peace is for the most part pie in the sky.
It is true that their have been no major global conflicts in the latter half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
So is Nato still relevant? Or is it just a pension club for the military old boys.
Since 1999 Nato has struggled in performing ever mission it has launched- Bosnia, Kosova, Afghanistan.
When Estonians pulled the Nato emergency chain on a cyber attack it was left with a lukewarm response raising the question what constitutes an attack on a country that Nato will react to.
What would happen if a war started, or the market crashed? I don’t think that NATO would fight a war together ( Including USA and Canada there are currently 28 member states) to be honest.
The conflicting priorities of Europe and the USA and the absence of a common foe all point to the need for Nato to be refilled into either a new European defense force or into the United Nations as a total peaceful organisation. Since the end of the cold war, NATO and the UN have become nearly interchangeable.
However some still say that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) is more relevant than it has been for years even if many of its members are moving further away from meeting their defense spending obligations.
The end of the Cold War and, consequently, the absence of the Soviet threat, did not render NATO ( The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) obsolete. There is no Warsaw Pact anymore, so why is there NATO?
The Alliance is now expanding like crazy. Faster than EU itself.
This means they either feel their power is crumbling and need more power, more allies, or the simple fact NATO has no more meaning.
It is the last surviving relic of the Cold War and is now the centerpiece of US-European relations. It has served as an integrating mechanism for Europe for more than sixty-five years.
Here what it cost to-day.
Nato 2014 Actual 2014 2015 2015
Member State Expenditure % of GDP Project Exp % of GDP
Bulgaria $604 million 1.3 $565 million 1.16
Canada $14.3 billion 1 $12.2 billion null
Estonia $430 million 2 $461 million 2.05
France $40.90 billion 1.5 $41.2 billion 1.5
Germany $44.3 billion 1.14 $41.72 billion 1.09
Hungary $1.03 billion 0.79 $0.79 billion 0.75
Italy $17.3 billion 1.2 $16.3 billion null
Latvia $252 million 0.9 $283 million 1
Lithuania $359 million 0.78 $474 million 1.11
Netherlands $8.7 billion 1 $9 billion null
Norway $5.8 billion 1.58 $6.8 billion 1.6
Poland $10.4 billion 1.9 $10.4 billion 1.95
Romania $2 billion 1.4 Not yet announced 1.7
UK $55 billion 2.07 $54 billion 1.88
US $582.4 billion 3.6 $585 billion 3.1
Turkey Not known
Albania “
Czech Rep “
Denmark “
Greece “
Iceland “
Luxembourg “
Poland “
Slovakia “
Slovenia “
Portugal “
Spain “
Belgium “
Unfortunately the US funding of Nato has it wrapped around its finger. It funds between one-fifth and one-quarter of Nato’s budget.
The civil budget for 2015 is € 200 million. The civil budget provides funds for personnel expenses, operating costs, and capital and programme expenditure of the International Staff at NATO Headquarters.
The military budget for 2015 is €1.2 billion. This budget covers the operating and maintenance costs of the NATO Command Structure. It is composed of over 50 separate budgets, which are financed with contributions from Allies’ national defence budgets (in most countries) according to agreed cost-shares.
While there is stagnation in military expenditure from the larger military powers in NATO — the UK, France, Germany, and Canada — that has led to several smaller NATO states to increase their funding. Not coincidentally, some of them would be front line states in a future military conflict between Russia and the NATO alliance.
NATO was founded to promote democratic values and encourage cooperation on defense and security issues. What started as a good idea that was backed by powerful nations, now is not the case.
With Russia involvement in Syria not to mention the Ukraine the real question is: Do we need what I see as a duplication Organisation that appears determined, for the first time in its history, to intervene beyond its borders.
Operational partnerships, such as the one Nato established with Australia in Afghanistan, are an additional source of personnel and resources for Nato-led operations.
Even militarily it does not make sense to have an European Union relining on an Organisation that has as its linchpin of the alliance Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which states that “an armed attack against one or more of them [NATO members] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and that all members are obliged to assist the state(s) under attack.
Article 5 has been invoked only once in NATO’s history, after the terrorist attacks against the US homeland on September 11, 2001.
It says it committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes.
NATO provides security to the world because of their rules and regulations that prevent war. Considering those FACTS it is foolish to say that NATO is not relevant.
No wars have taken place in any country that is part of NATO after they joined.
It is supposed to act under resolutions that are carried out under Article 5 of the Washington Treaty – NATO’s founding treaty – or under a UN mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organizations.
So tell me what irresolution was passed about ring fencing Russia with rockets.
NATO’s incessant push to the east is an attempt to reinstate a Berlin Wall that spans the entire western border of Russia. This has no place in a peaceful world.
It’s no wonder that Russia is worries about that, as well as the new identity and tasks that NATO has awarded itself.
Russia opposes expansion mainly because she fears that the West is trying to isolate her in the corner of Europe, deprive her of her privileged relationship with her former satellites and undermine her national interests. This is why she is so fiercely opposing enlargement to include the Baltic States and Ukraine. NATO is viewed by Russia as nothing more than the club wielded by capitalist sharks.
Without a unified military force Europe (an area of the world that for many centuries was the most warlike on the globe) relies on the Nato. The dissolution of which without a replacement would leave the Continent without the existence of a military option to ensure stability within in its borders.
There is one thing for sure in light of NATO’s character as a political forum of democratic nations, expansion to incorporate those states that had authoritatively been excluded from it and pushed into the arms of the Soviet Union seems a logical consequence.
