Economy / Finance

“Economic coercive measures are crimes against humanity”

Reports from the “International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism” (Part 2)

(11 April 2023) (Edit.) The opening of the “International People’s Tri-bunal on U.S. Imperialism – Sanctions, Blockades and Economic Coercive Measures” took place in New York on 28 January 2023,¹ (see Box on the right). The Tribunal will last about six months and end in July 2023 with a closing ceremony at the Simón Bolívar Institute in Caracas, Venezuela.

In a first article, "Swiss Standpoint" has already published the presentation of Alfred de Zayas, former independent UN expert on international order, in which he, among other things, clarified the term “sanctions”.² (see Box on page 2)

Ukraine’s Zelensky sends love letter to US Corporations

Promising ‘Big Business’ for Wall Street

by Ben Norton,* Latin America

(14 February 2023) In a video address to a US corporate lobby group, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky thanked companies like BlackRock, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Starlink, insisting “everyone can become a big business” by investing in Ukraine, where “we are defending freedom and property”.

«The Trillion Dollar Silencer»

Why there Is so little anti-war protest in the United States

by Jeremy Kuzmarov,* USA

(29 January 2023) The military’s deep penetration into all aspects of American life has hampered the development of a strong anti-war movement – at a time when it is desperately needed.

Fertiliser shortage caused harvests in Africa to shrink

by German Foreign Policy*

(16 January 2023) EU sanctions exacerbate hunger crisis in Africa. Now the EU wants to ease sanctions on Russian fertiliser supplies.

Why is the current government harming Germany’s middle class so much?

by Christian Kreiss,* Germany

(9 January 2023) A lot of recent political and economic measures clearly harm our middle class, the backbone of our prosperity. Leading business representatives say: “the substance of our industry is threatened”¹ or: “we are simply getting poorer. I’ll draw you a picture for Germany and I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up 20 to 30 percent poorer.”² The conservative “Handelsblatt” newspaper speaks of a threat of deindustrialisation of Germany.³

Germany, a champion in decline

From export world champion to heated shelters and power outages: Deindustrialization is advancing. Who will stop this madness?

by Marc Friedrich*

(17 November 2022) “Germany must die!” This is the title of a popular song by the Hamburg punk band “Slime”, to which people like to dance the pogo. Can a country die? Yes, first its own economy and then, more or less in the long term, the entire country, for the economy is the heartbeat of a country. And if the heart dies, everything else ceases to function.