An ICIJ Investigation: Based upon the most expansive leak of tax haven files in history, the investigation reveals the secret deals and hidden assets of more than 330 politicians and high-level public officials in more than 90 countries and territories, including 35 country leaders. The Pandora Papers lays bare the global entanglement of political power and secretive offshore finance.

ICIJ obtained more than 11.9 million financial records, containing 2.94 terabytes of confidential information from 14 offshore service providers, enterprises that set up and manage shell companies and trusts in tax havens around the globe. ICIJ shared the files with 150 media partners, launching the broadest collaboration in journalism history. For nearly two years, ICIJ organized and led an investigation that grew to encompass more than 600 journalists in 117 countries and territories.

Read more about it: Pandora Papers – ICIJ

Deeply diverging recoveries threaten to undermine trust and solidarity and make the world more vulnerable to future crises, including climate change. In response the UN and ILO have established a ‘Global Accelerator’ to help ensure global financing to create 400 million jobs and extend social protection to 4 billion people currently without coverage.

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20 ans après Durban, les Africains et les Afro-descendants sont ils toujours colonisés ou émancipés? 
http://fondation-frantzfanon.com/20-ans-apres-durban-africains-et-afro-descendants-colonises-ou-emancipes/

An article from the Frantz Fanon Foundation

A much-anticipated report from UN Secretary-General António Guterres backs the call for a renewed social contract, setting out an ambitious plan for multilateral action to address the multiple crises facing the world.

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Five years ago, the G20 launched the ‘Compact with Africa’. It turned out to be just another iteration of neoliberal imperialism

by Martin Tsounkeu

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A very interesting discussion, organized by The Great Transition, of utmost importance for the World Social Forum:

https://greattransition.org/gti-forum/can-human-solidarity-globalize

por Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Los ciudadanos y las ciudadanas no están hartos de la política, sino de esta política; la inmensa mayoría de la ciudadanía no se moviliza políticamente ni sale a la calle a manifestarse, pero está llena de rabia en casa y simpatiza con los que se manifiestan; en general, no se afilian a partidos ni participan en movimientos sociales ni están interesados en hacerlo, pero cuando salen a la calle solo sorprenden a las élites políticas que han perdido el contacto con “las bases”.

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por Oscar Gonzalez

Ahora, en los tiempos que corren, no solo la tierra, el fuego, el agua; también el aire, la atmósfera y los cuerpos astrales pueden ser objeto de apropiación privada. Star Wars anticipa ya las nuevas guerras intergalácticas por la dominación de los espacios interestelares. En la realidad material pura y simple, Jeff Bezos compite con sus rivales, Richard Bronson e Elon Musk, por la nueva apropiación privada no ya de tierras o mares, sino de espacios abiertos.

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by Francine Mestrum

The Washington Consensus has been declared dead many times. But austerity policies and reform programmes keep being introduced in too many countries. Today, a new ‘social contract’ is being proposed, but what does it mean?

Article in Fr: https://wsimag.com/fr/economie-et-politique/65853-la-mort-presumee-du-consensus-de-washington

 Artículo en Esp:   https://wsimag.com/es/economia-y-politica/66325-la-presunta-muerte-del-consenso-de-washington

Article in Eng: https://wsimag.com/economy-and-politics/66283-whither-the-washington-consensus

One of the sharp dividing lines that have been running through all leftist and progressive movements for decades is related to the State. It is necessarily good for all those who consider change only possible by seizing power within a sovereign State, it is necessarily evil for those who consider it impossible that the raison d’être of the State can coincide with the interests of the people.

The central role of the State is today again under strong attack from two different progressive directions.

At this moment, a Zapa-group is touring Europe, a delegation of Mexican neo-Zapatistas who are organising a ‘reverse invasion’ and are coming here to talk to all kinds of social movements. One of their beliefs is ‘community autonomy’, and although they are not entirely averse to participating in national electoral processes, they mainly promote the plurinational State that offers room for various cultures. In this way, they connect with various movements in Europe and Asia that denounce the hegemony and arbitrariness of nation states.

Another starting point is the failure of multilateralism in a world order that can no longer be of this time. The solution then lies not only in a return to the subnational level, but in a democratisation of both local and supranational institutions.

This is the thesis of the author of the book ‘Opening to Omnilateralism. Democratic governance for all, from local to global with stakeholders‘. Wolfgang Pape is a former civil servant of the European Commission and European Union diplomat with extensive experience in Japan and work for the ‘cellule prospective’ that Commission President Delors set up to look at the future.