by JIMENA LEDGARD, SANDRA PEREZ, & FLORENCIA PAGOLA
IMAGE/Camillo Freedman for Rest of World
Poaching and coaching novice developers is local startups’ only solution.
For Andrea Campos, founder of the Mexico-based mental health app
Yana, finding developer talent nowadays reminds her of the dating scene
growing up in Cancún.
“If you wanted a boyfriend, you had to accept the hard reality that
the guy you chose had already dated at least one of your friends
before,” Campos told Rest of World. Much like potential dating
partners in a small city, these days senior developers with experience
and skills are a scarce commodity in Latin America, forcing her to flirt
with other startups’ talent, she said. “There is just no option but to
poach from other startups.”
Campos has been on the prowl for a while now. When Rest of World first
met her early last year, Latin American startups and tech companies
were struggling to recruit and retain talent. Her predicament was
exacerbated by the fact that many U.S. companies had taken advantage of
their geographic proximity to the region and outsourced jobs across the
border — one company offered $15,000 a month to one of Campos’ former
developers. “We can’t compete with that,” Campos had told Rest of World in January 2022. Now, she says finding experienced tech workers has become even harder.
Rest of World spoke to 18 entrepreneurs, recruiters, and developers in Mexico, Peru, and Uruguay, all of whom acknowledged that the recent layoffs across the tech sector globally haven’t freed up experienced developers for hire by regional companies. One of the major reasons for this, they say, is that though U.S. companies are tightening their belts, their technical needs remain the same, leading them to look abroad for cheap programming labor. This has forced Latin American startups to become creative in fulfilling their own hiring needs — from training junior employees to poaching more senior programmers from competitors.
The growing problem of crushing medical debt was raised by Senator Bernie Sanders in a national address Tuesday on the American working class. We hear from patients and discuss the fight to stop hospitals from suing patients, garnishing wages and putting liens on homes of people facing medical bills they can’t afford. We are joined by Elisabeth Benjamin, vice president of Health Initiatives at the Community Service Society of New York and co-founder of the Health Care for All New York campaign.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
In a major address Tuesday evening from the U.S. Capitol, independent
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont gave a national address on the state
of America’s working class. He focused in part on the growing problem of
medical debt.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS:
I see — I see a nation where over 85 million of our people are either
uninsured or underinsured. And as all of you know, we are the only major
country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people.
I see a nation where, unbelievably, over 500,000 people go bankrupt
each year because of medically related debt. You got that? You were
sick, you had a cancer operation, and you know what you get? You go
bankrupt as a result. Does that make any sense to anybody?
I see a nation — and we don’t talk about this at all; virtually
nobody talks about this — where over 68,000 people die each year because
they can’t afford the healthcare they need. I have talked to doctor
after doctor, in Vermont and around the country, telling me about
patients who walked in the door terribly ill. And the doctor says, “Why
didn’t you come when your symptoms — when you first felt your symptoms?”
They said, “I don’t have any insurance. I can’t afford to pay it.” And
thousands of thousands of people finally crawl into the doctor’s office,
and it’s too late, and they die, in the United States of America.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Bernie Sanders speaking Tuesday night in a major address on the state of America’s working class. To see the whole address, go to democracynow.org.
But today we’re going to look at how more patients are speaking out
as they struggle with medical debt. The healthcare reform group We the
Patients New York, a project of the Community Service Society, has
spoken to many patients. This is Anthony Calafiura’s story.
ANTHONY CALAFIURA:
So, slightly over a year ago from now, I was committed to the psych
ward after a failed suicide attempt. I was there for 14 days. It
genuinely helped me, until I received my bill afterwards. But,
thankfully, I was under my estranged father’s insurance. But even then
and currently today, I am over $2,000 in debt, and my mother has refused
to help me pay, so I have essentially been forced to kind of figure out
this whole situation by myself.
And when I was committed, I was 17. So, after I got released, when I
tried calling, like, the hospitals, there wasn’t much I could do,
because I was still a minor. And it just felt like a circle, and I never
really got, like, actual advice on what to do.
Now that I’m 18, it’s been like six months since I’ve been released,
so all my debt has been transferred to the debt collection agency.
