Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

"Impossible to anticipate the spur for rebellion. In Lebanon, it was a tax on the use of WhatsApp; in Chile, it was the rise in subway fares; in Ecuador and in Haiti, it was the cut in fuel subsidies. Each of these conjunctures brought people to the streets and then, as these people flooded the streets, more and more joined them. They did not come for WhatsApp or for subway tokens. They came because they are frustrated, angry that history seems to disregard them as it consistently favours the ruling class." There is something that's ours on the streets and we're going to take it back

Manufacturing consent and views Here is an interesting and a telling comparison one should make: the way the mainstream, corporate media (from the Times to the BBC) have reported about some Westerners killed or kidnapped and the genocide* in Myanmar.  Compare how many articles, number of words and images have been used to report on one British Muslim woman who had joined ISIS and the genocide against Muslims in Myanmar.  *The United Nations and a Havard researcher, for example, have used the word genocide. 

"The British never had the capacity to reshape coercively the internal arrangements of other capitalist  states. Their speciality was taking over and reshaping pre-capitalist societies, defeating traditionalist forces of resistance within them. So the principle of absolute states’ rights and non-interference was perfectly acceptable to the British, once they had reached the limits of their empire.  But Washington had a different and more advanced agenda: first, to penetrate existing capitalist states and reorganize their internal arrangements to suit US  purposes; and second, to defeat any social forces there that rejected the American path to modernity in the name, not of traditionalism, but of an alternative modernity. The UN model simply did not address these issues which were so central for Washington. Indeed, it offered a notional defence against American interference in its emphasis on national sovereignty. As a result, the UN politico-legal order was a cumbersom...

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) "1. The domestic policies of the BRICS states follow the general tenor of what one might consider Neoliberalism with Southern Characteristics. 2. The BRICS alliance has not been able to create a new institutional foundation for its emergent authority. It continues to plead for a more democratic United Nations, and for more democracy at the IMF and the World Bank. 3. The BRICS formation has not endorsed an ideological alternative to neoliberalism. 4. Finally, the BRICS project has no ability to sequester the military dominance of the United States and NATO... The force-projection of the United States remains planetary. If we look into the entrails of the system, we will find that its solutions do not lie within it. Its problems are not technical, nor are they cultural. They are social problems that require political solutions. The social order of property, propriety, and power has to be radically revised..." ...

UN and CNN propaganda against the UK

How to "hide" crimes According to a report by the World Bank itself "the development of biofuels has caused a rise of 75 in food prices between 2002 and February 2008 (out of the 100 percent global rise, while the prices of energy and fertilisers accounted for only 15 percent).  This estimate is much higher thatn the 3 percent figure retained by the U.S. administration. According to the World Bank teh hike in prices has already cost consumers $324 billion in poor countries and could drive 105 million more people into poverty. So as not to displease President Bush, the World Bank did not publish this report. It was a leak in the press that allowed the information to emerge. This analysis of the World Bank remains ideologically tainted by neoliberalism. The development of agro-fuels is not responsible for the 'disorganisation of the markets' but reveals their irrational policies and their criminal consequences [my emphasis]. Eat, drink, or drive, the free m...

Did the UN fail the Rohingya in Myanmar?

The American origin of the United Nations

Dr Hickel (LSE) argues that through the MDGs, the UN has misrepresented the true extent for poverty and hunger. “By massaging the numbers, the UN has created a good news narrative that justifies the present economic order and its logic of growth, liberalisation, privatisation and corporate power." "Challenging the UN good story about poverty and hunger" See also "Neoliberalism ans the end of democracy"