Global

Saturday March 26, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 26, 2022

Neo-colonialism and the Covid response

February 4, 2022

Approximately 35 per cent of the world’s population has not received at least one dose, while more than 42 per cent of the world’s population has not been fully vaccinated. One can easily observe the inequitable distribution of vaccines between the Global North and the Global South.

In a globalised world, the Covid19 pandemic tested human immunity and the relevance of global international health regulations to fight it at the individual and global levels, respectively. The pandemic has demonstrated how unprepared we were, as warned by public health experts, and it should be a wake-up call to not let it happen again.

The pandemic has also exposed that control and power do not necessitate invasion or military control over poor and less developed countries. In the modern world, power and control exist in different forms, unlike in the old history of colonialism.

One can observe significant distinctions regarding the emergence of global health in the 1990s and early 2000s, which has become a tool for influencing country-led decisions (primarily rich countries) in favour of aid-giving countries – a sort of soft power political control. These relationships built on reliance, subjection and Shylock-like indebtedness are problematic in their intent and consequence.

Friday November 14, 2008

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 14, 2008

Stability will not be rebuilt in a day

Ahead of the G20 summit, some commentators have wondering whether we are going to see a new Bretton Woods.

It’s ambitious talk. It is not likely that a single summit will deliver anything so grandiose, especially an event hosted by a US president who almost has his coat on, ready to leave the White House for the last time.

But there is clearly a desire among political leaders from these leading economies to do something – or, some might say more cynically, to be seen to do something – about the financial crisis that has suddenly engulfed them all.

And it really has hit them, from different angles and with different degrees of severity. A short global tour of a few G20 countries will give a flavour of why they are so concerned. (Incidentally, it’s 19 countries, plus the European Union.)

The host, the US, is the main source of the financial poison – $1.4 trillion of it, according to the International Monetary Fund.

That is their latest estimate of the likely losses that will eventually be due to bad debts owed by American borrowers. Most of that is down to mortgages and financial securities based on them. (Source: BBC News)