Economy & Trade
DOHA, Qatar, Apr 18 2016 (IPS) - Thanks to tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, major oil producers couldn’t come to an agreement in Doha to freeze their output to January levels to raise oil prices. The current low oil prices have a lot to do with the grim outlook for global economic growth while supply is growing. China, the second largest economy in the world, is slowing down. Not surprisingly, global oil demand is much lower at 94.8 million barrels a day vis-à-vis supply of 96.3 million barrels a day in the first quarter of 2016 according to the International Energy Agency.
In this column Joaquín Roy, Jean Monnet professor and director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami, analyses the complex scenario behind the forthcoming visit to Cuba by U.S. President Barack Obama. According to the author, this diplomatic step will be part of the legacy of the transition, whatever shape it takes.
By Joaquín Roy
MIAMI, Feb 24 2016 (IPS)
At this stage of the process that began in December 2014 with the surprise announcement of the opening of relations between the United States and Cuba, hardly anything counts as spectacular news. The detail in the decision by Washington and Havana that made news in the traditional sense (man bites dog) was that the plan to sit down and talk implied that Cuba gave up its prior demand that the embargo be lifted. The United States, for its part, accepted that Cuba did not undertake to make any special changes to its own political system.
Joaquín Roy
U.S. President Barack Obama and his Cuban counterpart Raúl Castro will go down in history as two statesmen who managed to overcome more than half a century of hostility to bring back together two neighbouring countries with too many shared interests to remain at loggerheads. When Obama visits Havana on Mar. 21-22, it will be […]
While the normalisation of diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba is moving ahead, and the U.S. and Cuban flags have been proudly waving in Havana and Washington, respectively, since last July, the year gone by since the thaw has left many unanswered questions. “You shouldn’t ask me, because in my view, nothing has […]
This is the first of three articles written by Robert F. Kennedy – son of late U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy – which address relations between the United States and Cuba during the 60-year period of the U.S. embargo against the island nation. The second article – “JFK’s Secret Negotiations with Fidel” – will run on January 5, 2015 and the third – “Sabotaging U.S.-Cuba Détente in the Kennedy Era” – on January 6, 2015.
Peter Costantini interviews economist JOHN SCHMITT
Miriam Pemberton directs the Peace Economy Transitions Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
The announcement that the United States and Cuba would reestablish diplomatic relations took most Cubans by surprise. Over half of the population was born after the severing of ties in 1961 and the start of the embargo that has marked their lives. “I wasn’t expecting it; it’s the news of the century and a step […]
In perhaps his boldest foreign-policy move during his presidency, Barack Obama Wednesday announced that he intends to establish full diplomatic relations with Cuba. While the president noted that he lacked the authority to lift the 54-year-old trade embargo against Havana, he issued directives that will permit more U.S. citizens to travel there and third-country subsidiaries […]
While U.S. and Canadian officials delivered speeches about how the world needs to step up to their responsibilities at the U.N. climate negotiations in Lima, Peru, activists from North America demanded clear answers back home on their governments’ relationships with fossil fuel corporations, as well as the future of several major oil projects across the […]
IPS Daily Report