It can no longer be seen merely as a military Alliance with a defensive character, but as a political one as well, gathering the nations that share common democratic values and respect for human rights and the rule of law. However this is a new world where NATO seems confrontational and counter productive with limited capability to undertake even crisis management operations.
One of the major problems with the preceding league of nations, was the lack of ‘teeth’.
Instead of focusing on the rapidly declining interstate conflicts (as a result of interdependence), maybe Nato should be focusing more on threats such as cyber warfare, terrorism, and piracy, and vetting refugees.
It would be impossible to think a couple of decades ago that the Americans and the Russians might sit at the same table and plan common military operations.
You would think that Nato which is deeply involved in the Syrian war and the United Nations would be encouraging such a move to avoid Turkey being dragged into the War.
Instead Jens Stoltenberg, the Nato secretary-general, said that the organisation intended to “send a clear message” to show that the world’s most powerful military alliance was prepared to act in defence of its citizens. “Nato will defend you, Nato is on the ground, Nato is ready,” he said.
Nato says it is prepared to send troops to Turkey to defend its ally after violations of Turkish airspace by Russian jets,
Then all hell breaks loose as if this was the ultimate pretext for a NATO-Russia war.
But wait; NATO is actually too busy to go to war. The priority, until at least November, is the epic Trident Juncture 2015; 36,000 troops from 30 states, more than 60 warships, around 200 aircraft, all are seriously practicing how to defend from the proverbial “The Russians are Coming!”
Russia’s spectacular entry into the war theater threw all these elaborate plans into disarray.
Surely, there are differences between the US and Russia, but these can be overcome step by step with constructive dialogue and mutual understanding. They are no longer afraid of each other. They do have their differences, as it is natural that they should.
As events in the Ukraine, Syria and now Turkey are tragically demonstrating Nato could become a source of potential danger for the entire world.
The World has enough problems this is not a time for Nato saber-rattling.
Finally it is otter stupidity to think that if a nuclear device designed to emit an EMP (Electro Magnetic Pulse) were detonated about 300 miles over EUROPE ( most of Europe as we now know it would be gone) that Nato or the USA would do anything other than issue wet wipes.
Also one may wonder why Turkey — a country that is about 2,000 miles to the east of the Atlantic Ocean — finds itself in an entity called the “North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The answer is the roots of accepting non-North Atlantic nations into NATO, mainly Greece and Turkey lies at the heart of the Truman Doctrine — extending military and economic aid to states vulnerable to Soviet threat / expansion. NATO membership should guarantee, in essence, that Turkey would not become a Soviet ally.
Moving forward means dissolving what does not work and finding what will work.
The next two decades will make or break humanity.
Perhaps Nato should stand down as a military force and take up the mantel of fighting Climate Change.
Finally how can we have an ordered world where Russia and China are excluded from the police force?
If Nato is to be relevant it could start by building a world environmental police force.
“More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, is why we have the United Nations.” (Annan: 2001)
It is widely believed that international organizations should be responsible for the maintenance of international peace and stability, be this economic, social or political, and that they should act in the interest of the international community.
However if you look at them they are mostly out of date, with no real secure funding other than begging and most have been corrupted by lobbing. ( See previous postings)
These institutions, should have greater transparency, regulation and control within these organizations so that they reflect more than just the interest of the powerful States.
It appears that the behaviour of institutions can no longer be objectively analysed by quantifiable forces, as social interaction on the Web and Smart Phones gives different meanings to ideas, actors and objects.
If today we find ourselves in a self-help world, this is due to process, not structure.
As nations we don’t want to transmit the notion of a global governance to the world community.
The the neo-liberal institutionalist approach is misleading as it accounts for some of the weaknesses of institutions, but does not include enough critical analysis of its premises and actions, or lack thereof. Thereby, the role of institutions becomes a more ideological and normative one, where they infuse Member States’ policies with their liberal values and principles.
So let’s start with The United Nations.
It is important to determine what constitutes success and failure as we can approach the United Nations system in different ways, either as an international forum or as a ‘global policing force’ and regardless of what approach one may take, they both have their virtues and drawbacks.
The United Nations.
The creation of an international forum for multi-lateral negotiations came about with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in 1889, which is still active today and has membership of 157 national parliaments. The IPU was the predecessor to the League of Nations, created in 1919 after the end of the First World War; this later became the United Nations after the failure of the League to prevent international conflicts.
The legacy of the IPU, the League of Nations, and other early international alliances was not the institutions’ effectiveness as an actor, but rather as a forum, for nations to voice their opinions and promote dialogue. This was the primary objective of the institution in 1945, which is why forcing it to develop into an impartial effective governing force seems quite naïve and unrealistic.
This was arguably their greatest achievement.
After the failure of the League, nation States still felt the need for an institution that would allow them to share their ideas and provide an opportunity to settle disputes peacefully. Thus, emerged the United Nations, which to this day remains the only institution with universal membership. It is the largest of all international organisations.
The neo-realist approach argues that international institutions are and always will be fundamentally ineffective, as they cannot prevent States from being self-interested and engaging in power politics.
Neo-realists assert the irrelevance of international institutions, as they believe it does not alter the self-interested anarchic system of States. Classical and neo-realists claim the international system is an anarchic, self-interested, power struggle between States, which is why there is a vast amount of distrust in global institutions such as the UN.
The idea that institutions play a non-role in international relations is a reductionist one as the argument that States will not respond to constraints and opportunities given by these institutions is greatly flawed.
This can be exemplified by the UN’s regulation on the use of military force.
