Hedging on Hunger
The GAI conference is the premier agriculture investment event in the world. The 3,000-dollar admission tickets in New York were not for the small landholders from Africa but for institutional and...
View ArticleRenewed Mandate for UNCTAD After North-South Wrangling
After often bruising negotiations along North-South lines, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) has obtained a renewed and broad mandate for its future work, including on...
View Article"Crowdfunding" 2.0?
The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act signed by President Barack Obama on April 4th, 2012, had been loaded with provisions pushed by Wall Street lobbyists to include "small" companies capitalised at...
View ArticleImproving Tense U.S.-Pakistan-Afghanistan Relations
Five long-term trends form the backdrop for U.S. relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan: the fall of the US empire; the de-development of the West; the decline of the state system in favour of...
View ArticleVictory of Hollande a Cause for Hope in Europe
French president-elect Francois Hollande is man of broad vision and precisely what France needs to pull itself out of the current crisis and put in place a policy for economic and social recovery. But...
View ArticleWater, water everywhere and not a drop to drink?
The deficit of fresh water is becoming increasingly severe and widespread. Unlike other resources, there is no substitute for water. Accessible supplies of fresh water are limited, and people's needs...
View ArticleThe real challenge for Rio+20
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, known as Rio+20, will be held in Rio de Janeiro from June 20-22 to assess the implementation of the resolutions of the Earth Summit of 1992,...
View ArticleOvercoming Austerity
After so many budget cuts, belt-tightening, and structural adjustment programmes, a feeling of asphyxiation is gripping large numbers of citizens in many countries of the European Union, writes...
View ArticleSpain: Chronicle of a Disaster Foretold
The nationalisation of Bankia, the fourth largest Spanish bank, and its parent company BFA, caused an uproar and focussed attention on the failure of the financial reforms passed by the government of...
View ArticleUneven struggle of poor peasants against giant multinational
The Bunong tribe of Cambodia, the Bagyeli people of Cameroon, and the villagers of Malen Chiefdom in Sierra Leone share a common struggle against industrial plantations of oil palms and rubber by the...
View ArticleA better solution to the showdown with Iran
It is in our own interest to understand the causes of violence so we can prevent it in the future, writes Johan Galtung, professor of Peace Studies and rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University. In...
View ArticleRich nations should not backtrack at Rio+20 Summit
With only few days to go before the start of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, there are disturbing signs that developed countries are attempting to backtrack...
View ArticleThe Goals of Rio+20
The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development will be held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, from Jun. 20-22, twenty years after the first great Earth Summit in 1992. Dubbed Rio+20, the conference...
View ArticleGlobal Economy: Prospects Are Bleak Almost Everywhere
Global economic conditions continue to have a strong bearing on production, trade and investment in developing economies. In this respect the current landscape is not very encouraging. After three...
View ArticleNepal: Governing the Ungovernable
The people of Nepal are justifiably proud that their country was never colonised, even though most other countries in the region were under the British. The joke in Kathmandu is that the British in...
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