Nobody around me really knows what to do. And this whole situation has
just been causing me so much stress. It’s like every time I check my
mail, every time I receive an 866 call, which now I know is the debt
collection agency’s number, every time I see a minor text, I’m just
reminded of how much debt I’m in, and it just makes me really anxious,
and it’s been really not good for my mental health, which is why I’m
even in debt in the first place, was to get better.
I think there should be a law changed within the medical system. I
think in schools they should teach you about how insurance works, even
how to manage debt.
For the most part, I’ve just felt really alone, even when there are
23 million Americans in debt, which is, essentially, one in 10
Americans.
In general, the U.S. healthcare system, people shouldn’t have to go
into debt, with like little knowledge on what to do after, just to get
the medical care that they need. People also just shouldn’t be afraid
and resistant to go in to the doctors in fear of the bill that they’re
going to receive after.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is Sherel Wilson talking about her medical debt struggles after getting surgery.
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is El Jones .
Jones is a poet, journalist, professor and activist living in Halifax,
Nova Scotia. She teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University, where she
was named the 15th Nancy’s Chair in Women’s Studies in 2017. Her book is
Abolitionist Intimacies .
Roberto Sirvent: How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social climate?
El Jones: Abolitionist Intimacies is a book
about fighting for the abolition of prisons, borders, and carceral
control across institutions. Focused on Canada, and more specifically on
the province of Nova Scotia, it bears witness to the violences of the
Canadian state that are often buried in our claims to politeness,
diversity, and our mythology of not being “like” the United States.
It is not an “abolition 101” guide explaining political or activist
steps; rather, told across essays, memoir, criticism, poetry, and
journalism, it is a book documenting the voices and resistance of
prisoners, and the frontlines work of those, particularly Black women,
who resist prisons, deportations, and state violence. Based on a decade
of grassroots work with incarcerated people, the book argues that far
from being an academic project, abolition is lived by prisoners, their
families, and working class women.
While the state uses carceral intimacies and forced proximities
against us – the strip search, the recorded phone call, the surveilled
visit – abolitionist intimacies are the acts of collective care and love
that we draw on to organize.
From historical Black communities, to courtrooms, to front line
actions, the book traces the many ways we encounter state violence in
Canada and the strategies we use towards freedom.
What do you hope activists and community organizers will take away from reading your book?
Post 2020, with the mainstream introduction to concepts like
defunding the police and abolition, there have been a number of books
explaining these movements. Abolitionist Intimacies moves
beyond theory to capture the living and lived experiences of those who
are incarcerated or facing state violence, and the deep bonds of love
and relation with those fighting alongside them for liberation.
Ultimately, this is a book about love, and how love is built and
sustained through collective action and organizing. It is a book about
the “women’s work” of organizing, the legacies of colonization,
diasporic life, and the current realities of African Nova Scotia, home
of the oldest Black contact in North America. It is not a step-by-step
guide to activism, but rather, a chronicle of what it is to do and live
this work, with all the doubt, despair, and moments of joy and success
as well.
Stylistically, the book is also an intervention into academia,
offering spoken word, poetry, diary entries, archiving, reporting from
court, and other language strategies to witness and to tell the stories
of those caught in the belly of the beast.
We know readers will learn a lot from your book, but what do you hope readers will un-learn? In other words, is there a particular ideology you’re hoping to dismantle?
Robyn Maynard’s book Policing Black Lives (Fernwood Press, 2017) traced the realities of anti-Black racism and policing in Canada. Following in the wake of that book, Abolitionist Intimacies deconstructs
the ongoing narrative that Canada is kinder, better, and more polite.
In fact, there is a very Canadian way in which anti-Black violence takes
place, buried in bureaucratic systems, absences in policy and data, and
claims to being progressive (what I call the “violence of the
paperwork.”) For U.S. or international readers, the book shatters the
myth that mass incarceration is a largely U.S phenomenon, and that
countries like Canada offer an enviable justice and policing system:
documenting from inside maximum security units, from phone lines in
detention facilities and prisons across Canada, and from the communities
shattered by policing and border violence, the book shows over and over
again the brutality of the Canadian system.
