Palestine, a History of the Resistance – Interview with Journalist Marwa Osman in Lebanon

Journalist Vanessa Beeley, Syria

October 23, 2023

Osman is a University Lecturer at the Lebanese International University and Maaref University.

“Western Supremacy will eventually create a global resistance movement.” – Marwa Osman

[Marwa Osman is a mother of three. She holds PhD in Management on the “Effect of Intergenerational Differences on Workplace Productivity in Lebanon” from the Doctoral School of the Lebanese University, and two master’s degree on “The Effect of politics on the Foreign Direct Investment in Lebanon” from the Lebanese University, and on “Applying Knowledge Management in a Media Institution” from the Lebanese University. She is also a member of the Blue Peace Media Network for trans-boundary water management in the Middle East. Osman is a University Lecturer at the Lebanese International University and Maaref University. She hosts and produces the political show The MidEaStream. She is a writer and her comments on issues of West Asia on several international and regional media outlets are published by various outlets.]

The Global South is Pro-Palestinian

Middle Nation

Before Collapse, Credit Suisse Quietly Conquered an Obscure Debt Market – Debt-for-nature Swaps

Bloomberg

March 21, 2023

By Natasha White

Image source: Carbon Credits website, November 9, 2022, “Debt-for-Nature Swaps Are Drawing Attention, Carbon Credits Play A Role”

The failure of the Swiss bank leaves a hole in the debt-for-nature market that analysts said could one day exceed $800 billion.

The collapse of Credit Suisse isn’t just worrying for the global financial system. It’s a banking crisis that also has real consequences for the fight against environmental degradation.

Before its rescue by Swiss rival UBS, Credit Suisse had quietly become a major player in an obscure market that purports to help developing countries ease their debt burdens in exchange for protecting nature. Known as debt-for-nature swaps, the complex financial instruments help governments restructure their debt to raise money that can be used to fund conservation efforts.

Credit Suisse was the sole structurer and arranger of the world’s largest debt-for-nature swap, a $364 million deal that it orchestrated in 2021 along with The Nature Conservancy, a charity, for Belize. Last year, it sealed another $150 million deal for Barbados.

The deals were likely a good source of profits for the bank, according to Daniel Munevar, an economic affairs officer at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The Belize deal was “free money for Credit Suisse because they hold no risk whatsoever,” he said. Part of the transaction was insured by the US International Development Finance Corp., which agreed to effectively cover payments if Belize defaulted. Credit Suisse helped design a similar instrument for Barbados, this time backed by the Inter-American Development Bank and TNC.

Officials from Belize, Barbados and TNC said that Credit Suisse’s troubles would have no impact on their existing debt-for-nature arrangements. But any new debt-swap deals that Credit Suisse may have had in the works “will not happen any time soon,” said Munevar.

While debt-for-nature swaps have been around since the 1980s, Credit Suisse has in recent years helped revive interest in the instruments and for the first time opened them up to institutional capital. The bank raised money for Belize and Barbados from pension funds including Sweden’s Alecta and Nuveen LLC, a unit of the US’s TIAA, by issuing so-called blue bonds tied to the deals.

Image source: Carbon Credits website, November 9, 2022, “Debt-for-Nature Swaps Are Drawing Attention, Carbon Credits Play A Role”

To do so, Credit Suisse developed complicated structures involving multiple “special purpose vehicles” responsible for payments that stand alone from the bank after the deal is closed, according to a sustainable bond investor with close knowledge of debt-nature swaps who asked not to be named. Those SPVs will probably insulate borrowers and investors from any fallout from Credit Suisse’s sale, the person said.

The convoluted setup has drawn criticism from sovereign debt experts for its high cost and lack of transparency. And the opaque terms of the Belize and Barbados deals — the first of their kind — mean outside analysts will struggle to assess precisely what comes next.

“We’re feeling around in a dark room,” said Sean Newman, a private investment adviser and former chief investment officer of Sagicor Group, a financial services conglomerate in the Caribbean. “It’s certainly very unprecedented and uncertain times. There may be a gap that will be created and the question then is: Who is going to take that?”