One of the so-called failures of the UN is its inability to prevent conflicts, but in reality the majority of these conflicts arise as a result of deep-rooted ethnic, political, and ideological tensions which cannot even be resolved through bilateral diplomatic efforts, as exemplified in the Arab-Israeli conflict the Syrian Civil War, Ukrainian Conflict, the aftermath of 9/11.
So the primary purpose of the UN is not to intervene in internal affairs but rather to promote discussions and give States the tools to resolve disputes themselves.
An example of this is the Earth Summit, where members discussed actions to be taken regarding environmental sustainability and climate change and then world leaders would reconvene in ten-year follow-up meeting to monitor each other’s progress.
This is fine.
However,“in a world of multiple issues imperfectly linked, in which coalitions are formed trans-nationally and trans govern-mentally, the potential role of international institutions is greatly increased.”
It can be argued while the UN attempts to coordinate the actions of States and harmonize the world community, it becomes increasingly geared towards an ‘utopian’ model, even though it faces numerous challenges when rallying Member States to follow its general principles and vision.
It also can be argued that the United Nations has been vital in furthering decolonization, human rights, environmental protection and international law.
These and many others reflects unrealistic expectations of the UN as an actor.
Neo-liberal institutionalism stresses the importance of the UN’s work with regional organizations, as they become indispensable in the international diplomatic process predicting, “the international community will increasingly direct itself towards combined action of the universal Organization with regional bodies.” (Cassese: 2005: 338)
This can be observed in the recent links between the UN and regional organizations such as the Organisation of American States (OAS), the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), the Arab League, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).
It take for granted the idea that economic and military power is the primary source of influence in world politics when in fact Climate Change with the rise in sea levels and the lack of fresh water will be the driving forces in the near future.
The Secretary General is the world’s prime example of responsibility without power, which is not always understood. The fact that he has no sovereign rights, duties or resources could signify that he becomes a reflection of the organization itself.
An example of this was in the Secretary-General’s Millennium Report where he ensured States that the Secretariat was fully accountable to them and the founding principles of the United Nations as “an Organization dedicated to the interests of its Member States and of their peoples” would be preserved. (Annan: 2000: 73)
For neo-realists, international institutions are and will always be ineffective, as they cannot alter the anarchic structure of the international system, neo-liberal institutionalists argue the opposite as they believe institutions greatly influence State conduct by both creating strong incentives for cooperation whilst at the same time implementing disincentives, as observed in the case of nuclear proliferation;
Constructivists take a very different approach by questioning the core assumptions of the other theories and drawing attention to the relationship between the structure and the agency, as well as the construction of state and institutional interests.
As an actor, there is so little we can do, and often the people accusing us are the same ones who prevent us from being able to act.” (Weiss: 2008: 8)
As the proportion of democratic states grows, the norms and rules that characterize relations between democracies are likely to alter the norms and rules in international relations.
For this reason, perhaps instead of focusing on the failures and reform within the UN, we should concentrate on the attributes and virtues that it has as an effective center for harmonizing discussions and developing common goals for States.
Rather than reducing the solution to problems of structural reform and widening participation efforts, we could look at promoting the UN as the prime setting for diplomacy and negotiation, as this has undeniably been its role since the beginning.
“We are facing the first breakthroughs in a process called ‘globalisation”
Social Media is demanding more and more from our leaders.
The end to Inequality, by dismantling of Greed within our Capitalist consumption Societies is high on the list.
It should be promoting the remote possibility of Russia and the USA tackling the Syria? ISIS situation together, which could lead to an Israelite/ Palestinian solution’s with the backing of Iran.
To be effective and relevant in this troubled world it needs to get rid of the Veto.
Pass a people’s resolution to place a World Aid commission of 0.05% on all High Frequency Trading, on all Sovereign Wealth Funds Acquisitions, and on all Foreign Exchange transaction over $20,000. ( See previous Posts)
Humans have been put on this earth with the knowledge of self-awareness and the ability to manipulate the environments that they inhabit to a greater extent than any other species on the planet.
Ultimately one must wonder what purpose there is to one’s own existence and define what it means to be.
So before we go any further let’s get a few definitions out-of-the-way.
Philosophers such as Socrates and Plato believed that our purpose in this life was to gain knowledge in preparation for the next life.
Epicurus believed that pleasure is the main goal in life. He did not believe in an afterlife or that a person had a soul that lived forever.
Richard Robinson’s viewpoint: Life Has No Purpose he argues that “there is no god to make up for the limitations of our power” and that man must look after himself and live his life for himself.
James Joyce’s “There is no person in this universe to love us except ourselves”.
“Araby” displays the theme that life has no meaning through the use of setting, characters, symbols, and motifs.
“If a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, then he hasn’t got a reason to live.” These were famous words of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.“
To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Friedrich Nietzsche’s articulate definition of life.
However the problem is that every type of human activity has a malignant equivalent.
Like the pursuit of happiness, the accumulation of wealth, the exercise of power, the love of one’s self are all tools in the struggle to survive, they all lead to the pursuing pleasures (hedonism), greed and avarice as manifested in criminal activities, murderous authoritarian regimes and narcissism.
We create ourselves and that is what life is all about. Not so.
This is vanity not meaning. We struggle to be better than others so we can have the money, the glory, and the luxuries and when we achieve this like Bill Gates we will have to find meaning by doing good deeds.
A desire to find a higher purpose or meaning keeps people from the possibility that life has no meaning.
Lives that are filled with vanity, which is meaningless, have no meaning other than looking at yourself in the mirror.
