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March 8, 2021 - Working Women's Day
(Harare February 25, 2021) This March 8th 2021, organized in our diversity and together with one single voice we declare: Against the Virus of Patriarchy and Capitalism, the Vaccine of Feminism and Solidarity!, while highlighting the essential role of rural women and peasants as a whole, who represent around 60% to 70% of world food production and are the front line in the production of agroecological and healthy food that sustains life. On the 25th (...)

The first credit in India dates back 4000 years. The existence of loans is proved to exist during the Vedic period, which is between 2000 and 1400 BC. The existence of banks in India dates back to 500 BC.
A treatise on the art of politics of ancient India, the Arthasastra (attributed to Kautilya), dating from the 4th or 3rd century BC, mentions the existence of creditors, lenders and interest rates.
From the 12th century AD, banks developed all over India. Indian bankers issued bills of (...)

In the first part, we saw that the external indebtedness of developing countries (DC) went through two stages from 2000 to 2019. From 2000 to 2007-2008, the debt stagnated or increased moderately in parallel to negative net transfers. From 2008 to 2019, the opposite happened: debt doubled and net transfers were positive. In this article, we analyse different factors that have a direct influence on the DC's capacity to carry on making debt repayments.
Provided that it is legitimate and (...)

The measures a government takes regarding its Central Bank, the debts of working class people, public debt and private banks are decisive. If a popular government does not implement radical financial measures, it will be responsible for ending in failure, with possibly tragic consequences for the population. The Commune, an extraordinary and dramatic experiment, exemplifies this, and must thus be analyzed from this point of view.
The role of debt in the emergence of the Paris Commune
It (...)

In February 1918, the repudiation of the debt by the Soviet government shocked international finance and sparked off unanimous condemnation by the governments of the great powers.
This decision of repudiation was intrinsic to this first big movement for social emancipation which rattled the Russian Empire in 1905. This huge revolutionary uprising was caused by the conjunction of many factors: the Russian debacle in its war with Japan, the wrath of peasants demanding land, the rejection of (...)

The whiplash of authoritarianism is being ruthlessly used in Egypt. On January 6, 2021, Ahmed Khalifa, social news editor of Egypt 360 after publishing a series of reports on workers' legitimate protests. He was falsely charged with joining a terrorist group and spreading fake news, and remains in detention to date. Before his arrest, Khalifa published articles about strikes at the state-owned ElDelta Company for Fertilizers and Chemical Industry.
In 2011, bold protest chants flowed out (...)

Rusia: «nos solidarizamos con todos aquellos que luchan por la justicia y los derechos democráticos»
A finales de enero de 2021, una ola de protestas masivas recorrió las principales ciudades de Rusia. El motivo de estas protestas fue la detención del opositor Alexei Navalny, pero la verdadera causa fue la enorme desigualdad social y la privación de derechos políticos en el país. No todos los que salieron a la calle eran partidarios de Navalny, pero a todos les unía el deseo de un cambio social y (...)

Rapport du webinaire sur la dette kényane tenu le 13 janvier 2021 de 14h à 16h
1. Introduction/Contexte
Le 13 janvier 2021, le KDAN, mouvement social regroupant des personnes et des organisations kényanes dont le principal objectif est de plaider en faveur de l'abolition des dettes illégales, illégitimes et odieuses du Kenya par le biais de processus fondés sur des données probantes, tels que l'audit de la dette par les citoyens et la participation du public dans le processus d'emprunt, avec le (...)

This urgent appeal was written in collaboration with activists and intellectuals living in Russia.
At the end of January 2021, a wave of mass protests swept through all of Russia's major cities. The occasion for these protests was the arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but the genuine cause was the enormous social inequality and political disenfranchisement prevailing in the country. Not all of those who took to the streets were supporters of Navalny, but they were all united by a (...)

Ecuador's third largest city Cuenca, of more than 600.000 inhabitants, has voted clearly against large-scale mining on February 7th, 2021. According to estimates published on Sunday night, 80% of voters have expressed themselves for water and life, and against mining and extractivism. This referendum has been approved by the Constitutional Court in September 2020, what makes its results binding. While the results of the simultaneous presidential election were still being counted, pointing at (...)