As Joy James (2020) observes, abolition has increasingly become an
academic project divorced from the lives of the overwhelmingly working
class Black people who actually suffer within these systems. Abolitionist Intimacies offers
alternatives to an abolition contained to classrooms, showing the
abolitionist acts of prisoners and their families and communities.
Which intellectuals and/or intellectual movements most inspire your work?
An impala runs away from a cheetah. IMAGE/Valerio Ferraro / REDA&CO/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Survival of the fittest often means survival of the fastest. But fastest doesn’t necessarily mean the fastest moving. It might mean the fastest thinking. When faced with the approach of a powerful predator, for instance, a quick brain can be just as important as quick feet.
After all, it is the brain that tells the feet what to do — when to
move, in what direction, how fast and for how long. And various
additional mental acrobatics are needed to evade an attacker and avoid
being eaten. A would-be meal’s brain must decide whether to run or
freeze, outrun or outwit, whether to keep going or find a place to hide.
It also helps if the brain remembers where the best hiding spots are
and recalls past encounters with similar predators.
All in all, a complex network of brain circuitry must be engaged, and neural commands executed efficiently, to avert a predatory threat. And scientists have spent a lot of mental effort themselves trying to figure out how the brains of prey enact their successful escape strategies. Studies in animals as diverse as mice and crabs, fruit flies and cockroaches are discovering the complex neural activity — in both the primitive parts of the brain and in more cognitively advanced regions — that underlies the physical behavior guiding escape from danger and the search for safety. Lessons learned from such studies might not only illuminate the neurobiology of escape, but also provide insights into how evolution has shaped other brain-controlled behaviors.
This research “highlights an aspect of neuroscience that is really
gaining traction these days,” says Gina G. Turrigiano of Brandeis
University, past president of the Society for Neuroscience. “And that is
the idea of using ethological behaviors — behaviors that really matter
for the biology of the animal that’s being studied — to unravel brain
function.”
Think fast
Escape behavior offers useful insight into the brain’s inner workings
because it engages nervous system networks that originated in the early
days of evolution. “From the moment there was life, there were species
predating on each other and therefore strong evolutionary pressure for
evolving behaviors to avoid predators,” says neuroscientist Tiago Branco
of University College London.
Not all such behaviors involve running away, Branco notes. Rather
than running you might jump or swim. Or you might freeze or play dead.
“Because of the great diversity of species and their habitats and their
predators, there are many different ways of escaping them,” Branco said
in November in San Diego at the 2022 meeting of the Society for
Neuroscience.
Of course, sometimes an animal might choose fight over flight. But unless you’re the king of the jungle (or perhaps a roadrunner much smarter than any wily predatory coyote), fighting might be foolish. When an animal is the prey, escape is typically its best choice. And it needs to choose fast.
From left to right: India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Indonesia’s Ahmed Sukarno, and Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito. PHOTO/Voltaire
The countries promoting the NIEO were solidly anti-Marxist. Unlike Groucho Marx, they wanted to be a member of any club that might have them — specifically, the club of post-World War 2 developed, relatively sovereign nations using controlled domestic economies and particularly financial systems to promote faster industrialization and stable incomes for primary producers and workers more generally.
In essence, by promoting a new deal for recently decolonized nations
and the mostly Latin American countries operating as informal
dependencies under first the British and then the US empire, the NIEO
group sought to generate a global equivalent of the US New Deal. The New
Deal famously legitimized collective bargaining, stabilized
agricultural production and prices while also subsidizing incomes, and
funded a massive developmental upgrading of the US American internal
periphery. In essence, the NIEO proponents sought to expand that
post-war ‘fordist’ regulated economy to a global scale, just as
immigrant and racial minorities sought access to stable income and
employment inside developed country labor markets. Those minorities
wanted western democracies to live up to their promises of equality for
all citizens; NIEO proponents wanted western democracies to live up to
the unfulfilled promises of the 1944 Bretton Woods conference and
post-colonial sovereign equality.
This was not a forlorn hope for three reasons. First, the NIEO was at some level economically rational. Second,
the Bretton Woods architects had considered and approved proposals like
those of the NIEO already, though they were never implemented. Third,
in the specific conjuncture of the early 1970s, rich countries’
internal political struggle over how to cope with the contradictions of
the post-war regulated economies was still unsettled, opening room for a
set of global compromises mirroring the earlier ones in rich
countries.