These things cause us to think about what we can’t see and even allow us to engage ourselves in questioning the meaning behind our existence and what our purpose is here on earth.
As soon as the caveman progressed to the point where he ceased living in terror of the animals, the weather and all the gods, he started thinking about his life and what it meant. Since the conception of language and the thousands of technical refinements that brought us to the printed page, mankind has written much about this mysterious force.
It is interesting to note that “life” has 44 definitions — one of the most defined words in the world.
Where did we come from?’, `Why are we here?’, `Where are we going?’.
The abstract idea of life cannot be explained by such simple ideas as being animated, breathing, or speaking. Ordinary machines in this century can perform all of these basic functions.
If humanity was not able to say what they were thinking and feeling it would be very hard to create a life. Also if humanity was not able to speak what was on their mind, we might as well be dead.
The most difficult thing in life is finding something worth living for. The second most difficult thing is knowing when you’ve found it.
Maybe you are frustrated and confused when you think about this.
That is good. Frustration is a push on the back, to get you moving, so you will look around and make discoveries.
So we have to examine the nature of meaning itself.
Meaning is by definition the point, or the intended goal.
If life and the universe is some sort of toy or form of entertainment for some prime mover, what would then be the meaning of humans and the universe.
Consider the goals of the deities of various cultures. Some strive for a balance between the forces of ‘good’ and ‘evil’. This balance seems to simply be a choice of the deity, the way he thinks it ought to be.
The concept of a prime mover as a source of the meaning of life is flawed, because in talking about an actual point to absolutely everything, we are simply considering the goals of a being more powerful than ourselves who has chosen one of many possible goals that humans can conceive of.
This is to say that, if a God like this exists, his goal for life and the universe is not necessarily valid as a meaning of life, the universe, and himself.
For instance, the Bible claims that the Christian deity created the universe and placed humans in it that they might be in awe of his power. If this is so, why is worship the correct response? The meaning of the universe as created by God is the entertainment of God, but what is the meaning of the larger system containing God and his creations?
Is there a POINT to this?
Is there some kind of logic circuit in the brain that emulates the universe. It is true, then this structure in the brain is truth itself, defined, the pattern of the universe, and we need search no further than ourselves to find a meaning.
So why do we have so much trouble thinking about things that we have never actually encountered, like infinity.
But there can be no singular meaning of life to stand for us all, or even any one of us. Life is different for us all. A person’s lifetime is filled with self-examination.
Life and its meaning is far too complex for any human to fully comprehend because it to come from some outside source “‘Everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been”
Up to now we have used logic and reasoning in order to explain why things happen and to advance ourselves.
THIS TRIED AND TESTED METHOD IS NOW BEING REPLACED AS YOU READ WITH AI
( ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE)
Trying to put words to the meaning of life is a task of absolute absurdity, as life gives meaning to Life.
For me it’s realizing that the purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. For me, this is a work in progress.
Unfortunately there isn’t anyway for me to figure out whether I am right or wrong so I will leave you with the words of Robert Browning,
“Each life unfulfilled you see,
It hangs still, patchy and scrappy;
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired-been happy.”
In order to create the perfect life things need to be said whether they have meaning or not.
The quandary with defining death is not as abstract and elusive as that of life.
All that we have accomplished, ends.
Then the process begins all over again with the next generation. We are here to reproduce. It has been genetically coded into us.
Is that the meaning of life.?
Interpreting the idea of life in terms death may become something of the past but without death there will be no point in living for eternity.
What are you as an individual contributing to this life? I dare you to press the like button.
What began as another Arab Spring uprising against an autocratic ruler has mushroomed into a brutal proxy war that has drawn in regional and world powers.
How’s this all going to end?
No one knows, really. While plenty of countries (including Germany, the U.K., Iran, Russia, France and the U.S.) have tried to offer support to one side or the other to try to end the conflict, there’s been little success.
What ever happens this war is developing into a war that is going to have far reaching unseen effects not only on the Middle East but on the World. (Not to mention the balance of world power.)
So it important that we see it as such.
To the victor go the spoils:
That might be true for most other wars, but the Syrian conflict has proven to be far outside the established norms and conventions governing the conduct of battle . (That is if you are of the opinion that such things exist in a modern warfare.)
In Syria the spoils are going to whoever has a gun, and there are plenty of those about.
How did it all Start?
In March 2011 in the southern city of Deraa some teenagers painted revolutionary slogans on a school wall. THEY WERE ARRESTED AND TORTURED which lead to Pro-democracy protests which were fired on by security forces killing several demonstrators leading to more demonstrations triggering nationwide protests demanding President Assad’s resignation.
By July 2011, hundreds of thousands were taking to the streets across the country.
Violence escalated and the country descended into civil war as rebel brigades were formed to battle government forces for control of cities, towns and the countryside. Fighting reached the capital Damascus and second city of Aleppo in 2012.
Hundreds of people were killed in August 2013 after rockets filled with the nerve agent sarin were fired at several agricultural districts around Damascus. Western powers, outraged by the attack, said it could only have been carried out by Syria’s government.
The regime and its ally Russia blamed rebels.
Facing the prospect of US military intervention, President Assad agreed to the complete removal or destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal as part of a joint mission led by the UN and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
The destruction of chemical agents and munitions was completed a year later.
By June 2013, the UN said 90,000 people had been killed in the conflict.
However, by August 2014 that figure had more than doubled to 191,000 – and continued to climb to 220,000 by March 2015, according to activists and the UN. Despite the operation, the OPCW has since documented the use of toxic chemicals, such as chlorine and ammonia, by the government in attacks on rebel-held northern villages between April and July 2014 that resulted in the deaths of at least 13 people.
