(July 4, 2008) United Nations: Last fall the General Assembly produced a new treaty that many would say was long overdue – the U.N. Convention Against Corruption.
Tough line on graft in Georgia
(June 30, 2008) The presumption that one is not guilty until the court decides so is violated in many cases. If methods of the new government are the same as the old one’s, then what was the meaning of the revolution?”
PUC’s final answer is no to electricty rate increase
(June 30, 2008) Belize’s Public Utilities Commission has turned down Belize Electricity Limited’s (BEL) application to increase electricity rates, reports 7 Newsbelize.
International financial institutions and financial accountability
(June 25, 2008) A report by Austrian-based economist Kunibert Raffer published last year and now available for access on the Odious Debts Online Web site, calls for the creation of a permanent international court of arbitration to work through disputes between IFIs and borrowing countries.
Stop paying nuke plant debt, SC justice urges gov’t
(June 18, 2008) Supreme Court Associate Justice Reynato Puno has urged the government to consider stopping payments for loans that the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos borrowed to build the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant.
PRESS RELEASE Canadian power company threatens blackouts in Belize if rates don’t go up
(June 9, 2008) Belize’s Canadian-owned power company has threatened blackouts if electricity rates don’t go up immediately.
Odious Debts: Loose Lending, Corruption, and the Third World’s Environmental Legacy
(May 28, 2008) We’ve all heard of the Third World’s debt crisis, of hopelessly poor nations unable to pay their debts, and of the human suffering and environmental consequences of their desperate predicament. Amid emotional calls from some to forgive the debt outright come the sober solutions from bankers and bureaucrats, with their seemingly unending stream of Brady and Baker Plans, and bewildering variants of them.
Chinese banks to forgive debts of uninsured survivors
(May 23, 2008) The Chinese government has told Chinese banks to forgive debts owed by uninsured survivors to revive Sichuan’s economy, reports the BBC.
AIDS for India
(March 19, 2008) World Bank and the government of India launch face-saving investigation after defective HIV/AIDS test kits, purchased with bank funds, are supplied by the Indian government to hospitals and blood banks across the country.
Western Countries Cancel Iraqi Debt, Gulf Countries Don’t
(May 15, 2008) During the long years of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, economic data were treated as top national secrets, and the revelation of such data to unauthorized persons could bring the death penalty.
Democracy, capital flows, and odious debt’
(May 12, 2008) Democracy commits a ruler to pass borrowed funds on to the private sector which builds the country’s international collateral, and the consequent rise in the credit ceiling is a Pareto-improvement up to a point because the ruler can appropriate a smaller share of rising loan. However, the ruler may still impose odious debt in the sense that the private sector prefers the country to borrow less. Under conditions, a fall in the world interest rate or a rise in productivity growth increases the optimal levels of democracy, borrowing, investment, and welfare. I offer suggestive evidence from a global panel.
Debt cancellation a victory for the world
(May 7, 2008) Last month, the House of Representatives showed leadership in the fight against global poverty by passing the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation, which would extend lifesaving debt cancellation to more poor nations around the globe.
Alexander Sack and Odious Debts: A Response to Ludington and Gulati
(April 15, 2008) In their paper’s abstract, Gulati and Ludington set out to expose the “murky reality” of the life of Alexander Nahum Sack, and how this reality conflicts with the “myth perpetuated in the odious debts literature.” The dominant theme, though insinuated rather than stated clearly, is that the odious debts movement has deliberately exaggerated Sack’s eminence in order to establish the doctrine as customary international law. The authors also make few distinctions among the various organizations in the debt forgiveness movement. I would recommend that the authors stick to the facts rather than assign motives, and be precise in their charges rather than employing broad brushes.
New Estimates of Capital Flight from Sub-Saharan African Countries: Linkages with External Borrowing and Policy Options
(April 1, 2008) Over the past decades, African countries have been forced by external debt burdens to undertake painful economic adjustments while devoting scarce foreign exchange to debt-service payments. On the other hand, African countries have experienced massive outflows of private capital towards Western financial centers. Indeed, these private assets surpass the continent’s foreign liabilities, ironically making sub-Saharan Africa a “net creditor” to the rest of the world.
World Bank funds Kenya’s ‘culture of corruption’
(March 26, 2008) World Bank funding has been called out as a large contributor to Kenya’s ‘culture of corruption’ in the wake of last year’s presidential election crisis.
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