Marjory Wentworth was a student in the very first class I ever taught at Mount Holyoke College. She is now the Poet Laureate of South Carolina and she has written a poem, “Holy City”, to commemorate the lives of the people who were killed in the shootings at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charlston. She recites the poem for the BBC.
The opposition party in South Africa has called for an investigation into why Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir was allowed to leave the country without being arrested. Bashir is under indictment by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the war against his people in what is now South Sudan. South Africa, unfortunately, not alone among African countries that have failed to honor the arrest warrant for Bashir. African states are deeply suspicious of the International Criminal Court since the majority of its cases have been pursued against African leaders.
Ambrose Evan-Pritchard is an economic journalist who I regard very highly even though his analyses are usually contrary to the “mainstream” view. His views on the bad behavior of the troika in its dealings with Greece are similar to mine. In his most recent column he wrote:
“The spectacle is astonishing. The European Central Bank, the EMU bail-out fund, and the International Monetary Fund, among others, are lashing out in fury against an elected government that refuses to do what it is told. They entirely duck their own responsibility for five years of policy blunders that have led to this impasse.”
To get an idea of how far Greece has gone in its reforms, check out this chart on the “primary” government budget surplus among the various states in the EU. The primary budget surplus is the budget surplus (or deficit) without including debt repayments. Greece has cut its expenditures far beyond the norm in Europe.
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