THE PRIVATISATION OF LIVELIHOOD

Globalisation and trade liberalisation policies have led to the privatisation of water and biodiversity and the concentration of land ownership in India, reversing six decades of land reform and introducing a new form of corporate zamindari -a feudal land tenure system- through instruments like "special economic zones".

DEATH OF THE DAILY PAPER

It is a major catastrophe: dozens of daily newspapers are bankrupt. In the United States, at least 120 have already closed. And the tsunami is now striking Europe. Not even institutions once considered the journals of record are safe: Spain's El Pais, France's Le Monde, The Times and The Independent of the United Kingdom. and Italy's Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica are all accumulating major economic losses as a result of the drop in subscriptions and the collapse of advertising[i].

NOBEL TO OBAMA: THE RIGHT TIME, THE RIGHT PERSON

The news was like a ray of sunlight that lit the entire world: "Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize!" It was unexpected, for many premature, and set off a wide range of reactions in every corner of the planet.

A CULTURE OF PEACE – THE TIME HAS COME

The time has come. The culture of war, the economy of war, and the hegemony of the "globalisers" have been a catastrophic failure and the cause of incalculable levels of suffering, hunger, extreme poverty, and social affliction. A "new beginning" is needed urgently here at the dawn of a new century and a new millennium.

LOW-INTENSITY PROTECTIONISM, SO FAR

World economic growth, as measured by the world's production of goods and services, has slowed abruptly in 2008 and the early part of this year. The contraction in demand led to a slowdown in production, and in international trade. World merchandise trade is projected to fall by a full 10 per cent this year, and foreign direct investment, which fell by 15 per cent in 2008, is projected to drop further.

CRISIS SLOWS NORTH-TO-SOUTH INVESTMENT

The current crisis has precipitated a significant downturn in world foreign direct investment (FDI) flows which over the past year has spread to all sectors and regions. 2008 marked the end of a growth cycle in international investment that began in 2003 and reached a historic high of nearly $2 trillion in 2007.

CUBA: START THE DEBATE

Cuba's official newspaper and organ of the Communist Party recently published a story that stunned the populace: in a country where the lack of food has become endemic and causes the people dire economic hardship, it happened that tonnes of agricultural products were left to rot outside the city of Havana because there were neither the containers nor the vehicles nor the organisational capacity to transport them.

WHY SHOULD WE ABOLISH NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Why should we abolish nuclear weapons?

THE NEXT FINANCIAL CRISIS IS JUST A MATTER OF TIME

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's rejection of the European request for regulation of bank executives' bonuses has given rise to various interpretations: some cite President Barack Obama's need to avoid more confrontations with the American right wing, others point to the influence of the historical bond between the US and the UK, the only European country to defend financial corporations.

G-20: REFORM THE GLOBAL CASINO

The awful truth is emerging: globalised rogue finance is disordering human societies and destroying our ecological life-support systems on a global scale. A spate of books and studies examining the role of finance finds deep flaws in the way money is created and credit is allocated. The age-old invention of money, which extended opportunities for trading beyond barter, has become a computerised global monster. Blind to other human values and goals, this global casino has decoupled and abstracted from real economies.

A BITTER PILL FROM THE DRUG INDUSTRY

The conclusions of the final European Commission report on competition abuses in the pharmaceutical industry, released on July 8, are shocking and have wide-ranging ramifications. And yet the media have largely failed to cover it.

THE LONG EXILE FROM MOTHER EARTH

Today there are two fundamentally different ways in which people consider the Earth. For many it is simply a vast material object lacking spirit and bequeathed to the human race to exploit as it wills. For others, it is our home, a self-regulating superorganism with a unique community of life.

THE LONG EXILE FROM MOTHER EARTH

Today there are two fundamentally different ways in which people consider the Earth. For many it is simply a vast material object lacking spirit and bequeathed to the human race to exploit as it wills. For others, it is our home, a self-regulating superorganism with a unique community of life.

TEDDY KENNEDY: A CHAMPION OF JUSTICE

It was deeply moving to see crowds lining the streets from Hyannis Port to Boston, from the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help to Hanscom Field, and from Andrews Air Force Base to Arlington Cemetery, -often ten deep- holding placards, waving American flags, saluting; each with her or his own story of being touched by Senator Edward KennedyÂ's vision, spirit and love. People came because they appreciated his courageous stances on international human rights, civil rights, health care, minimum wage, support in multiple forms for the oppressed and dispossessed. And mostly because they knew he loved people--not the people, but actual, living, breathing human beings.

THE RESCUE OF KARL MARX

In Europe summer is usually the time when publishers release forgotten books, biographies, and travel writing, and major magazines put out special editions on a past subject of current interest.

OVERUSE OF ANTIBIOTICS IN MEAT PRODUCTION THREATENS PUBLIC HEALTH

We Americans like our meat. In the course of a year, on average we eat more than 220 pounds of chicken, beef, and pork. But some are starting to pause at the meat counter as they hear about incidents of contamination and compromised food safety, the breeding of drug-resistant super-bugs and the inhumane conditions endured by animals raised in extreme confinement.

PRIVATISATION IS THE ENEMY OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

The privatisation of the earth's resources is a recipe for famine and desertification, violence against women, hunger, and, as happens in India, the suicide of farmers.

THE SUDDEN DEMISE OF NEO-LIBERAL ECONOMICS

The Washington Consensus, the neo-liberal economic prescription presumed to be universally and permanently valid, was broadsided by the current world recession together with other "one size fits all" formulas.

HONDURAS

The world's conservative groups and their usual propagandists [i] received the news of the June 28 coup in Honduras with immense pleasure[ii]. Although they made critical noises about the coup itself, they swallowed and justified the arguments of those who carried it out, repeating that "President Manuel Zelaya had committed numerous violations of the constitution by wanting to hold a referendum to remain in power." [iii]

CUBA: A NEW SOCIALISM

Cubans are used to living with crises, limits, shortages, emergency plans, "special" -and less "special"- periods. That may be why for a number of months many Cubans have been watching with detachment the economic and financial crisis that has been battering the world for two years now. Even politicians and the media contributed to this sense that in Cuba there would be no job cuts, no foreclosed homes (because no one can legally buy one, for a start), and no gutting of social programmes.

CHINA: SIGNS OF SLIGHT MOVEMENT AWAY FROM THE DEATH PENALTY

Movement towards the global abolition of the death penalty and the reduction in the number of executions over the last decade were confirmed in the last report of Hands Off Cain. Moreover, in China, which accounts for more than 80 percent of the world's executions, this reduction was accompanied by another promising development: the vice president of the Chinese Supreme Court, Zhang Jun, announced in a statement on June 29 that the country would gradually slow the implementation of capital punishment to the point that there is "a very limited number of executions".