UBS, which declined to comment on the future of Credit Suisse’s debt-for-nature swaps, has indicated it plans to shrink the latter’s investment banking arm.

“Credit Suisse stands by the structures for these transactions, which deliver tangible benefits, as well as their transparency,” the bank said in a statement. “Credit Suisse continues to operate in its ordinary course of business and any suggestion otherwise is false and misleading.”

Several other countries have signaled they’re interested in debt-for nature swaps. Gabon, the world’s fourth most-forested nation, has proposed a $700 million restructuring to protect its marine life. Ecuador is working on an $800 million transaction, Reuters reported, and Sri Lanka is considering a $1 billion deal. Analysts expect the global debt-for-nature swaps market to eventually exceed $800 billion.

The instrument could be a crucial tool for poor countries struggling to find a way to repay debt and protect against nature loss. Thirty-seven low-income countries are currently in or at high risk of debt distress, according to the World Bank. A total of 18 emerging markets have dollar-denominated sovereign debt trading at distressed levels, according to data compiled in a Bloomberg index.Image text: “This project will harness the power of private finance to drive a fundamental change in how we approach conservation by focussing on measuring impact.”

Credit Suisse was also experimenting with other tools to help developing countries fund environmental protection. It was the sole structurer and joint book runner on the World Bank’s $150 million “Rhino bond,” a unique instrument designed to fund the protection of black rhinos in South Africa. The bank had also committed to spend 300 billion Swiss francs ($324 billion) on sustainable finance activities by 2030.

“Anytime there is a bank failure of this magnitude it has a ripple effect across the world,” said Ryan Straughn, an official in Barbados’ finance and economic affairs ministry. “The world cannot afford a financial crisis on top of the climate crisis.”

— With assistance by Sydney Maki and Antony Sguazzin

WATCH: Negating Colonial Lies About Russia

Streamed live on March 20, 2022.

Continued discussion on Russia’s defensive war in Ukraine against the global colonial powers.

“The attitude of the Russians were quite different because they are not attitudes that were born, that came from, [that] developed from slavery and colonialism like you find in the so-called West where the colonialism and slavery has its origins, and that continues to dominate the consciousness of white people, here, now. That’s why you see the white left, the so-called leftists in the United States, they are white nationalists. Most of them are like colonialist leftists. They are left colonizers and they’re not, generally speaking, able to unite against the oppression of the peoples of the world – including unite with Russia in this defensive war that is fighting against the United States through Ukraine…

This propaganda against Russia extends beyond just the war – the Russian people are being targeted in various places in the free world, in the colonial world. The fact of the matter is that this left, this left that comrade Tasha is talking about, this left that supports Ukraine,
is the same left that Lenin was criticizing more than a hundred years ago. It’s the same left. It’s an opportunist left. It’s a colonial base left. So it’s nothing new with how this left is acting. In the United States, or in much of Europe. This left supported French colonialism. At the same time the French claimed to be fighting against colonialism, fascism, in the 1940s – they were oppressing and killing black people in in Algeria – and and they continued to control something like fifteen different countries in Africa today under colonialism. And the communists of those countries supported that. They worked with that. So there’s a difference in a struggle against colonialism. If you don’t understand that – that the entire foundation of so-called western civilization rests upon colonial domination of Black people and other oppressed peoples around the world – that’s why we stand with Russia.”  — Chairman Omali Yeshitela

 

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Chairman Omali Yeshitela, African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), Alexander Ionov, President, Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, LIVE from Moscow, Luwezi Kinshasa, Secretary General, African Socialist International (ASI) and Tafarie Mugeri, Director of Organization, ASI Africa Region.

