Trade : China unlikely to yield to US demands in bilateral talks (PRIV)
(D. Ravi Kanth, Geneva)
As China attends the bilateral trade talks with the United States starting on Wednesday, Beijing is unlikely to yield to Washington's demands that include a huge payment on market access, a unilat eral enforcement mechanism, and complex structural reforms to deny policy space for its autonomous development.

United Nations : US sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela violate human rights (PRIV)
(Kanaga Raja, Geneva)
Expressing deep concern over the recent imposition by the United States of unilateral coercive measures against Cub a, Venezuela and Iran, a UN rights expert has said that the use of economic sanctions for political purposes violates human rights and the norms of international behaviour.

Opinion : Neo-liberal reforms strengthening monopoly power and abuses (PRIV)
(IPS, Kuala Lumpur/Sydney)
Kuala Lumpur/Sydney, 7 May (IPS/Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury*) -- Over the last four decades, growing concentration of market power in the hands of oligopolies, if not monopolies, has been greatly enab led by ostensibly neo-liberal reforms, worsening wealth concentration and gross inequalities in the world.

West Africa : Bleak outlook for press freedom (PRIV)
(IPS, London)
When former footballer George Weah became president of Liberia in 2018, media practitioners felt they had in h im a democrat who would champion media freedoms.

Opinion : Kenya and Ethiopia's cross-border initiative (PRIV)
(IPS, Nairobi)
Nairobi, Kenya, May (IPS/Johan Borgstam, Stefano A. Dejak, Aeneas Chuma and Siddharth Chatterjee*) -- Many years of internecine conflict is being repla ced by a new narrative of peace along the Kenya-Ethiopia border.