Debt cannot be repaid, first because if we don't repay, lenders will not die. That is for sure. But if we repay, we are going to die. That is also for sure.
Thomas Sankara, 1987
African movements unify to campaign for the cancellation of public and private debt
February 5 - 7
The debt crisis in Africa has been slow burning and is now vastly aggravated by Covid-19. This is one of many crises of climate, ecology, conflict and population displacements, which are pre-existing and reinforce (...)

The Sri Lankan economy revealed a principal contradiction during the last two weeks. The Colombo Stock Market was becoming one of the best performing stock markets in the world. In parallel, the real Sri Lankan economy is collapsing. A suicide of a young woman of 24 years age, *Kumari, trapped in debt, along with her five-year-old child was the premonition. The soaring stock market represents a minute fraction of the population, whereas Kumari and her child embody the circumstances of the (...)

There is a myth about the Romanians being “natural” homeowners. It was propagated by the dominant right-wing anti-communist ideology after 1990, in an effort to legitimise the private property market as the only housing solution and to de-legitimise state involvement in ensuring the right to housing for all. The legislation of the 1990s facilitated the right-to-buy of apartments that people formerly rented from the state. Alongside the restitution process, this was a mechanism of housing (...)

We are in the middle of a global shortage of supplies of COVID-19 vaccines. We are reliving the saga that happened early in the pandemic around access to personal protective equipment (PPE), where each country fought for its own patch. Getting the vaccine doses we require for South African healthcare workers is the most we can hope for in the coming weeks. Obtaining anything more within the next six months will be almost impossible for the majority of countries in the global South that did (...)

Last April, the G20 launched the idea of debt service suspension by poor countries until the end of 2020. What actually happened?
Measures taken by the G20 regarding debt relief are utterly insufficient as well as unacceptable since they involve intensifying neoliberal policies
The fact is that measures taken by the G20 regarding debt relief are utterly insufficient as well as unacceptable since they involve intensifying neoliberal policies. The G20 considered that only 73 out of 135 (...)

Report of Kenyan Debt Zoom Dialogue Held on 13 January 2021 at 2PM to 4PM 1.0 - INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND On 13 January 2021 the Kenya Debt Abolition Network (KDAN) which is a social movement of Kenyan individual and organization whose main aim is to call for Abolition of Kenyan Illegal, Illegitimate and Odious Debts through evidence based processes like Citizen Debt Audit and calling for public participation in the process of incurring Debts with support from the Committee for the (...)

Report of Kenyan Debt Zoom Dialogue Held on 13 January 2021 at 2PM to 4PM 1.0 INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND: On 13 January 2021 the Kenya Debt Abolition Network (KDAN) which is a social movement of Kenyan individual and organization whose main aim is to call for Abolition of Kenyan Illegal, Illegitimate and Odious Debts through evidence based processes like Citizen Debt Audit and calling for public participation in the process of incurring Debts with support from the Committee for the (...)

The Farmers struggle and its partial advance has shown us the way. Strong movements from below can have the potential to take on the Hinduvta juggernaut much more than stitching electoral alliances. What will be the fate of this movement six months down the line? We don't know but it is worth recalling the ancient Chinese proverb “a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step”, writes Sushovan Dhar.
No other Republic Day witnessed such unprecedented levels of public claims over (...)

We interview Daniel Tanuro, author of the book “Trop tard pour être pessimistes! Écosocialisme ou effondrement”, published this year by Éditions Textuel. As an ecosocialist activist and member of the Anticapitalist Left, Daniel Tanuro is one of the main voices at the international level when it comes to understanding the ecological crisis from a radical point of view.
For the CADTM, the ecological question is transversal to the issues related to the debt. Debt plays indeed a major role both in (...)

In November 2020, Suriname joined ranks with Zambia, becoming the second country to default on its sovereign debt in the aftermath of Covid-19. In this briefing, we explore the origins of Suriname's debt crisis and highlights the substantial challenges faced by the country to overcome it.
This briefing explores the origins of Suriname's debt crisis and highlights the substantial challenges faced by the country to overcome it. The analysis is structured as follows. The first section provides (...)