The conflict has now acquired sectarian overtones, pitching the country’s Sunni majority against the president’s Shia Alawite sect, and drawn in neighboring countries and world powers.
The rise of the jihadist groups, including Islamic State, has added a further dimension.
Both sides of the conflict have committed war crimes – including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearances.
The so-called Islamic State has also been accused by the UN of waging a campaign of terror in northern and eastern Syria.
It has inflicted severe punishments on those who transgress or refuse to accept its rule, including hundreds of public executions and amputations. Its fighters have also carried out mass killings of rival armed groups, members of the security forces and religious minorities, and beheaded hostages, including several Westerners.
Almost 4 million people have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, most of them women and children.
It is one of the largest refugee exodus in recent history.
Neighboring countries have borne the brunt of the refugee crisis, with Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey struggling to accommodate the flood of new arrivals.
A further 7.6 million Syrians have been internally displaced within the country, bringing the total number forced to flee their homes to more than 11 million – half the country’s pre-crisis population.
Overall, an estimated 12.2 million are in need of humanitarian assistance inside Syria, including 5.6 million children, the UN says.
In December 2014, the UN launched an appeal for $8.4bn (£5.6bn) to provide help to 18 million Syrians, after only securing about half the funding it asked for in 2014.
Four in every five Syrians were now living in poverty – 30% of them in abject poverty. Syria’s education, health and social welfare systems are also in a state of collapse.
The armed rebellion has evolved significantly since its inception. Secular moderates are now outnumbered by Islamists and jihadists, whose brutal tactics have caused widespread concern and triggered rebel infighting.
Capitalising on the chaos in the region, IS or ISIS or ISIL – the extremist group that grew out of al-Qaeda in Iraq – has taken control of huge swathes of territory across northern and eastern Syria, as well as neighboring Iraq.
Its many foreign fighters in Syria are now involved in a “war within a war”, battling rebels and jihadists from the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, who object to their tactics, as well as Kurdish and government forces.
In September 2014, a US-led coalition launched air strikes inside Syria in an effort to “degrade and ultimately destroy” IS, ultimately helping the Kurds repel a major assault on the northern town of Kobane. However, the coalition has little influence on the ground in Syria and its primacy is rejected by other groups, leaving the country without a convincing alternative to the Assad government.
In January 2014, the US, Russia and UN convened a conference in Switzerland to implement the 2012 Geneva Communique, an internationally-backed agreement that called for the establishment of a transitional governing body in Syria formed on the basis of mutual consent. The talks, which became known as Geneva II, broke down in February after only two rounds.
So who is backing who?
Iran and Russia have propped up the Alawite-led government of President Assad and gradually increased their support, providing it with an edge that has helped it make significant gains against the rebels. The government has also enjoyed the support of Lebanon’s Shia Islamist Hezbollah movement, whose fighters have provided important battlefield support since 2013.
The Sunni-dominated opposition has, meanwhile, attracted varying degrees of support from its main backers – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab states along with the US, UK and France. However, the rise of hard-line Islamist rebels and the arrival of jihadists from across the world has led to a marked cooling of international and regional backing.
The US is now supposed to be arming a 5,000-strong force of “moderate” rebels to take the fight to IS on the ground in Syria, and its aircraft provide significant support to Kurdish militia seeking to defend three autonomous enclaves in the country’s north.
September 2015 Russia openly (in the United Nations) declares its supports for President Assad under the umbrella of tackling ISIS. On 30 September, Russia’s parliament approved a request by President Vladimir Putin to launch air strikes in Syria. Within hours, the country’s first intervention in the Middle East in decades began. The following day, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov clarified that the air campaign was targeting “all terrorists” in Syria, and not just IS.
But the US and its allies noted that the strikes took place where IS had little or no presence. They instead appeared to be aimed at rebels backed by Gulf Arab and Western states who are advancing on Latakia province – the coastal heartland of Mr Assad’s Alawite sect. At least one group that has been armed and trained by the CIA was hit. Says the Americans.
Russia has made clear that its intervention was approved by Mr Assad, who sent a letter to Mr Putin requesting military assistance. “By supporting Assad and seemingly taking on everyone who is fighting Assad, you’re taking on the whole rest of the country of Syria.”
The Russian president is one of Mr Assad’s most important international backers.
Ties between their countries go back four decades and the Syrian port of Tartous is the location of the last Russian naval base in the Middle East.
Russia has blocked several resolutions critical of Mr Assad at the UN Security Council and supplied weapons to the Syrian military, saying it is violating no international laws.
We are now facing new kind of mentality that rules those people doing the fighting in Syria, a complete disregard for the lives and property of ordinary civilians. This goes for both sides in the war.
The fortunes of some are fast accumulating, while the rest of the nation languishes in dreary poverty and destitution, waiting for an end to the greed and hatred that fuels this seemingly never-ending nightmare.
There’s also tons of conflict among European countries about what their responsibilities are and whether anything could’ve been done to prevent the Civil War and the massive loss of life. There are understandable hesitations, strategic rivalries and unwillingness to take on financial commitment, making it impossible to pursue potential solutions.
There is one thing for sure we would be better off legalizing the migration process in order to leave the slave traders of the 21st century empty-handed.
Why?, because there is growing major culture of fear and suspicion when it comes to Muslim refugees.
The struggle in Syria could be ended in one way only.
And that is when the US and Russia with Europe countries agree and support one man to take Bashar Alassad place.
