JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Sep 23 2025 (IPS)* –– US President Trump’s snide barbs against his appointee, US Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Jerome Powell, have revived support for central bank independence – long abused by powerful finance interests against growth and equity.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Independent central banks are supposed to improve the quality, equity, and growth impact of monetary policy.
Instead, they have primarily served powerful financial interests, with contractionary and regressive effects leading to slower, unequal growth.
Independent of whom? Central banks were established to determine monetary policy to shape financial conditions to achieve national economic objectives.
In recent decades, the new conventional policy wisdom has been that independent central banks should set monetary policy. Thus, they have been influenced by powerful financial interests, typically foreign, in smaller, open developing countries.
11 Sep 2025 – Kirk, Charlie Kirk is DEAD. By that single “BEAUTIFUL” shot, as his Patron Donald Paedo Trump Jr is wont to say (ala BIG and Beautiful Bill).
Obviously, it must have been a Big and Beautiful Bullet. The shot was too neat and professional, needing no follow-up, that in turn, rules out any “woke” or Left or Marxist or Muslims or LGBTQs.
22 September 2025 — Deep in the forest in Venezuela’s Bolivar state, residents live in fear of horrific violence at the hands of armed groups involved in the illicit gold trade.
During a 2020 investigation, a 17-year-old boy told Human Rights Watch how he witnessed members of a Venezuelan armed group amputating both hands of a miner they accused of stealing gold. Summary executions and forced child labor by armed groups is still happening today.
(UN News)* —Women and girls still reeling from Afghanistan’s deadly earthquake face even greater suffering rebuilding their lives and livelihoods – with little help to hand, gender equality agency UN Women said on Friday [].
UNOCHA/Ahmad Khalid Khaliqi | People who lost their homes in the earthquake which struck eastern Afghanistan are temporarily living in tents.
“While the major aftershocks have passed, or have mostly passed, women in affected areas are facing a long-term disaster without more urgent assistance,” said Susan Ferguson, UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan.
One woman rescuer supported by the UN agency described “scrambling” along the sides of mountains, “dodging falling rocks every time there was an aftershock”, Ms. Ferguson told journalists in Geneva.
(UN News)* —The United Nations has sounded the alarm over Sudan’s spiralling crisis, warning that deadly attacks in El Fasher, the collapse of essential services, and mass displacement are pushing millions in Darfur and beyond closer to catastrophe.
According to local reports, heavy shelling and assaults late last week in El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, killed at least six civilians and injured scores more, triggering fresh displacement from the already besieged city.
(UN News)* —A senior UN humanitarian official in Pakistan has warned that “the needs are huge” as massive floods across Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan continue to leave millions homeless, destroying vital crops and pushing fragile communities to the brink.
More than six million people have been affected since the unusually heavy monsoon rains began in late June, with nearly 1,000 lives lost – 250 of them children.
Around 2.5 million people have been displaced, many sheltering in Government-run camps or with host families who are already stretched to their limit.
BRATISLAVA, Sep 17 2025 (IPS)* – Just under a year into a fragile ceasefire, 150,000 people in southern Lebanon continue to deal with the potentially lethal aftermath of Israeli bombing, highlighting the devastating long-term effects of conflict.
Damage to the water tank at the Maisat water pumping station. Credit: WaSH Sector Lebanon
A report published late last month (AUG) by Action Against Hunger, Insecurity Insight, and Oxfam said that at least 150,000 people remain without running water across the south of Lebanon after Israeli attacks had damaged and destroyed swathes of water sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities since the beginning of the conflict in Lebanon.
Remarks by UNICEF Country Representative in Afghanistan, Dr. Tajudeen Oyewale, as delivered in the media briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.
KABUL, 12 September 2025 (UNICEF)* – “Afghanistan is once again reeling from tragedy and children are at the sharp end of an aggravating crisis. We must respond not only with urgency, but with a commitment to immediately reverse it.
UNICEF/UNI859079/Meerzad
“They are bearing the heaviest burden after a powerful earthquake struck Kunar and Nangarhar provinces on 31 August, in the Eastern part of the country, followed by multiple severe aftershocks.“
The impact so far is devastating. At least 1,172 children have died, making more than half of the entire death toll. In addition, 45 children have been separated from their families, and 271 are newly orphaned.
(UN News)* —As bombs continue to fall on Gaza City as part of Israel’s intensifying military operation, families with starving children are being pushed southwards from one “hellscape” to another, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday [].
The development followed reports that the Israeli military has stepped up its ground offensive in Gaza City, ordering residents to leave the area.
Speaking from the south of the enclave, UNICEF’s Tess Ingram described the forced mass displacement of families as a “deadly threat for the most vulnerable”.
“It is inhumane to expect nearly half a million children battered and traumatized by over 700 days of unrelenting conflict to flee one hellscape to end up in another,” she insisted.
PORTLAND, USA, Sep 15 2025 (IPS)** –Most of the population in this country wants immigrants, but the current government does not share the same sentiment.
.
Opinion polls show that the majority of the U.S. population holds positive views on immigration. Credit: Shutterstock.
The country in question is the United States, often referred to as “a nation of immigrants”, home to more immigrants than any other country worldwide, having received over 100 million immigrants since its founding in 1776.
Opinion polls show that the majority of the U.S. population holds positive views on immigration.
.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 