The rationality of the NIEO
The NIEO was economically rational for the same reasons the New Deal
was economically rational. The continuous flow, assembly line-based mass
production system that emerged in the US in the 1920s and 1930s
required both stable demand and stable production to be profitable. Mass
production systems were in principle extremely efficient and productive
relative to craft production. But massive investment in specialized
capital goods underwrote that productivity. And that massive investment
could only be profitable if it ran more or less continuously at full
capacity, so as to maximize economies of scale. The New Deal sought to
create an institutional framework that would stabilize both demand and
production.
Mass production required stability and predictability overall, as
Aldous Huxley’s famous parody Brave New World emphasized. Continuous
flow production can only work on the supply side if all required inputs
arrive in the right quantities and quality, at the right time and the
right place, to be assembled by workers with the right skills. One of
the most important skills was tolerance for the extreme monotony and
fast pace of assembly line work. Continuous flow production could only
be profitable if that stable output more or less met stable purchasing
power, and moreover purchasing power at a level that could accommodate
the expense of what were in essence capital goods for households, like
cars and refrigerators.
The New Deal accomplished much of this at a domestic level. Unions
for a largely white, male industrial labor force in the US American
northeast and northern Midwest stabilized wages, while routinized
collective bargaining assured that wages grew in line with increased
productivity. Stable, higher wages and an expanding welfare state
enabled those workers to buy cars and houses on credit. Cars and houses
were the motors of post-war growth. But virtually every economic sector
was the object of stabilizing regulation including, most importantly,
financial flows. The Agricultural Adjustment Act stabilized farm output
and income, which helped transform agriculture into a more predictable
industrial enterprise closely linked to the vehicle and chemical
industries — Ford designed the Model T as a multi-purpose farm vehicle.
Federal legislation and the Texas Railroad Commission stabilized oil
prices and quantities domestically, while the seven biggest US and
British oil firms regulated global production. And regulations and
plethora of special credit facilities channeled predictable capital to
farmers, electrical power utilities, municipalities, defense
contractors, and most significantly, the housing market. Finally, the US
government brought electricity to the US periphery with three massive
public hydropower projects: TVA in the southeast, the Columbia River
projects in the northwest, and the Colorado river projects — primarily
the Hoover Dam — in the southwest.
The approval of the Bretton Woods architects
The impending Allied victory in World War 2 opened a space for the
United States to export some or all of this system to the rest of the
world, given US productive superiority. (Russians won the war with
blood; US Americans with sweat; Britons with tears for their empire).
The 1944 Bretton Woods conference saw 44 free and occupied nations,
including delegations from some colonies promised post-war independence,
try to design a stable international economic order under the new
United Nations. The US and Britain dominated the talks, but various
would-be industrializers like Canada, Australia and India — the last
still a British colony, the first two only semi-sovereign, but all
crucial for Britain’s war effort — added a strong developmentalist
element to the debates.
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We’wha, a Lhamana (Zuni Two Spirit) individual, took on both male and
female tasks as a Zuni cultural ambassador and pottery and textile
artist. Also a spiritual leader, We’wha endeavored to preserve the
history, traditions, and knowledge of the Zuni people.
We’wha was born into the Zuni tribe around 1849 in what is today New
Mexico. We’wha’s mother was a member of the donashi:kwe clan (Badger
People) and We’wha’s father was part of the bichi:kwe clan (Dogwood
People). Orphaned as an infant (possibly the result of a smallpox
epidemic) We’wha and their brother were adopted by a paternal aunt.
We’wha remained part of their mother’s clan but maintained lifelong
ceremonial ties their father’s clan. We’wha’s adopted family was wealthy
and influential among the Zuni. Their position gave We’wha
opportunities to gain special ceremonial knowledge and take part in
revered cultural rituals.
Though born a male-bodied person, community members recognized that
We’wha demonstrated traits associated with the lhamana as early as age
three or four. In Zuni culture, lhamana (now more often described with
the pan-Indian term “Two Spirit”) were male-bodied individuals who took
on social and ceremonial roles generally performed by women. They
usually, though not exclusively, wore women’s clothing and mostly took
up labors associated with women. Lhamana constituted a
socially-recognized third gender role within the tribe and often held
positions of honor in the community.