But unfortunately this won’t happen because the U.S government believes that he is the best person to keep Israel safe from Syria. While Russia (which has been crippled by sanctions due to Ukraine ) see it as an opportunity to unshackle itself for isolation and a opportunity to boost its economy.
This was once just a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis in the wider Arab world, especially in Syria and Iraq. Now it is turning into a free for all. The consequences of which will be only seen by those left alive.
Meanwhile, the failure to understand the ‘Arab Spring’ for what it was facilitated the destruction of Syria’s delicate balance such that the Islamic State represents the first real challenge to the Middle East which emerged from the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, under which the British and French empires secretly agreed to divide the Middle East domains of the dying Ottoman Empire between them.
As for the military route, proposed by several Conservative political leaders, masking as armchair generals, air raids are clearly insufficient yet no government wants to send ground troops.
Syria could remain at war for years.
There remains one more danger to the Free World ( for lack of a better noun) and that is the pressing of a nuclear button which will resolve the war leaving nothing to fight about.
Right I am no military general or foreign policy guru but Russia recent backing of Assad to tackle extremists and terrorists and the so-called Islamic State militants ( IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) is a recipe for a war that is going to expand and last for some considerable time.However when you look on at the inability of the free world to resolve the Middle East problems now it is not an option to turn our backs on Mr Putin latest offer because there has being a cultural shift in the Middle East sparked by West and Smart phones.
There is no doubt that Mr Putin geo-political announcements at the United Nations emphasizes the problems of a joint international coalition to confront IS. ( The reporting of which by RT.Com keeps crashing on Flip Board Cover Stories. I wonder why? http://on.rt.com/6sg4 )
Perhaps his offer should be TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
”There is a belief that “creative destruction and chaos” in the Middle East are beneficial assets to reshaping the Middle East, creating the “New Middle East,” and furthering the Anglo-American road map in the Middle East and Central Asia:
There is no denying that now more than ever we are achieved this with a new road map by Mr Putin.
The United Nations as usual is a lame duck, (with 7.5 million children displaced and over 16 million people homes and livelihoods destroyed) all it can do is pass resolution’s that are vetoed.
WE NEED TO SCRAP THE UN TO BE REPLACED it with A NEW PROTECTION WORLD ORGANISATION THAT REPRESENTS THE WORLD – FULLY FINANCED. ( SEE PREVIOUS POSTS)
While the two world powers will now be at logger heads and the small players like France and the UK play Ludo with the situation. ISIS continues to extend the group’s self-styled caliphate, which now stretches from Turkey’s border with Syria to south of Fallujah in Iraq, an area roughly the size of Indiana.
For nearly 70 years, Lebanon was a proxy battleground for the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
As Paul Rodriguez said ” Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography.”
If you ask yourself how did it all get into such a hell hole you can come up with reasons that cover every aspect of Power, Greed, Religion, History, Oil,etc.
The answer however to a great part is a lot more simple.
NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS. Climate change and the issue of whether there will be enough water for a future global population double its present size is controversial and the answer to this question is of particular importance to the people’s and political leaders of the Middle East and North Africa.
It requires an inhuman level of political courage for a political leader of any country which for five thousand years has enjoyed water security to announce that water resources are no longer adequate.
To make the announcement would be political suicide.
SO BACK TO TODAY.
It has been nearly impossible for two U.S. presidents — Bush, a conservative evangelical; and Obama, a progressive liberal — to address the plight of Christians explicitly for fear of appearing to play into the crusader and ‘‘clash of civilizations’’ narratives the West is accused of embracing.
The above does not apply to Mr Putin, but there are limits to what the international community and Russia can do.’’
For instance the fate of Christians in the Middle East isn’t simply a matter of religion; it is also integral to what kinds of societies will flourish as the region’s map fractures.
No matter what solution’s presents itself there will be a requirement for a buffer between Sunni and Shia.
Across the region, that conflict is now secondary to the shifting tectonic plates of the Sunni-Shia divide, which threatens terrible bloodshed. Everyone has seen the ISIS forced conversions, crucifixions and beheadings that is displacing millions.
Even if ISIS is defeated, the fate of religious minorities in Syria and Iraq remains bleak because Iraq is devolving into three regions — Sunnis, Shia and Kurds — as it is obvious that there will be a need for a fourth region for minorities. Iraq is a forced marriage between Sunni, Shia, Kurds and Christians, and it has failed with the resulting wasted lives lost.
The term “New Middle East” was introduced to the world in June 2006 in Tel Aviv by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
Our continuing failure to candidly depict the roots of the problems and conflicts in the contemporary Middle East has now being exposed by Mr Putin – POINTING A FINGER AT THE WEST FAILURE AND SECRETIVE TRADE DEALS.
His good news is complicated and indigestible as well as unsensational – throwing stones in a glass house is never a good idea.
The truth is that the Middle East has been conditioned by outside forces into a powder keg that is ready to explode with the right trigger, possibly the launching of Anglo-American and/or Israeli air raids against Iran and Syria. A wider war in the Middle East could result in redrawn borders that are strategically advantageous to Anglo-American interests and Israel.
We must think creatively about how to act on Mr Putin address to the United Nations.
What the media does not acknowledge or inform us about is the fact that almost all major conflicts afflicting the Middle East are the consequence of overlapping Anglo-American-Israeli agendas.
Many of the other problems affecting the contemporary Middle East are the result of the deliberate aggravation of pre-existing regional tensions.
Among the problems in the contemporary Middle East is the lack of genuine democracy which U.S. and British foreign policy has actually been deliberately obstructing.
