GDP Growth 2020

                 This post is a summary of the book with the title of, "World Economic Outlook - Managing Divergent Recoveries." Published in April 2021 at  https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2021/03/23/world-economic-outlook-april-2021

                It is one year since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, a year of terrible loss of lives and livelihoods. The rising human toll worldwide and the millions of people that remain unemployed are grim markers of the extreme social and economic strain that the global community still confronts. Yet, even with high uncertainly about the path of the pandemic, a way out of this health and economic crisis is visible. Thanks to the ingenuity of the scientific community, we have multiple vaccines that can reduce the severity and frequency of infections. In parallel, adaption to pandemic life has enabled the global economy to do well despite subdued overall mobility, leading to a stronger-than-anticipated rebound, on average, across regions. We are now projecting a stronger recovery in 2021 and 2022 for the global economy compared to our previous forecast, with growth projected to be 6% in 2021 and 4.4% in 2022. Multispeed recoveries are under way in all regions and across income groups, linked to stark differences in the pace of vaccine rollout, the extent of economic policy support, and structural factors such as reliance on tourism. Although medium-term losses for the global economy are expected to be smaller than in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the cross-country pattern of damages is, however, likely to be different this time, with low-income countries and emerging markets suffering more compared to the fallout from the crisis a decade earlier. Because the crisis has accelerated the forces of digitalization and automation, many of the jobs lost are unlikely to return, requiring workers reallocation across sectors. Once the health crisis is over, policy efforts can focus more on building inclusive and greener economies, both to bolster the recovery and raise potential output. The priorities should include investing in green infrastructure and strengthening social assistance to arrest rising inequality, introducing initiatives to boost productive capacity and resolving debt overhangs. For those with limited fiscal space, improved revenue administration, greater progressivity in taxation, and reorientation of expenditures will be essential. Even while all eyes are on the pandemic, countries should cooperate on climate change mitigation, digitalization, modernization of international corporate taxation and on measures to limit cross-border profit shifting, tax avoidance and evasion.                                                                                                                                                                                                           Below the GDP growth in 2020 from the greatest growth to the lowest of each list. The first list is for countries in the Americas and the other is for the rest of the world. Thanks to beginning of its oil exploration, a South America country had the biggest GDP growth of the world last year and probably will be the same this year. I hope corruption does not disrupt its path to development. What has happened in many other countries with the oil exploration. I don't know why in the final part of this summary and in the last paragraph with my commentary the letter became small, I wrote the whole text with the same letter size, as I always do, but something happened that became it impossible this time. Another problem I have had for many months is with the paragraphs, every summary I finish I spend a lot of time doing the paragraphs, because they are not the same when I am doing the text and after I publish. I think this problem started last year and I really don't understand how and why they are happening. Another problem that has happened every year with the lists below. I always do two lists parallel and when I publish they are mixed together. I think the correct would be they stayed the same way that I did before I published. This happens when the text is translated to Portuguese.

GDP 2020 in PanAmerican countries                                 Rest of the World

Guyana   43.4%                                                                       Ethiopia     6.1%          

Paraguay   -0.9%                                                                    Vietnam     2.9%

Guatemala   -1.5%                                                                    Ireland    2.5%

Nicaragua   -3.0%                                                                   China     2.3%                                         

  U.S.A.    -3.5%                                                                       Turkey    1.8%

Brazil   -4.1%                                                                              Iran     1.5%

Costa Rica   -4.8%%                                                                Tanzania     1.0%

Canada    -5.4%                                                                        Norway     -0.8%

Uruguay   -5.7%                                                                  South Korea      -1.0%

Chile     -5.8%                                                                          Australia      -2.4%

Colombia    -6.8%                                                                     Sweden      -2.8%

Ecuador    -7.5%                                                                         Japan      -4.8%

Bolivia     -7.7%                                                                        Germany      -4.9%

Honduras     -8.0%                                                                   Portugal       -7.6 % 