We’wha received some instruction specific to men, but largely trained
under their female relatives, learning critical skills for domestic
tasks, such as how to grind and prepare corn. We’wha also studied
crafts. Taught by a kinswoman who was an expert in ceramics, We’wha
trained for years to master the elements of the pottery, many of which
held ceremonial importance. We’wha became a skilled weaver (usually a
male role), learning different looms in order to make blankets, belts,
and sashes. We’wha became known for their talent as a craftsperson,
during a period (approximately 1848-1880) in which Pueblo textiles,
particularly those in the distinctive Zuni style, flourished. We’wha was
among the first Zuni to sell their pottery and textiles, helping to
bolster Indian arts more widely.
We’wha was a member of the men’s kachina society, which performed
ritual masked dances. We’wha also joined the medicine society,
beshatsilo:kwe (Bedbug People) after a shaman cured them of an ailment.
Membership in these societies enabled We’wha to further their knowledge
of Zuni lore and ceremonies. We’wha mastered the demanding memorization
as well as the improvisational skills necessary to impart the tribal
tales and stories that were part of Zuni rituals.
During We’wha’s childhood, the Zuni lived under threat of Navajo and
Apache raids. As a result, they relied heavily on diplomacy, allying
themselves with the Americans through the 1850s and 1860s for security
purposes. However, the Zuni remained culturally and socially isolated
from Americans until the 1870s. At that time, Anglo and Hispanic herders
began to encroach on Zuni lands and Protestant missionaries arrived,
determined to convert the Zuni to Christianity.
In 1879, the U.S. government’s newly created Bureau of Ethnology sent an expedition to collect artifacts and record the customs of the Zuni people. Anthropologist Matilda Coxe Stevenson, the wife of expedition leader James Stevenson, was immediately taken with We’wha, after encountering them working for the local missionaries. Stevenson was impressed by We’wha’s extensive knowledge of Zuni history and culture, describing them as “the most intelligent person in the pueblo.”
but the Dec 30 2022 release was cancelled after a threat from MNS party
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) leader Ameya Khopkar tweeted:
“There are plans to release Pakistani actor Fawad Khan’s Pakistani film ‘The Legend of Maula Jatt’ in India. It is most infuriating that an Indian company is leading this plan. Following Raj* Saheb’s orders we will not let this film release anywhere in India.”
*Raj Thackeray, Bal Thackeray’s nephew, is a rogue politician like his uncle
late Bal Thackeray’s Shiv Sena, now run by his son, is not any better
on Jan 6, 2023, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath was in Mumbai
he was there to tell film people that his state is opening up a Film City
he also offered subsidies if they shoot movies in his state
“The hashtag that’s going on, boycott Bollywood, yeh ruk bhi sakta hai aapke kehne se (it can stop if you say). It is important to spread the word that we are doing good work. One rotten apple is everywhere, but just because of that you can’t call the whole industry rotten. Today people think that Bollywood is not a good place, but we have made such good films here. I was a part of one such film too, when I did Border. I have been a part of many good films. We have to come together and work towards how we can get rid of the Boycott Bollywood hashtag. We have to figure how we can stop this trend.”
“Today, if I am Suniel Shetty, it is because of UP and the fans from there. If you take the lead, this can definitely happen. It is of great importance that this stigma that is on us is gone. It is a very strong emotion for me. Dukh hota hai bolne me ke humaare pe yeh stigma hai (it pains me to tell that there is this stigma on us) because 99% of us are not like that. Hum din bhar drugs nahi lete, hum galat kaam nahi karte (We don’t do drugs whole day, we don’t do wrong work). Hum achhe kaam se jude hai (We are associated with good work). Bharat ko agar bahar ke desho se kisi ne joda hai toh woh hai humaara music (Bollywood music has connected India with the world), and our stories. So, Yogi ji if you take the lead and talk to our beloved Prime Minister about it, it will make a huge difference.”