The United States has deliberately blocked or displaced genuine democratic movements in the Middle East from Iran in 1953 (where a U.S./U.K. sponsored coup was staged against the democratic government of Prime Minister Mossadegh) to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, the Arab Sheikdoms, and Jordan where the Anglo-American alliance supports military control, absolutists, and dictators in one form or another. The latest example of this is Palestine.
Attempts at intentionally creating animosity between the different ethno-cultural and religious groups of the Middle East have been systematic.
Even more ominous, many Middle Eastern governments, such as that of Saudi Arabia, are assisting Washington in fomenting divisions between Middle Eastern populations. The ultimate objective is to weaken the resistance movement against foreign occupation through a “divide and conquer strategy” which serves Anglo-American and Israeli interests in the broader region.
Where might one find a useful analysis of what is happening today in the market democracies of the West?
How about this: “The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie.” Or this: “Modern bourgeois society…is like the sorcerer, who is no longer able to control the power of the nether world which he has called up by his spells.” Or this: “The productive forces no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property: on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions…[and] they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.”
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The celebrated bearded communists had argued that capitalism would reduce all of society to only two classes: the prosperous bourgeoisie, who owned the capital, and the impoverished proletariat, who contributed their labor. Modern industrial production would inevitably depress the living standards of the proletariat, they believed, but also, in the end, increase their power. Having created a form of slavery, capitalism would be overthrown by its slaves. The proletarian masses would become the dictators.
This did not happen.
But now the West see itself as prisoners of the system that they helped to create.
I am no alarmist, and no one should worry that I have become a late convert to Marxism. Marx’s prescriptions were mostly wrong, and his spirit was intolerant and coercive. He did not understand markets or respect political institutions, and he thought liberty was a sham.
However, Sectarian division, ethnic tension and internal violence have been traditionally exploited by the United States and Britain in various parts of the globe including Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East. Iraq is just one of many examples of the Anglo-American strategy of “divide and conquer.” Other examples are Rwanda, Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan.
Besides believing that there is “cultural stagnation” in the Middle East Western-style “Democracy” has been a requirement only for those Middle Eastern states which do not conform to Washington’s political demands.
Invariably, it constitutes a pretext for confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan are examples of undemocratic states that the United States has no problems with because they are firmly alligned within the Anglo-American orbit or sphere.
Also we need to support Iran as a bulwark against Sunni extremism.
Additionally,
Turkey and Iran, the two most powerful states of the “Eurasian Balkans,” located on its southern tier, are “potentially vulnerable to internal ethnic conflicts [balkanization],” and that, “If either or both of them were to be destabilized, the internal problems of the region would become unmanageable.
In the end it all comes down who is willing to receive body bags.
Rest assured that the striking images of body bags depict the physical residue of war and time. Yet even more horrific than the physical scars of the war is the sense of sorrow and loss, floating in their expressions like ghosts.
UNFORTUNATELY THE SAPIENS REGIME ON EARTH HAS SO FAR PRODUCED LITTLE THAT WE CAN BE PROUD OF.
Time and time again massive increases in human power has not improved the well-being of individual humans and has caused immense misery to other animals.
In the last few decades we have made some progress as far as human condition is concerned , with reductions in world wars, plagues, and famines.
But we remain unsure of our goals and remain as discontented as ever.
No body seems to know where we are going. We are more powerful than ever before, but have little idea what to do with the power.
Worse still we seem to be more irresponsible than ever, wreaking havoc on the world and nature while seeking little more than self-satisfaction which we never find.
I am sure like me that you are finding it difficult if not impossible to assimilate never mind keep up with all that is presently taking place in world.
Mass migration, climate change, return to the dark ages ISIS, not to mention wars, terrorists, cheat, (Volkswagen) Countries going broke, Designer drugs, Space exploration, the Web/Internet/Apps.
THE FACT IS THAT WE ARE THE TERROR OF THE ECOSYSTEM and it seems lost on us due to short-term profit and greed.
Most of our world organisations with the advance of technology are out of date, underfunded and unrepresentative of humanity and the planet and in need of radical overhauls, but it is of little concern to the populist at large.
However the good news is that in the back ground there is a revolution going on that is changing the way we live and is going to change evolution itself.
Once more we are being presented with opportunities that are opening up so quickly they are outpacing our collective capacity for making wise and far-sighted decisions.
Presently, only a tiny fraction of these opportunities have being realized.
We are releasing ourselves from the shackles of biology.
We are beginning to re shape our minds and our bodies.
If you think that the mapping the first genome require fifteen years and three billion dollars that to day a persons DNA can be mapped within a few weeks for a mere few hundred bucks which means nothing to most people, but soon we will be able to know what you will die from other than accident or bullet.
The road to designer medical care is well on the way for those that can afford it.
Our social media is blinding us to the true consequences of supplementary devices we now use to live our lives.
Or is it telling us that we are standing on the brink of becoming true cyborgs.
Like storing or brains in the cloud, having inorganic features that are inseparable from our bodies that are modify our abilities, our desires, personalities, and identities.
Do we care that bio-engineering could resurrect the Neanderthals. No
Do we care that we are braking the laws of natural selection with impunity by producing a rabbit that glows. No
Do we care that we can produce mice that grow human ears, or change sex through hormonal treatment, or creating computer versus that are self learning, or bring back extinct creatures. Are these examples not the first steps of genetically engineer that are changing an individual abilities but also their social structure. No
Tinkering with or genes won’t necessarily kill us.
But we might be fiddle with Homo Sapiens to such an extent that we will be no longer be Homo Sapiens.
