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yanis varoufakis
Economists See Honduras' Progressive Tax Plan as Model for Other Countries
"Such a law has implications far beyond Honduras' borders, setting an example of how states can assert sovereignty through taking action against tax injustice individually and collectively," 85 leading economists wrote.
Jul 31, 2024
Eighty five progressive economists from around the world on Wednesday issued a statement in support of a tax reform being considered in Honduras, arguing that it could be a model for other Global South countries, as it would tighten tax law for rich people and corporations while preventing the country from becoming a tax haven.
The Tax Justice Law, first proposed by the administration of leftist President Xiomara Castro in March 2023, has remained stuck in parliament due to opposition from conservative, pro-business forces in Honduras, one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the Western Hemisphere.
The proposed reforms include closing corporate tax loopholes; taxing companies' global profits, not just national profits; ending bank secrecy; and holding beneficial owners liable for their taxes. The law wouldn't create new taxes or raise current rates.
The 85 economists, including Joseph Stiglitz, Gabriel Zucman, Jeffrey Sachs, Ann Pettifor, and Yanis Varoufakis, published the statement in Progressive International, a left-wing network establish in 2020. They cited estimates that the country had lost about $20 billion in tax revenues between 2010 and 2023 due to tax loopholes—more than the entire $16.6 billion debt that the country faces, at crippling interest rates.
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras 🇭🇳 — 85 of the world's leading economists, incl. @JosephEStiglitz, @Jayati1609, @JoseA_Ocampo, @AnnPettifor, @gabriel_zucman and @yanisvaroufakis, endorse the @PartidoLibre Tax Justice Law, "setting an example" for tax policy worldwide. Read the letter ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/9ogi9SlWtf
— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) July 31, 2024
Castro was elected in late 2021 and took office in January 2022 with an "inspiring agenda," but has faced opposition from conservative forces and the United States, according to Karen Spring, coordinator of the Honduras Solidarity Network.
Castro's husband Manuel Zelaya, also a leftist, led the country from 2006 until 2009 but was ousted in a coup, and the country descended into chaos in the 2010s, with drug gangs dominant and the government mired in corruption. The Intercept has reported that the U.S. may have encouraged the 2009 coup.
In 2022, Castro and the National Congress of Honduras reversed a conservative initiative to establish special economic zones, most notably one on the island of Roatán. However, Honduras Próspera, a U.S. company backed by billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel and others, has sued the government for $11 billion over the reversal, using the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system that allows multinationals to sue nations that institute new laws that affect their profits and have the cases heard by private tribunals.
U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and other progressive lawmakers cited the Honduras Próspera case when pushing to abolish the ISDS system last year.
As with Castro's efforts on special economic zones, her tax reforms face hurdles.
"Big capital and the media ecosystem close to it have launched a smear campaign against the Tax Justice Law," Ojalá, a digital nonprofit magazine based in Mexico, reported last year.
Every major union organization in Honduras supports the proposed law, a union leader told Ojalá. And the proposal has now gained international attention. Last week, the South Centre, a research institute based in Geneva, issued a report in favor of the law, calling it "timely and welcome," and arguing that it's in keeping with the global minimum tax agreement made by 137 countries in 2021, whose implementation is ongoing.
Similarly, the group of economists on Wednesday wrote that Honduras was "on the path to being labeled a tax haven" but could "turn the page" with the passage of the Tax Justice Law, which would "establish a fairer and more robust system of taxation and incentives that will provide a sounder footing for Honduran development."
The economists concluded that "such a law has implications far beyond Honduras' borders, setting an example of how states can assert sovereignty through taking action against tax injustice individually and collectively."
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Israeli Politician Quotes Hitler to Argue for Resettlement of Gaza
"In what kind of society can one openly advocate policies modeled on Hitler's conduct? In a society that feels complete impunity due to America's protection," one foreign policy expert said.
Jun 16, 2024
Former Israeli Knesset member Moshe Feiglin quoted Adolf Hitler as he called for Israel to resettle the Gaza Strip and create a "Hebrew Gaza."
Feiglin, who quit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party to found the right-wing Zehut Party and plans to challenge Likud in Israel's next elections, made the comments during a panel discussion on Israel's Channel 12 that was shared on social media on Sunday, as Middle East Eye reported.
"We are not guests in our country, this is our country, all of it..." Feiglin said, adding, "As Hitler said, 'I cannot live if one Jew is left.' We can't live here if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza."
Feiglin's remarks earned widespread condemnation on social media.
"In what kind of society can one openly advocate policies modeled on Hitler's conduct?" asked Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "In a society that feels complete impunity due to America's protection."
Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of the pan-European leftist political party DiEM25 Yanis Varoufakis wrote that "the evidence of genocidal intentions is mounting" and asked, "When will the ICC [International Criminal Court] act?"
Israel has killed at least 37,337 people and injured 85,299 in its war on Gaza since October 7, when Hamas carried out a lethal attack against southern Israel, killing around 1,100 people and taking more than 240 hostage. Prior to the attack, Israel had maintained a 16-year blockade of the narrow enclave.
South Africa brought a case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, citing the vast destruction of its bombing campaign as well as statements made by high-level Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu, that portray all Gazans as complicit in the October 7 attacks. Several human rights experts and scholars have also concluded that Israel is committing genocide.