WATCH: Russia & Ukraine – What’s Really Happening? [Feb 23, 2022]

LISTEN: Dr. Mordecai Ogada – A Case for Scrutinizing the Climate Narrative

Death in the Garden

November 13, 2021

Podcasts by Jake Marquez and Maren Morgan

“On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” as COP26 ends in Glasgow, Jake and Maren share their second interview with Dr. Mordecai Ogada, carnivore ecologist, activist for the Decolonization of Conservation, and co-author of The Big Conservation Lie. In our previous conversation with Mordecai, he mentioned the “Our Land, Our Nature” congress in Marseille, which we were lucky enough to attend and acquire this interview in person. This time we go deep into speculating about the more nefarious side of the global climate change narrative, including the obsession with the fertility of African women, the prospect of protected areas being refuges for elites, the establishment of decentralized colonies headed by colonizing NGOs, and conservation being a smoke screen for extraction and industry.

In a time where there are so many “solutions” being thrown up in the air about climate change, we feel it is very important to question everything and consider every detail. Where is the money coming from, and where is it going? Listen to Mordecai Ogada make the case for increasing our scrutiny of conservation NGOs, and demanding accountability and transparency for their dealings, as well as the narrative of climate change as a whole.”

WATCH: The New Financial Markets on Nature’s Destruction Explained to my Grandmother – Frederic Hache

Published November 24, 2020

“This video summarizes the below reports: – 50 shades of green part II: the fallacy of environmental markets – 50 shades of green part III: sustainable finance 2.0″ [Source: Green Finance Observatory] [Download: 50-shades-biodiversity-final]

“This [] illustrates why protection of nature based on a price mechanism is more unstable than protection based on law.” — Frederic Hache

[Frédéric Hache is a financial expert. He worked for twelve years in investment banking, selling and structuring currency derivatives. After that he was head of policy analysis at the NGO Finance Watch for six years, analysing EU legislation linked to systemic risks / financial stability. He now heads the Belgian think tank Green Finance Observatory, lectures in sustainable finance at Science Po Paris, works as a freelance expert on sustainable finance and environmental markets and is pursuing a PhD in political economy. His research interests are about market-based solutions applied to environmental and social policies. They include natural capital, carbon and biodiversity markets, catastrophe bonds and sustainable finance.]

WATCH: White Saviors and Latin America: Profiting from Humanitarianism

ANTICONQUISTA

August 22, 2021

“ANTICONQUISTA will discuss the recent news coming out of Latin America. There are few if any media sites that provide an overview of what’s happening in Latin America especially for those of us in the diaspora. The omission and separation of our people from what is happening in the homelands is intentional. It alienates us from our people and from knowing the abuses and exploitation going on day to day. Our new program seeks to provide a roundup of news in Latin America to make those connections between our people. Continue to support ANTICONQUISTA and the work we do on Patreon and our website where we post articles. All of our money raised goes to funding anti-imperialist movements in or allied with Latin America. https://www.patreon.com/anticonquista https://anticonquista.com/“.

Defending Latin America’s Resistance Axis

Tortilla con Sal

August 2, 2021

By Stephen Sefton

Early in July this year Hezbollah’s Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke to a conference in which he outlined the main elements of the region’s Resistance Axis’ media and communications strategy. He stressed the rightness of the Resistance cause challenging Western imperialism, in particular Israel’s genocidal, colonialist settler occupation of Palestine. He pointed out the strength, unity and resilience of the Axis, led by Iran and Syria, but including Hezbollah itself and allied movements in Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Yemen. Nasrallah also emphasized the importance of the Resistance Axis leadership’s determination to report the facts of events in the region truthfully with rigorously honesty when offering analysis.

Together moral right and political strength, truthful reporting and analytic honesty have created and nurtured deep, broadly based, committed support across the region. Few observers doubt that the Resistance cause will ultimately triumph in Syria and Palestine, given the relentless relative decline of US and allied imperial power relative to Russia and China and the steadfastness of Iran and Syria. The formidable unity and solidarity of the movements successfully challenging the US and Israel in Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Yemen offer lessons essential for their resistance counterparts in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Sayyed Nasrallah’s remarks have particular relevance to the Resistance Axis composed of the ALBA countries led by Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela whose governments all strongly support Iran and Syria. In varying degrees, these countries have also long suffered relentless aggression from the United States, its allies and regional proxies, in Cuba’s case for over sixty years. Nasrallah’s criteria defnitely apply to the experience of this bloc of resistance to US and allied imperialism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The moral right of these countries is founded on their historic struggle against imperial domination and on the fundamental principles of modern international law, namely, non-aggression and the right to self determination. To circumvent that profund moral right the US and its allies seek to apply their own illegal “rules based order” applying all kinds of aggression on the basis of false accusations of human rights violations processed through the corrupt institutions of the United Nations and the Organization of American States. As in the case of Palestine and wider West Asia, this genocidal Western aggression is driven by profound nostalgia for the era of unlimited colonial and neocolonial domination.