Do we care that the Defense Advance research project Agency in the US is developing cyborgs out of insects? No
Do we care that computer algorithms are running the stock exchange or selecting target for drones, running our economies, teaching the next generation? No
What if we have quantum computer power? Our successors will then function on a different level of consciousness. Not to worried we are human.
The Good news. If indeed we become cyborgs with some thing beyond consciousness that we cannot conceive, it seems doubtful that Christianity or Islam will be of much interest to us or our current social organisation of Communist or Capitalist, or which gender we are.
At this point you might think why worry we are only upgrading into a different type of human being.
Even though the implications of creating a mind inside a computer is far more dramatic than anything we have seen to date there is a great and urgent danger that our complacency which is hidden by science under the umbrella of The Gilgamesh Project (that justifies everything that science does by labeling it as curing diseases and saving human lives) is going to be nonrecoverable in the near future.
In my view its time we decide what we want to want by influencing the direction that scientists are taking.
If what is happening is allowed to continue and continue it will without imaginative social policies blight our society and there will be millions of people living wretchedly lives and reacting accordingly.
Globalization, technological changes, and governments policies have produced a class structure with a tiny plutocracy of billionaires, corporations and algorithms that are doing away with people.
We need a politics of time.
We need to scrap the United Nations and replace it with a new fully funded¨( see previous post) World People Protection Organisation that reflects the needs of the planet and all that live on it.
We must realize before its to late that the growing structural inequality is socially unsustainable. A basic world wage would be a good start. ( See Post We don’t live in a digital world the washing machine has changed lives more than the internet)
“ FOLLOW YOUR BLISS AND THE UNIVERSE OPENS DOORS FOR YOU WHERE THERE WERE ONLY WALLS”
Everything has being figured out except how to live.
Life exists in individual moments and it is up to us make sure that those moments are vast, interconnected and grand.
To make a masterpiece out of life. One that we would live again and again for all eternity. This is what we should strive for.
I love this idea, essentialising our lives, of italicising our experiences, of turning our story into thus story, of seeing the universe in the pacific and sort of align ourselves with the archetype of the Hero’s journey, of trying to see a departure from the ordinary in every single instant. A chance to learn something new, a chance to leverage obstacles and learn from them and met people along the way that can teach us something.
Transcend your own limitations, as Stephen Johnston says, “ the world is full of clues and you can read your way through it.” If you are able to turn your life into an art piece. If you are able to turn your narrative into a non-narrative, then you become that Hero; you become the God of your life. It is the archetype of every Film. It’s the Joseph Campbell Hero’s journey.
The problem is that Capitalism has turned life into Consumerism. If people are richer and healthier, then they must be happier.
But social, ethical and spiritual factors have as great an impact on our happiness as material conditions.
Perhaps in this time of modern technology we are beginning to see alienation and meaninglessness replacing prosperity.
So what is happiness? What is it that really makes people happy? What do we measure?
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on Desire.
We all desire to be happy but is it just something we feel inside us. A sense of either immediate pleasure or long-term contentment.
Or is it the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.
It is quite obvious that money does indeed bring happiness, but only up to a point and beyond that point it has little significance.
Are people happier when living in democracies or dictatorships or living married or single?
Has the democratization process of the last decades contributed to the happiness of humankind or has it had an opposite effect with more divorce?
Questionnaires correlate happiness with various objective factors. But if it is inside who can it be measured ?
Illness decreases happiness.
Family and community have a great impact on happiness.
The importance of human expectations has far-reaching implications for happiness.
Our intolerance of inconvenience and reliance on technology may well lead to discontent on a massive scale.
Through advertising and mass media we are depleting the reservoirs of global contentment by pasting our expectations on to the material conditions of others.
Face book is becoming the giant billboard of life with the smart phone the messenger of contentment and discontentment.
Supposing science did come up with cures for all diseases and an effective anti ageing therapies and regenerative treatments the immediate result will be an unprecedented epidemic of anger and anxiety.
Those that cannot afford the treatments which will be the vast majority will be beside themselves with rage.
So lets ask the question once more, – what is happiness?
Winning the lotto – No.
Because people are made happy by one thing and one thing only
A PLEASANT SENSATION FROM WITHIN.
There is no happy genetic line. Happiness is enjoyed for a momentary rush that does not last for ever. When you get what you desire you not any happier.
Happiness consists in seeing one’s life in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile. Our values make all the difference.
If we have a why to live such as a belief of everlasting bliss in the life thereafter perhaps the trick is in synchoronising one’s personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions of the capitalist world. So we are in line with the narratives of the people around us you can convince yourself that your life has a meaning.
Quite a depressing conclusion. Does happiness really depend on self- delusion?
Perhaps its time for Capitalism to have some Liberalism with Socialism before we are all swallowing pills.
The relentless pursuit of happiness may be misguided.
With the current revolution of technology and the arrival of Artificial Intelligence we humans are going to discover that it is not so important that our expectations are fulfilled.
The Question will be do we understand the truth about ourselves before it too late.
What influences the happiness and suffering of individuals is within our grasp and we had better start grasping it.
The World Bank, the IMF and central banks such as the Federal Reserve literally control the creation and the flow of money worldwide.
This was once just a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis in the wider Arab world, especially in Syria and Iraq. Now it is turning into a free for all. The consequences of which will be only seen by those left alive.
However when you look on at the inability of the free world to resolve the Middle East problems now it is not an option to turn our backs on Mr Putin latest offer because there has being a cultural shift in the Middle East sparked by West and Smart phones.
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