Headlines
Japan has functioned under its “peace constitution” for nearly 70 years. The distinctive Article 9, which prevents the country from conducting war as a means of resolving international conflict, is showing its age. Over the last several decades, after repeated “reinterpretations,” the peace constitution has become increasingly enfeebled. With its latest decision, the government of […]
Landmark new policies that have sharply curtailed U.S. financing for international coal projects may be rolled back, the result of a sudden, polarised fight over a little-known government agency here. The debate revolves around an entity called the Export-Import Bank, which for much of the past century has made federal money available to promote U.S. […]
In early May, the Irapuato Migrants’ House, in the centre-west Mexican state of Guanajuato, took in a group of 152 Garifuna Afro-Caribbean people from Honduras. Sixty of them were children. “It was a Sunday,” said Bertha, the cook. “They had children of all ages, from babies on up. They were only here a few hours, […]
In this column, Ignacio Ramonet, director of Le Monde Diplomatique in Spanish, analyses U.S.-Cuba relations.
The U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is unlikely to contribute much to combating persistent tax evasion in Latin America, which will require more national and multilateral instruments, experts say. FATCA, as it is better known, was approved in March 2010 and finally came into force on Jul. 1 after a number of delays. It […]
Environmentalists are formally urging President Barack Obama to enact trade sanctions on Mozambique over the country’s alleged chronic facilitation of elephant and rhinoceros poaching through broad swathes of southern Africa. Investigators say substantial evidence exists of Mozambique’s failure to abide by international conventions against wildlife trafficking, including to back up allegations of state complicity. While […]
African countries are coming under strong pressure from the United States and the European Union to reverse the decision adopted by their trade ministers to implement the World Trade Organization’s trade facilitation agreement on a “provisional” basis. At last week’s summit of African Union leaders in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, “there was unprecedented [U.S. and European Union] […]
With only a few weeks remaining before the Jul. 20 deadline, the Barack Obama administration issued a warning to Iran that it must accept deep cuts in the number of its centrifuges in order to demonstrate that its nuclear programme is only for peaceful purposes. U.S. officials have argued that such cuts are necessary to […]
Facing what some have dubbed a refugee crisis, President Barack Obama is asking for new powers that would significantly speed up the deportation process for tens of thousands of unaccompanied children recently arrived at the southern U.S. border. In a letter to lawmakers on Monday, the president requested some two billion dollars in increased funding, […]
The events unraveling in the Middle East have proved that the vaunted “Arab Spring” has turned into a searing summer of wildfires exploding unpredictably in diverse Islamic fronts without competent firemen to hose down the unmanageable conflagration. It confirms that Washington has lost its grip on managing and/or directing global politics according to its agenda. […]
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