UNFREEZING DISARMAMENT

Since 2008, eloquent affirmations of the desirability and necessity of achieving a world without nuclear weapons have poured out from many quarters, not least from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US President Barack Obama. Yet the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva has displayed an impressive immunity to the marked shift in rhetoric, remaining mired in deadlock. Operating under an absolute rule of consensus, the UN-affiliated body has conducted no negotiations whatsoever since it produced the text of the agreement banning all nuclear test explosions in 1996.

THE WORLD SUMMIT ON MICROCREDIT AND THE FUTURE OF FINANCIAL INCLUSIVENESS

Opening a small shop in a town in Bangladesh, founding an artisans cooperative in Peru, setting up farm in sub-Saharan Africa, or encouraging the formation of economic alliances of women anywhere in the world -these are concrete examples of the goals of microcredit, a new financial system set in motion decades ago in Bangladesh by Professor Muhammad Yunus, a social leader who was awarded the Asturias Prize in 1998 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.

OP-ED: A Rio+20 Activist Manifesto and Action Plan

Unless civil society activists launch their own programme of action at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro next summer (Jun. 4-6), the event will be little more than an expensive talkfest.

HOW BRAZIL DODGED THE ECONOMIC CRISIS WHILE SLASHING HUNGER

Guiding the transition from one cycle of development to another is among of the most daunting tasks in politics.

NUTRITION AND POVERTY: RAISE THE MOTHERS AND THE CHILDREN WILL FOLLOW

For the next 1000 days, 75 million African children will be in the most critical development period of their lives.

OP-ED: Better Aid Means Better Development

Oxfam and major aid donors of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (the DAC) are often on opposite sides of the fence. Today though, we are on the same side —making sure that effective aid lifts people out of poverty.

SEVEN STEPS TO OVERCOME THE ECONOMIC CRISIS

There has been a growing wave of protests against the casino capitalism that brought us a series of economic crises and a growing gap between rich and poor, within and between countries. Inspired by the Arab spring, mass protests erupted in Israel, then the "Occupy Wall Street" movement began and is now spreading throughout the US, Europe, Japan, and Korea- so far only as protests without proposals.

BETTER AID MEANS BETTER DEVELOPMENT

Oxfam and major aid donors of the DAC, the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are often on opposite sides of the fence. Today though, we are on the same side making sure that effective aid lifts people out of poverty. The DAC represents government donors and promotes ?better aid?. Oxfam?s job is to blow the whistle when the DAC fails.

LIBYA: WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE?

It is a safe assumption that people in general neither like nor love war, they prefer peace. There are distinguished prizes for peace, and peace people like Gandhi, Luther King., Dalai Lama and Mandela to name a few are revered by everyone. There is nothing similar for those who bomb, kill and rape. In consequence all wars and security and defence policies are legitimated by noble motives, among them the wish to maintain or create peace.

THE END OF RECOVERY AND THE START OF A NEW GLOBAL DOWNTURN

It is growing increasingly likely that the world will face renewed risks of instability and slowdown before fully recovering from the so-called Great Recession. This is largely because the fragility and imbalances that have built up over recent years as a result of misguided policies in the US and Europe cannot be easily undone, regardless of the policy pursued today.

THE NEW “GLOBAL SYSTEM”

Ten years from the attacks of September 11 and three years from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, what are the features of the new "global system"?

MICROFINANCE GROWS UP

The original Microcredit Summit was held in 1997. When delegates gathered nine years later at the Global Microcredit Summit in Halifax, Canada in 2006, it had just been announced that Muhammad Yunus would share the Nobel Peace Prize with Grameen Bank, the institution he founded decades before. A year earlier, the United Nations had celebrated the Year of Microcredit, and just one year later, the Microcredit Summit Campaign surpassed its goal set in 1997 of reaching 100 million of the world?s poorest families with credit for self employment and other financial and business services. Those were indeed heady times for microfinance.

BRAZIL: UNLIMITED POSSIBILITIES FOR SOUTH-SOUTH COMMUNICATIONS

The power of the media has grown enormously across the world. The question of access to the new forms of information and communications is especially urgent in Brazil, which is growing increasingly prominent among the emerging nations because of its economic status and especially the entrance of great numbers of its population into the middle class and the ranks of consumers.

TRANSFORMING FINANCE TO GROW GREEN SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIES

"We recognize finance as part of the global commons," affirms the Transforming Finance statement, signed by financial professionals worldwide critical of today's casino capital markets. Financialization has produced the global debt bubble. Needed now are write-offs and haircuts to bond-holders and bank shareholders, a curb on bettors buying credit default swaps, as well as below 1% financial transaction taxes to limit volatility and high-frequency trading by computers ?now 60% of all transactions.

CLIMATE CHANGE: THE REAL COST OF BEEF

The livestock industry, particularly cattle production, is one of the world's major contributors to climate change and has become the largest consumer of grain and plants as people in many parts of the world increase the amount of meat and dairy products in their diet. This, combined with unsustainable production practices, particularly in the Brazilian Amazon, could lead to the collapse of the Amazon forest biome and the environmental services it provides to balance the planet.

LIBYA: WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE?

It is a safe assumption that people in general neither like nor love war, they prefer peace. There are distinguished prizes for peace, and peace people like Gandhi, Luther King., Dalai Lama and Mandela to name a few are revered by everyone. There is nothing similar for those who bomb, kill and rape. In consequence all wars and security and defence policies are legitimated by noble motives, among them the wish to maintain or create peace.

CUBA: WHAT’S DELIVERED AND WHAT ISN’T

HAVANA, Oct (IPS) Under the pounding Cuban August sun, three young graffiti artists are working on a wall along one of the central avenues. Passersby look over with curiosity and bewilderment, some perhaps bothered by what seems like a meaningless slathering of paint. A few people ask the meaning of these strange letters and the nonsensical word they spell. It happens to be the name of the founder of the movement of independent graffiti artists that these boys belong to, but written backwards.

HAITI, OCCUPIED AGAIN

Look it up in any encyclopedia: what was the first free country in the Americas. The answer is always the same: the United States. But the United States declared its independence when it was a nation with 650,000 slaves that remained slaves for another century and their constitution originally held that a black slave counted as only three-fifths of a citizen.

BANKS DO NOT LEARN THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

There is not one day going by now without devastating news of the eternal tug-of-war between finance and states. Now we are informed that the Greek government, in order to continue receiving useless subsidies (since it won't solve its problems) will lay off another 30,000 employees. It is difficult to understand how a country that is suffering a critical contraction of its consumption will be able to exit a cruel downward spiral that will cause serious social deficits, without solving its fiscal deficit. However, the banks are not willing to eliminate any of their bad practices that have caused the current crisis.

GENERATION WITHOUT A FUTURE

"The world will be saved, if it can be, by the unsubmissive." Andre Gide

OCTOBER 7, 2001: TEN YEARS WAR ON TERROR, TEN LOST YEARS FOR PEACE

On October 7, 2001, George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, allegedly in retaliation for the terrorist attack of September 11 on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. This was the start of the "war on terror". The atrocious violence of 9/11 was totally unjustified, and the USA received much sympathy as a victim. Instead of uniting against the US government for its errors, people united against the attackers. But with its violent response, the USA has forfeited the world's initial good will. Both terrorism and state terrorism have demonstrated that violence is counterproductive and backfires.