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"Development" Between 1970 and 2007, the external debt of the developing countries was multiplied by twenty-nine. During this time, they repaid the equivalent of ninety-four times the amount owed in 1970. Between 1985 and 2007, developing countries sent to their creditors the equivalent of 7.5 Marshall Plans*...with the local capitalist elite taking their commission on the way. It is a well-oiled mechanism, with part of the money coming back to the South in the form of new loans to ensure that the transfers continue. Thanks to the debt, the wealth of the citizens of the South is being transferred under our very eyes to the elite of the North, with the complicity of the elite of the South. * Marshall Plan cost around $100 billion in 2010 value. Toussaint and Millet, Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank,  2010
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The response by mainstream liberals in the U.K. and U.S. has been the cynical use of moments of public outrage over Assad’s crimes for the perusal of the American geo-political goal of limiting Russian and Iranian regional control. In opposition to this, a significant part of the Western Left has eschewed all criticism of Syrian, Iranian, and Russian leadership in the name of resisting U.S. empire. Syria and the Problem of Left Solidarity
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There are a number of issues that organizations such as the UGTT must contend with, namely the role of government in post-January 14 Tunisia and the allocation of roles between the state, elected officials, political parties, and civil society, ensuring new social and political dynamics achieve the recognition they deserve, and resistance to the neoliberal agenda imposed by the international aid donors. The traditional organizations of Tunisian civil society will have to make progress on all these fronts if they wish to recover their ability to emancipate the people and neutralize financial backers’ attempts to sweep aside the social and economic demands of those who initiated the Revolution of Dignity (and not the “Jasmine Revolution,” as the Nobel Committee put it). The actors leading these new social dynamics have not yet had their last word. Trade Unions and Arab Revolutions: The Tunisian Case of UGTT
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"The national economy, once protected, is literally controlled today. Loans and donations fund the budget. Fishing for capital, either the heads of state themselves or their governmental delegates pay a visit to the capital cities of their former metropoles each quarter. The former colonial power makes countless demands and secures concessions and guarantees, as it takes less and less care to mask its hold on national power. The people miserably stagnates in unbearable destitution and slowly becomes increasingly aware of its leaders’ heinous treason." — Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth . How much has changed since Fanon wrote those words in 1963?
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