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[The one year anniversary is fast approaching for the media-grabbing arrests of October 15 2007. In connection with that, here is an article written around that time (almost a year ago) summarising some of the issues. The article originally appeared at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0711/S00330.htm and appears here with the author’s permission]
The Solicitor-General’s decision
On the 29th of Oct, […]

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The IMF and WB launched the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative in 1996 to reduce the debt burden of bilateral and multilateral debt for some of the poorest and most heavily indebted countries. Forty one countries are eligible for debt relief under the program. Another program, the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, was launched in 2005 […]

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There are some specific historical factors behind the large debt of developing countries today. Let me note some of these.
Several factors in the 1970s contributed to a substantial rise in sovereign debts owed by developing countries. Non-oil producing developing countries experienced a rising overall trade deficit. The largest share of this deficit was due to […]

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Types of lenders and of loans in sovereign borrowing
The external debt burden of a country is the money owed by private debtors (companies) and by the government to foreign creditors. Roughly 62% of external debt in 2004 was owed publicly and 38% owed privately (CADTM 2005). There are various reasons why a government will borrow. […]

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The WTO was established in 1995 as the successor of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which was created in 1947. Much of the GATT agreements on trade were carried over into the WTO, though there have been changes and additions in rounds of negotiations since then. Let me list the purposes that […]

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