Last Friday an agreement was reached between the de facto regime in Honduras-- which took power in a military coup on June 28th -- and the elected president Mel Zelaya, for the restoration of democracy there.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in announcing what she called an "historic agreement,...

Among the conventional wisdom that we hear everyday in the business press is that developing countries should bend over backwards to create a friendly climate for foreign corporations, follow orthodox (neoliberal) macroeconomic policy advice, and strive to achieve an investment-grade sovereign credit rating so as to attract more foreign capital.

What kind of a public debate can we have on the most vital issues of the day in the United States? A lot depends on the media, which determines how these issues are framed for most people.

Take the war in Afghanistan, which has been subject to major debate here...

President Obama is coming under attack from the Right for his reluctance to grant the request of General Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, for more U.S. troops. On the other side of the equation sits the majority of the American people, who are against sending more...

Update:

Bill Murray, Deputy Chief of Media at the IMF, posts a comment below. My response to these comments:

The first paragraph is just rhetoric, with words like "misleading," "inaccurate," etc., but nothing to back it up. He then writes:

Murray: "A few more facts: "IMF forecasts...

"The old system of international economic cooperation is over," announced UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. "The new system, as of today, has begun."

The first part of that statement is partly true (see below). The second is a fantasy.

The G-20 is not a...

Now that President Zelaya has returned to Honduras, the coup government -- after first denying that he was there -- has unleashed a wave of repression to prevent people from gathering support for their elected president. This is how U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the first phase of...

Corruption takes many forms in different countries and locations. Here in the United States it may not be as common to pay off a judge or a customs official as it is in most low and middle income countries, but we do have quite a bit of legalized bribery, especially...

When I first met Michael Moore more than 20 years ago he was showing a half-finished documentary to a few dozen people in a classroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was funny and poignant and had a powerful message. He had taken a second mortgage on his house - equipment...

Update: Following the release of this column, CEPR received news from the IMF that it may not allow the de facto regime in Honduras access to the funds. See this press release for more information

The IMF is undergoing an unprecedented expansion of its access to resources, possibly reaching...

From my colleague Jake Johnston: below is the text of Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau's September 9 Wall Street Journal op-ed, "The Emerging Axis of Iran and Venezuela," with rebuttals for 21 statements in the text.

Points number 9, 11, 15, 20, and 8, and 4 are worth noting because...

Americans are famous for not paying much attention to the rest of the world, and it is often said that foreign wars are the way that we learn geography. But most often it is not the people who have little direct experience outside their own country that are the problem,...

President Obama is making a big mistake in coddling the dictatorship in Honduras, and putting his administration at odds with the rest of the hemisphere. It also looks terrible to the world that his government so easily abandons its professed commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

President Mel...

There were great hopes in Latin America when President Obama was elected. U.S. standing in the region had reached a low point under George W. Bush, and all of the hemisphere's left-leaning governments expressed optimism that Obama would go in a different direction.

These hopes have been dashed. President Obama...

Denis MacShane attacks the British left for defending Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez against an onslaught from the media, "New Cold Warriors," and right-wing demagogues throughout the world. His rhetorical trick is to tar the left with a new media law currently being debated in the Venezuelan Congress, which he...

Global trade flows and the economic stimulus policies of individual national economies will play an important role in the recovery from the current global recession. This is especially true of the world's two largest economies, the United States and China.

The U.S. economy was running an annualized trade deficit of...

Powerful special interests -- energy, coal, utilities, financial, pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies -- have flexed their muscles and confronted President Obama on the most important legislative priorities of his domestic agenda. But this kind of politics-by-influence-peddling doesn't stop at the water's edge. And in foreign policy, the consequences can be...

The current standoff in Honduras, in which the coup government headed by Roberto Micheletti is refusing to allow the return of elected president Manuel Zelaya, is raising questions about who is in charge of U.S. foreign policy for the hemisphere.

Divisions have been noticeable from early on in this administration,...

The military coup that overthrew President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras took a new turn when Zelaya attempted to return home on Sunday. The military closed the airport and blocked runways to prevent his plane from landing. They also shot several protesters, killing at least one and injuring others.

The violence...

The military coup that overthrew Honduras' elected president Manuel Zelaya brought unanimous international condemnation. But some country's responses have been more reluctant than others, and Washington's ambivalence has begun to raise suspicions about what the U.S. government is really trying to accomplish in this situation.

The first statement from the...