2, December 2024
ICC says facing threats over arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant 0
The International Criminal Court (ICC) says it has faced coercion and intimidation after judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ousted war minister over war crimes in Gaza.
Addressing the ICC members in The Hague, ICC President Tomoko Akane said the court faced “coercive measures, threats, pressure, and acts of sabotage.”
“We are at a turning point in history… International law and international justice are under threat. So is the future of humanity.”
“The International Criminal Court will continue to carry out its lawful mandate, independently and impartially, without giving in to any outside interference.”
The ICC issued the arrest warrants on November 21.
The court determined there were “reasonable grounds” that Israel’s siege and assault on Gaza “created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population.”
Following the issuance of the warrants, the United States, Israel’s great benefactor and an accomplice in the Gaza genocide, swiftly rejected the ICC decision.
Some US Republicans called on the Senate to sanction the ICC. President Joe Biden said the warrants were “outrageous.”
“Several elected officials are being severely threatened and are subjected to arrest warrants from a permanent member of the UN Security Council,” the ICC president stated.
“The court is being threatened with draconian economic sanctions from institutions of another permanent member of the Security Council as if it was a terrorist organization,” she said.
It is “appalling” that countries appear “scandalized” when the ICC hands down arrest warrants based on international law, Akane added.
“If the court collapses, this will inevitably imply the collapse of all situations and cases… The danger for the court is existential.”
DAWN, a US-based rights group that has welcomed the arrest warrants, has warned Biden administration officials – including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin – that they could be next.
Source: Presstv
3, December 2024
World Bank says developing countries paid record $1.4 trillion on foreign debt in 2023 0
Developing countries spent a record $1.4 trillion to service their foreign debt as their interest costs climbed to a 20-year high in 2023, the World Bank’s latest International Debt Report shows. Interest payments surged by nearly a third to $406 billion, squeezing the budgets of many countries in critical areas such as health, education, and the environment.
The financial strain was fiercest for the poorest and most vulnerable countries—those eligible to borrow from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), the data show. These countries paid a record $96.2 billion to service their debt in 2023. Although repayments of principal decreased by nearly 8% to $61.6 billion, interest costs surged to an all-time high of $34.6 billion in 2023, four times the amount a decade ago. On average, interest payments of IDA countries now amount to nearly 6% of the export earnings of IDA-eligible countries—a level that hasn’t been seen since 1999. For some countries, the payments run as high as 38% of export earnings.
As credit conditions tightened, the World Bank and other multilateral institutions became the main lifeline for the poorest economies. Since 2022, foreign private creditors have received nearly $13 billion more in debt-service payments from public sector borrowers in IDA-eligible economies than they disbursed in new financing. Over the same period, the Bank and other multilateral institutions pumped in nearly $51 billion more in 2022 and 2023 than they collected in debt-service payments. The World Bank accounted for a third of that sum—$28.1 billion.
“Multilateral institutions have become the last lifeline for poor economies struggling to balance debt payments with spending on health, education, and other key development priorities,” said Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President. “In highly indebted poor countries, multilateral development banks are now acting as a lender of last resort, a role they were not designed to serve. That reflects a dysfunctional financing system: except for funds from the World Bank and other multilateral institutions, money is flowing out of poor economies when it should be flowing in.”
The COVID-19 pandemic sharply enlarged the debt burdens of all developing countries—and the subsequent surge in global interest rates has made it harder for many to regain their footing. At the end of 2023, the total external debt owed by all low- and middle-income countries stood at a record $8.8 trillion, an 8% increase over 2020. The percentage increase was more than twice as large for IDA-eligible countries, whose total external debt climbed to $1.1 trillion, an increase of nearly 18%.
In 2023, borrowing abroad became considerably more expensive for all developing economies. Interest rates on loans from official creditors doubled to more than 4%. Rates charged by private creditors climbed by more than a point to 6%—a 15-year high. Global interest rates have since begun to subside, although they are expected to remain above the average that prevailed in the decade before COVID-19.
The latest International Debt Report highlights key insights from the World Bank’s International Debt Statistics database—the most comprehensive and transparent source of external debt data of developing countries. It reflects an upgraded effort to ensure accuracy in the debt data of IDA-eligible economies—by matching data these economies report to the World Bank’s Debtor Reporting System with data held by G7 and Paris Club creditors. This loan-by-loan reconciliation exercise produced a 98 percent match rate in the data, lowering the margin of error from 10 points to just two.
“Comprehensive data on the liabilities of governments can facilitate new investment, reduce corruption, and prevent costly debt crises,” said Haishan Fu, the World Bank Chief Statistician and Director of its Development Data Group. “The World Bank has played a leading role in improving debt transparency across the world, especially in IDA-eligible economies. In 2023, nearly 70% of these economies published fully accessible public-debt data on a government website—a 20-point increase since 2020. That is a hopeful sign for the future.”
Source: World Bank