Arundhati Roy | The Economist
This By-invitation commentary is part of a series by a range of global thinkers on the future of American power, examining the forces shaping the country’s standing.
IN FEBRUARY 1989 the last Soviet tank rolled out of Afghanistan, its army having been decisively defeated in a punishing, nearly decade-long war by a loose coalition of mujahideen, who were trained, armed, funded and indoctrinated by the American and Pakistani Intelligence services.
By November that year the Berlin wall had fallen and the Soviet Union began to collapse. When the cold war ended, the United States took its place at the head of a unipolar world order. In a heartbeat, radical Islam replaced communism as the most imminent threat to world peace. After the attacks of September 11th, 2001: The political world as we knew it spun on its axis. And the pivot of that axis appeared to be located somewhere in the rough mountains of Afghanistan. Continue reading
For the British, the American Revolution quickly became a naval war with France over possession of the islands of the Caribbean. With their vast sugar plantations, these were more lucrative to Britain than the American colonies and more likely to remain colonies over the long run. Furthermore, the French had lost key Caribbean possessions to Britain during the recent French and Indian War that had ended in 1763, and viewed the American Revolution as their opportunity to regain them:
News Americas, LONDON, England, Tues. April 14, 12015: It is probably true to say that the average person has little idea what international financial institutions like the World Bank or International Monetary Fund (IMF) do, beyond knowing that they are in some way responsible for having governments impose tough austerity measures and conditions in return for their support.
Commentary: Looking at the COVID-19 Down Under – by Francis Quamina Farrier
During the past four months I have written feature articles about the COVID19 pandemic focusing on a number of countries. They include Argentina, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, Zambia and Zimbabwe. During the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic globally, I consider it important for Guyanese to know a bit about how other countries around the world are dealing with the pandemic.
That is so especially with our neighbour Brazil, which has an extremely high number of cases – 5 million infected and 147,000 dead. That is second only to the United States with 7.6 million infected, including the president, and 214,000 deaths. Closer home, reports are that there are some infected persons in Brazil who are crossing the Takatu border river from Bon Fim into Lethem and spreading the virus in Region 9. Continue reading →
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