Mexico      -8.2%                                                                       India     -8.0%

Argentina     -10.0%                                                                France      -8.2%

Peru        -11.1%                                                                        Italy      -8.9%

Panama     -17.9%                                                                        U.K.     -9.9%

Venezuela    -30.0%                                                                   Spain     -11.0%

Resistance, Liberation Technology and Human Rights in the Digital Age - Part II

                   This post is a summary of the same book from last summary. The book with the title above published in 2013  at https://cryptome.org/2013/03/hacking-digital-dissidence.pdf

                At the end of an important expert meeting on human rights and the internet held in Stockholm in 2010, chairmen remarked six fundamental issues that can be assumed as a logical starting point to analyze the complex relationship between the digital world and the human rights landscape. These six points are: 1) Importance of the internet in the modern age: the internet must be regard as the greatest enabler for freedom of expression and other human rights since Gutemberg's press.  2) Challenges and risks: internet poses, at the same time, challenges to the protection of human rights, perhaps most notably the right to privacy, as well as the values of democracy.  3) Freedom, security, accessibility: ensuring a free, secure and accessible internet has therefore emerged not only as a fundamental right challenge, but as the key to global economic development, prosperity and development of internet itself.  4) Freedom of expression as a pivotal right in the digital age: common ground must be the reaffirmation of the right to freedom of expression and the need to protec this right from restrictions.  5) New forms of human rights issues: it is important that existing human rights standards are upheld and strengthened on its own terms. Therefore, it is not sufficient to rely on existing norms, but there is need for clarification of the scope of human rights law in the internet context. 6) States responsibilities: states have committed to, and are responsible for, the protection of human rights and therefore have the responsibility to address these issues. Right to privacy on the internet regards national legislation on privacy (states must establish, implement and enforce comprehensive legal frameworks to protect the privacy and personal data of citizens) privacy policies and settings, standards of confidentiality and integrity of IT systems. In 2007 a joint statement from Italy and Brazil announced the launch of a new and truly laudable project, championed by the Italian academic Stefano Rodota, aimed at creating an Internet Bill of Rights, a sort of "constitution" for the internet, containing a list of unalienable rights in the digital era, and above all, seeking to identify the best methods to further develop and enforce these rights. The North American scholar Jeff Jarvis proposed last year a document called "Bill of Rights in Cyberspace". This attempts to identify and establish some fundamental freedoms of internet that must be protected against abridgment by governments, companies, institutions, criminals, subverters or mobs. A 2011 study concerning how internet can help to advance human rights and capacities through providing new opportunities for citizens to share information and ideas and to participate in public life, outlined a sort of "human rights approach" to the internet that is very interesting. Premises of this study are that mobile phones facilitate instant and ubiguitous communications, thereby increasing the power of citizen journalism, crowdsourcing, and other forms of expression, and help to bridge the digital divide for people who do not have access to computers and fixed-line connections. There are, indeed, challenges that need to be addressed in order to harness the full potential of the internet for universal human rights and citizen empowerment. There are a number of rights that are affected by the access to the network and the use of communication media. Freedom of expression is the most obvious of these, including the right to seek, recieve and impart information and ideas, but also rights to education, to associate freely with others, to participate in government. Last but not least, media and tech should be accessible to all, and function in ways that empower citizens to aprticipate in public debate and decision making, and control their own lives. The evolution and spread of the internet presents exciting new opportunities for the effective implementation of human rights. In Latin America, with the exception of Cuba, there have been no reports of systematic technical filtering. There is, however, a body of laws, especially with regard to the activities of journalists, that is restrictive. Despite Cuba's recent declaration of internet as a fundamental right, connections require government authorization and are closely supervised by the Ministry of Computer Technology and Communication. Despite the fact that the highest number of internet users are located in China, this is also the country with the world's most sophisticated censorship systems, which place it on the list of the top ten Internet Enemies published by Reporters Without Borders. For the legal scholar, drawing firm conclusions with regard to the relationships between internet and the state of human rights, their protection in the digital environment, the national and international legal frameworks that regulate both human rights and the digital world, the techs used by dissidents, independent media and political opposition to circumvent limitations, is not easy, especially in an environment so prone to rapid change and swift development. Technology that is increasingly suited to protest, oppose, and resist, providing a new era for the ideas of those early hackers, is leaving an indelible mark on our modern age, and this legal framework is increasingly interwined with political movements and social upheavals which are transforming the worldwide political and social arenas. As the early hackers foresaw, computers and technology have indeed changed the world, and rendered every single one of us more powerful and more able to participate in every aspect and at every level of government. Moving ahead from the present and seeking to envisage the future is, for the legal observe, a truly fascinating challenge: never before, having a keen understanding of the past, and sharp ability to foresee the future, has been so important.

