Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

In 1998 the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial that said that the IMF ‘has not been fighting financial fires but dousing them with gasoline’. The IMF pours the first tranche of gasoline. Vijay Prashad has an update The IMF does not fight financial fires but douses them with gasoline

I recommend Revolution Without Revolutionaries (Chapter 1) and  

A major improvement in workers' conditions Qatar dismantles kafala system of modern slavery Meanwhile, in a "democracy" it took a union more than a year to reach a collective bargaining agreement .

"One of the most indebted countries in the world, Lebanon is struggling to find fresh sources of funding as the foreign inflows on which it has traditionally relied have dried up. Promises of assistance from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Lebanon’s former benefactors, have largely failed to arrive. The government needs to cut spending, raise taxes and fight corruption to unlock some $11 billion in international aid pledges made at a Paris donor conference in 2018." How Lebanon's Unrest is Both New and More of the Same (Click on Free and continue to website)

The UK universities benefiting from opioid money "Philanthropy" as a facade

What is it? The Advertising Standard Authority (ASA) said the Missguided advert featured "highly sexualised" images and "objectified women", while it told Boohoo to make sure its advertising was "socially responsible". The BBC's research found that on a typical UK High Street fashion retailer's website, 8% of women's modelling images were "racy", compared with 16% for online-only sites. Missguided said: "Our website reflects what appeals to the young women who love to buy from us - sassy, empowered, unafraid of what others think." In a world, "a free market," where almost everything is commodified, who has a monoply on definitions? Is sexualising and commodification of the body confined to fashion advertisement? Is it not one of the values that distinguishes "us," the "liberated", from the Other, but unites us with a commodified/sexualised Colombian or a Japanese?

Here is one of the reasons I once criticised/mocked the American historian Timothy Snyder when he boasted of "the rule of law." He doesn't contextualise that law in class, race and capitalist relations where "big thieves hang small ones."  Jailed for Life for Stealing a $159 Jacket? And 3,200 more serving Life Without Parole