Shetty could have said:
drugs’ harmful effect is limited to a few people in our film industry
whereas you and your BJP party hate is destroying our country
it is about that hate that Pakistani actress Mahira Khan said:
“I had the most amazing time working in India. I am still in touch with so many people and there’s a lot of love there. Unfortunately, we are easy targets, soft targets, whether it’s us here in Pakistan, whether it’s them there in India.” “Because we’re artists, and we’re connected by that thread of art, we actually get each other. So we’re trying to look out for each other, more than anything. Even now, we are so careful with what we write on social media. It’s not that we don’t talk to each other. It’s not that we don’t wish each other on our birthdays. It’s not that we don’t meet each other in different countries. It’s not that – it’s just that we are actually not just protecting ourselves but protecting each other.”
“Unfortunately, it’s politics, it’s not a personal thing. On both ends, until the time that scapegoats are needed, we will always be that.” “But let’s say that it gets better. Let’s say that there is someone in power who does not use us as easy targets. That would be lovely. Can you just imagine the collaboration? It would be lovely.”
The debate over how people first arrived in the Western Hemisphere continues to roil archaeology in the United States – and to capture public attention. Today, the scientific community is contending with significant amounts of new genetic and archaeological data, and it can be overwhelming and even contradictory. These data are coming from new archaeological excavations but also from the application of newly developed tools to re-analyse prior sites and artefacts. They’re coming from newly sequenced genomes from ancient peoples and their contemporary descendants, but also from re-analysis of prior sequence data using new modelling tools. The generation of new data at times feels as though it’s outpacing efforts to integrate it into coherent and testable models.
Did humans first populate the Americas 100,000 years ago, 30,000 years ago, 15,000 years ago, or 13,000 years
ago? Did they come by boat or by an overland route? Were the ancestors
of Native Americans from one population or several? The answers to these
questions would help us understand the grand story of human evolution.
We know that the Americas were the last continents that anatomically modern Homo sapiens
– humans like us – entered, but we don’t know exactly how this
happened. These long-ago movements give us hints about the challenges
ancient peoples across the world had to contend with during the Last
Glacial Maximum (LGM), a prolonged period of coldness and aridity, when
animals, plants and humans retreated to environmental ‘refugia’ for
several thousand years. How did we survive this Ice Age? What
technological and biological adaptations arose as the result of these
environmental conditions? These questions capture the popular
imagination and challenge the scientists working to uncover the details
of individual lives thousands of years in the past.
To their Indigenous descendants, the stories we tell about these First Peoples of the Americas are highly relevant for additional reasons. Their deep ties and claims to the lands have often been ignored or expunged by governments, media and corporations across North and South America in order to make room for narratives that are more palatable, exciting or convenient to certain non-Native groups. The historical exclusion of Indigenous peoples from making decisions about research on their own ancestors and lands has caused significant harms to Native communities and individuals; when Native scientists and community members are full participants in the research process, the stories that emerge are not only more respectful but also more accurate.
Archaeological evidence establishes that Indigenous peoples were present in the Americas at least 15,000 years ago. Scientists don’t agree, however, on when people first arrived. Some archaeologists claim it must have been much, much farther back, citing evidence such as flaked stones in layers dating to ~30,000 years ago at the Chiquihuite Cave site in Mexico, bones with cut marks in layers dating to 34,000 years ago in Uruguay, flaked stones in layers dating to 30,000-50,000 years ago in Brazil, and even broken mastodon bones dating to 130,000 years ago in California. All of these claims are heavily disputed.
As a rule, an archaeological site won’t gain widespread acceptance as legitimate unless there is clear evidence of human activity, that evidence can be securely dated, and it is found in an undisturbed geological context. For example, a hearth containing the remains of charred animal bone fragments and stone tool fragments at the Dry Creek site in Eastern Beringia (near the present-day Denali National Park in Alaska) was dated to 13,485-13,365 years ago from wood charcoal pieces taken from within the hearth. The stone tools – resharpened blades, flakes, end scrapers, and the byproducts of manufacturing them – and repeated controlled fires used to cook animal bones clearly indicate a human presence. The intact stratigraphy and multiple independent radiocarbon dates from the hearth tell us when people were using this particular part of the site. To archaeologists, this is uncontroversial. In contrast to the Dry Creek site, there is no consensus that the very early sites discussed above have met that standard; critics argue that the stone ‘artefacts’ and ‘butchering’ marks could be the result of natural phenomena (or even, in some cases, left by modern construction equipment). There simply hasn’t been any uncontroversial physical evidence of a human presence in the Americas more than 15,500 years ago.