Resistance, Liberation Technology and Human Rights in the Digital Age

                This post is a summary of the book with the title above published in 2013 at   https://cryptome.org/2013/03/hacking-digital-dissidence.pdf

                 The possibility of using all types of tech available to mankind for contributing to political and social changes and of contrasting oppressive dictatorships, and even authority, has been since the very first activities of universities hackers in California during the 1960s, a fascinating and inspiring issue. The idea that computers might not only assist humans, but might also allow the expansion of cognitive capacities and most transparent diffusion of information useful for progress and democracy, first took root in the theories of the protest movements in the 1960s. It seems that there is a very clear common thread connecting those first ideas of the 1960s with events occurring now in different parts of the world, where various platforms are becoming support tools for individuals who not only need to seek knowledge beyond state filters, but also see in these tech, an opportunity to seek freedom in contexts that tend to limit it. The common thread, mentioned above, thus comes even more into focus: these activists are among the few who rightly deserve the name today. They outwit technological barriers imposed by authorities and corporations, attack global surveillance systems, fight for cultural liberties and for the free flow of ideas. The evolution from the ideas that are at the basis of these new activities to actual digital resistance. A strategy aimed at unlocking a corporation, a state or even an entire legal or political system for the purpose of benefitting humanity, is one of the most interesting aspects of communication tech in the modern world. Political systems which base their powers on barriers, are destined to cede and become increasingly transparent in their actions. The introduction of content considered to be improper will be increasingly difficult to avoid. This will result, as it nearly always has, in increased pluralism, democracy and innovation, but also, in some cases, in violent reactions and in systematic violations of human rights. These tech began to help people to gain access to restricted information and to form a political consciousness. People became more informed, more information brought greater security in expressing opinions or led people to expose themselves more. At the same time, this new consciousness increased the level of education and the level of understanding of events. Open governments projects and government data access portals are countless grassroots projects, developed to encourage the transparency and accountability of government activities, improving democracy, combating corruption and waste in the use of resources and protecting fundamental rights. There are often projects to overcome public sector limitations, with an aim to utilize collaborative monitoring as an instrument for improving both the delivery of public services and community well-being. Projects promoting both transparency as part of the political process and the accountability of government  through the simple mechanism of aggregation of public data are increasingly widespread. Collaborative monitoring has proved to be a powerful weapon in the defense of transparency and democracy for political and legislative activities as well. Electors now have at their disposition a vast array of tools that allow citizens to oversee democratic process. Common citizens today have in their hands, the most powerful instrument ever invented to protect free speech,  to guarantee the confidentiality of our personal data, to focus attention in the public sector projects, to guarantee the free circulation of information on a scale and with an effectiveness never before even imaginable. They have in their hands the tools to inspire the rethinking of concepts of censorship, secrecy, wiretaps, intellectual property, the free circulation of knowledge and culture. It is no coincidence that two of today's catchwords, both on the web and off, are "citizen journalism" and "personal democracy." A number of powers that have traditionally been reserved for political and social castes and unapproachable center of power are now coalescing into the hands of the people. There is a sort of "race for technology" on both sides. Adopting a general categorization, created in the U.S. incorporated by the Eletronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) into the structure of their website, and taken up by the majority of activists today, the five principals fields of action of digital resistance can be seen as: 1) The defense of free speech.  2) The protection of innovation and progress in the social fabric.  3) The reform of intellectual property laws.  4) The protection of privacy.  