This is not the first time that Feiglin, who served in the Knesset from 2013 to 2015, has called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
"We need a different prime minister who is willing to stick his neck out to win. Zehut will provide, whenever elections happen, such a candidate," he told supporters in January, according to Middle East Eye. "For us, the war in Gaza is not merely a defensive war. It's a war of liberation, the liberation of the land from its occupiers."
In an October 2023 interview with Al Jazeera, he also advocated for the "complete destruction of Gaza, before invading it... Destruction like Dresden and Hiroshima, without a nuclear weapon."
Zehut's 2019 platform included the cancellation of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians, according toHaaretz.
"Don't talk to me about international law, because there is not such a thing. You know, the minute you use the word 'Palestinian,' you stop saying the truth. Because there is no Palestinian nation, and they know it," Feiglin said that same year.
Other currently governing Israeli politicians have also called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said in January that the Israeli government should "encourage the migration" of Palestinians out of Gaza.
Later the same month, Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attended a right-wing conference calling for the "resettlement" of Gaza.
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'Unconscionable': Prosecution of Arundhati Roy Sanctioned Under Indian Anti-Terror Law
"This is horrifying—a clear case of political persecution by an authoritarian government," one of Roy's publishers wrote.
Jun 16, 2024
Delhi Lieutenant Gov. V. K. Saxena has sanctioned the prosecution of world-renowned Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy over comments she allegedly made 14 years ago regarding Kashmir, officials from his office said on Friday.
Saxena is a member of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), and Roy has been a vocal critic of Modi and what she has described as India's "descent... into full-blown fascism" under BJP leadership.
"This is horrifying—a clear case of political persecution by an authoritarian government" Seven Stories Press, which publishes Roy's work, wrote on social media in response to the news.
"This kind of fascism is exactly what Indians have voted against."
Along with Roy, Saxena also sanctioned the prosecution of former Central University of Kashmir international law professor Sheikh Showkat Hussain. The charges originate from a conference the two attended in New Delhi titled "Azadi: The Only Way" on October 21, 2010, according to Indian media.
During the conference, Roy allegedly said that Kashmir—a disputed territory that is administered partly by Pakistan and partly by India, and where the Indian occupation has committed human rights abuses—"has never been an integral part of India."
On October 28, 2010, a first information report (FIR) naming Roy, Hussain, and other co-defendants who have since died was registered in the New Delhi's Court of Metropolitan Magistrate. A FIR is a document that law-enforcement officials file after receiving actionable information about a potential offense.
"The issues discussed and spoken about at the conference propagated the 'separation of Kashmir from India,'" the governor's office said.
Friday's sanction allows the prosecution of Roy and Hussain under a part of India's controversial Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) related to sedition. It follows Saxena's decision in October of last year to allow the case to move forward under different sections of the Indian Penal Code.
As the Independent explained:
The UAPA allows the authorities to detain suspects for up to 180 days without any charges. It was tweaked by the Modi administration in 2019 so that individuals could be classified as terrorists without necessarily being linked to a designated terror group. A total of 1,948 people were arrested in 2019 after the change came into force, marking an uptick of almost 37% from the previous year.
The new development comes a little more than a week after Modi's BJP failed to win a majority in India's elections for the first time since 2014. While Modi retained control of the government through his coalition partners, the better-than-expected performance of the opposition was widely seen as a setback for the right-wing leader, and some critics thought the election results and the prosecution of Roy might be related.
"If by prosecuting Arundhati Roy under UAPA the BJP are trying to prove they're back, well they're not. And they'll never be back the same way they were," member of parliament Mahua Moitra from the opposition Trinamool Congress Party said, adding, "This kind of fascism is exactly what Indians have voted against."
Other Indian opposition politicians spoke out against the targeting of Roy.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said the move was "condemnable" and that prosecuting Roy for a speech made 14 years ago "defies logic except the fascist kind," as The Guardian reported.
"Timing is suspect since courts are on vacation, as are lawyers," the party added.
Communist Party of India leader D. Raja also said that the "timing is highly questionable" and added that "it appears to be a political vendetta."
Several well-known authors and activists expressed solidarity with the 62-year-old Roy, who won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel The God of Small Things.
"Solidarity with Arundhati Roy," author Hari Kunzru posted on social media. "Modi has been out to get her since the days when she spoke out about his complicity in the 2002 Gujarat riots. She once told me a terrifying story about having to escape via the roof of an Ahmedabad guesthouse when police came to question her."
Author Amitav Ghosh said: "The hounding of Arundhati Roy is absolutely unconscionable. She is a great writer and has a right to her opinion. There needs to be an international outcry about the case that has been brought against her for something she said a decade ago."
Poet Zeeshan Joonam wrote: "The attempt to silence the legendary writer Arundhati Roy from India must be condemned by all free speech advocates. She has done nothing wrong. She is an intellectual and moral giant."
Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of the pan-European leftist political party DiEM25 Yanis Varoufakis, meanwhile, issued a challenge to the international community.
"Only yesterday I was expressing concern over the rumors that Arundhati Roy might be Modi's next political prisoner. A day later the rumor is becoming a reality," Varoufakis posted on social media. "Will there be an uproar in the 'civilized' West? Or will complicity be the order of the day a la Assange?"
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