Data suggests that US dollar reserves in central banks are dwindling, as is the influence of the US on the world economy. This presents a unique opportunity for regional currencies and alternative payment systems to enter the vacuum.
The imposition of US trade restrictions and
sanctions against a number of nations, including Russia, Iran, Cuba,
North Korea, Iraq, and Syria have been politically ineffectual and have
backfired against western economies. As a result, the US dollar has been
losing its role as a major currency for the settlement of international
business claims.
Because they do not adhere to the policies of the US and other western powers, over 24 countries
have been the target of unilateral or partial trade sanctions. These
limitations, nevertheless, have turned out to be detrimental to the
economies of the Group of Seven (G7) nations and have begun to impact
the US dollar’s hegemony in world trade.
In its space, a “new global commercial bloc”
has risen to the fore, while alternatives to the western SWIFT banking
messaging system for cross-border payments have also been created.
Geopolitical analyst Andrew Korybko tells The Cradle that the west’s extraordinary penalties and seizure of Russian assets abroad broke faith
in the western-centric paradigm of globalization, which had been
declining for years but had nonetheless managed to maintain the world
standard.
“Rising multipolar countries sped up their
plans for de-dollarization and diversification away from the
western-centric model of globalization in favor of a more democratic,
egalitarian, and just one – centered on non-western countries in
response to these economic and financial disturbances,” he adds.
Dwindling dollar reserves
The International Monetary Fund
(IMF) recorded a decline in central bank holdings of US dollar reserves
during the fourth quarter of 2020—which went from 71 percent to 59
percent—reflecting the US dollar’s waning influence on the world
economy.
And it continues to worsen: Evidence of this can be seen in the fact that the bank’s holdings of dollar claims have decreased from $7 trillion in 2021 to $6.4 trillion at the end of March 2022.
According to the Currency Composition of
Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) report by the IMF, the
percentage of US dollars in central bank reserves has decreased by 12
percent since 1999, while the percentage of other currencies,
particularly the Chinese yuan, have shown an increasing trend with a 9
percent rise during this period.
The study contends that the role of the
dollar is waning due to competition from other currencies held by the
bankers’ banks for international transactions – including the
introduction of the euro – and reveals that this will have an impact on
both the currency and bond markets if dollar reserves continue to
shrink.
Alternative currencies and trade routes
To boost global commerce and Indian exports, the Reserve Bank of India
(RBI) devised in July last year a rupee-settlement mechanism to fend
off pressure on the Indian currency in the wake of Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine and US-EU sanctions.
India has recently concluded agreements
for currency exchanges of $75.4 billion with the UAE, Japan, and
various South Asian nations. New Delhi has also informed South Korea and
Turkey of its non-dollar-mediated exchange rates for each country’s
currency. Currently, Turkey conducts business utilizing the national
currencies of China (yuan) and Russia (ruble).
Iran has also proposed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) a euro-like SCO currency for trade among the Eurasian bloc to
check the weaponization of the US dollar-dominated global financial
system.
Mehdi Safari, Iran’s deputy foreign
minister for economic diplomacy, informed the media earlier in June last
year that the SCO received the proposal nearly two months ago.
“They must use multilateral institutions
like BRICS and the SCO to this aim – and related ones, such as currency
pools and potentially even the establishment of a new currency whose
rate is based on a basket of their currencies, to mitigate the effects
of trade-related restrictions,” Korybko remarked.
The International North-South Transport Corridor
(INSTC) is being revived as a “sanctions-busting” project by Russia and
Iran. The INSTC garnered renewed interest following the “sanctions from
hell” imposed by the west on Moscow. Russia is now finalizing
regulations that will allow Iranian ships free navigation along the
Volga and Don rivers.
The INSTC
was planned as a 7,200 km long multimodal transportation network
including sea, road, and rail lines to carry freight between Russia,
Central Asia, and the Caspian regions.
Ruble-Yuan Payment System
On 30 December, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a video conference in which Putin reported that bilateral trade between the two countries had reached an all-time high with a 25 percent growth rate and that trade volumes were on track to reach $200 billion by next year, despite western sanctions and a hostile external environment.