5) The pursuit of governmental transparency.  Internet has become, in the modern age, the most important platform for free speech and the free of thought, and must be, respected in the digital domain just as they are protected by countless constitutions throughout the world. Regarding privacy involves a number of issues that are compelling because they touch upon the most intimate aspects of our lives as human beings. It is clear that new tech are leading to further development of individual rights and liberties, but at the same time, also permit an invasion of the private sphere that is without precedent. From mobile phone which allow us to be tracked to the visibility of the terms we look up on search engines, privacy in the digital world must be respected, and balanced with other individual rights. Each year the Tech Review, MIT's famous journal, honors innovators who are changing the world of tech. The winner of 2010 was David Kobia, a 35 year-old Kenyan who had left his country to study computer science at the University of Alabama, and who is one of the creators of the open source project "Testimony". His project collects eyewitness reports, messages, blog entries, and citizen journalism pieces and places them on an interactive map not only to denounce electoral fraud, or episodes of violence, but also make such deeds known to the entire world. The software is as ingenious as it is easy to use. Based on the idea of the eyewitness, it provides visual testimonies to events occurring in those areas of the world stricken by critical social or political conditions. Today extremely powerful tech is truly available and within physical reach of us all. Anyone who desire to make their voices heard, who intend to take advantage of tech for the common good, for opposition, for activism, can now do so with no other investment than his or her own culture, skill, and imagination. The idea that all information should be free is a central tenet of the hacker ethic and is fundamental to activists way of thought. If there is no access to information, with a view to improving existing tech, the entire systems will collapse. The free exchange of information serves to augment the collective creativity and save energy. Hackers were convinced that the best way to achieve a world based on the free circulation of information was to guarantee an open system to advance their path toward knowledge. Bureaucracy was perceived as a hostile and damaging phenomenon, to be overcome, whether it be at a university, local or national government, or a multinational corporation. All of these factors: bureaucracy, the centralization of power in the hands of government, and dehumanization, are nothing more than defective and dangerous systems, given that they are incapable of facilitating the natural instinct to explore knowledge and culture. The fear that eletronic voting system based on the use of obscure code might reveal damaging flaws, is highly topical in a number of areas of the world and in the thoughts of many ordinary citizens who use these systems when they go to the polls. A distrust towards the efficiency of eletronic voting system is evident in a 2006 documentary, "Hacking Democracy", which garnered an Emmy prize for investigative journalism. This documentary represents a forceful critique of eletronic electoral system. The protagonists are a number of citizens investigating anomalies in the e-voting system during the 2004 election, especially in Florida. Bruce Schneier, security expert, identifies the eletronic devices as a threat to a clear referendum process. Being computer-based, voluntary or accidental actions of a few could affect the entire system. The solution, in Schneier's opinion resides in providing printed voting receipts to every voter at any time, which may subsequently be verified and even counted again if necessary. In short, the ideal would be to use these machines only as systems capable of generating a voting track. The recording of voting should be as simple as possible, the systems should be standards, the votes should be verifiable, and copies should be available on paper, and all computer code used in voting machines should be made public and examined to detect any errors. A fully independent security study of a voting machine, including its hardware and software, shows that the machine is vulnerable. For example, the the authors of the study note, anyone who obtains access to a machine, or its removable memory card, for as little as one minute, could install malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote. Anybody with access to these machines could also create malicious code that spread automatically from machine to machine, a sort of virus. The authors have constructed working demonstrations of these frauds in their laboratories.