The moral right of the ALBA countries to their resistance is undeniable and so too is the formidable political strength, unity and resilience they have mobilized to defend their cause against relentless economic, diplomatic, media and psychological warfare, domestic terror and even military attack. Over centuries, all these countries’ peoples have resisted foreign domination. Cuba’s Revolution triumphed in 1959 and has resisted Yankee and allied onslaught and destabilization for over 60 years. Likewise, Venezuela since Comandante Chávez became president in 1998 and Bolivia since Evo Morales was elected president in 2006, have also endured relentless US and allied hostility and aggression. Nicaragua has been the target of US intervention ever since the Sandinista Front for National Liberation overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in 1979.

Despite everything the US and its allies have attempted in recent years, these countries have stood firm in defense of their right to self-determination. In their case too, the combination of moral right, political strength and unity, truthful reporting and honest analysis has consolidated not only solid domestic support to resist US and allied aggression, but also national consensus rejecting neoliberal policies promoting corporate greed, in favor of socialist development programs focused on the needs of the human person. The frustration and desperation of the US, its allies and their regional mercenaries and proxies will certainly intensify as their efforts continue failing to break down broad popular support for the ALBA countries’s governments. All four governments are now well aware of the methods deployed by the US and its allies to carry out their wildly misnamed “soft coups”.

To expose, disarm and defeat the increasingly desperate imperialist campaigns of aggression effectively, the Resistance Axis led by Iran and Syria has shown the importance of ever closer unity and coordination between governments, popular movements, media outlets and all expressions of popular consciousness and awareness. Nicaragua has not suffered the same economic and military aggression as Cuba and Venezuela, but its leadership, especially Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, have been subjected to perhaps an even more systematic and comprehensive campaign of demonization, as intense as that against Muammar al Gaddhafi prior to and during the destruction of Libya. In fact, most progressive and even anti-imperialist media outlets and intellectuals tended to accept at face value the false imperialist media account of the failed coup attempt in 2018.

However, by telling the truth honestly in the most determined way, Nicaragua’s government has largely overcome the concerted psychological warfare campaign deployed against it, preserving and reinforcing support and solidarity where it is most needed, both among Nicaragua’s people and internationally in bodies like the Foro Sao Paulo. The government’s dignified, forceful and persistent presentation of the country’s reality at a diplomatic level has successfully defeated efforts by the US and its allies to isolate the country. Similarly, good faith reporting by international organizations, like the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Panamerican Health Organization, UNESCO, or even the World Bank, on their work with Nicaragua consistently contradicts claims by the corrupt human rights organizations of the UN and the OAS that the country’s government is a repressive dictatorship denying basic rights to its people.

The failed coup attempt in Nicaragua in 2018, the coup in Bolivia in 2019, continuing constant aggression of all kinds against Venezuela and, most recently, the US organized and funded protests in Cuba and the accompanying intensification of the blockade, are all part of what Stella Calloni and other writers have identified as the new Plan Condor. This reality is very well understood by now, both across the region and increasingly among the anti-imperialist movements in North America and Europe. As Sayyed Nasrallah has explained in the context of occupied Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, by persistently reporting events in the region truthfully and analyzing them honestly our governments and popular movements can build and consolidate the moral and political strength and unity necessary to overcome the US and its allies and achieve the definitive Second Independence of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Nicaragua – Varieties of Neocolonial Solidarity

Tortilla con Sal,

TeleSUR

July 7, 2021

View of the facade of the Organization of American States (OAS), today, in Washington (United States). | Photo: EFE

[Stephen Sefton is a member of the Tortilla con Sal collective based in Nicaragua]