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Monday, May 11, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
Can Microcredit Reclaim Its Visionary Mission?
As controversy mounts over the efficacy of microfinance as a global poverty-alleviation effort, the 15th Global Microcredit Summit, scheduled to kick off on Nov. 14 in Valladolid, Spain, will be forced to answer critical questions about poverty, resources and tactics.North Korea Hungry for Aid
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) lived through a famine that killed, at conservative estimates, nearly a million people in the 1990s, and is now nearing the brink of a second food disaster, according to an extensive study conducted this year by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).Libyan Rebels Feel the Heat of NATO’s Swan Song
A week after U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973 sanctioned air strikes against the regime of Colonel Muammar el-Gaddafi in Libya, U.S. President Barack Obama made clear that it would not be U.S. planes maintaining the No-Fly Zone (NFZ). Rather, the effort to safeguard Libyan civilians would be led primarily by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).U.S. Celebrates Controversial Justice
By a few minutes before midnight on May 1, huge jubilant crowds had amassed outside the White House in Washington D.C. and around Ground Zero and Times Square in New York City.BAHRAIN: McCarthyism in Manama?
As the savage crackdown on the majority Shiite opposition movement drags on in Bahrain, King Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa's military regime – backed by the hefty armed forces of Sunni- dominated Saudi Arabia – has moved from launching outright assaults on peaceful protestors on the streets of Manama in broad daylight into the murky waters of what experts are calling state terror, featuring all the old tactics of petrifying a population into submission.Scientists Claim Hard-Fought Ground Against Malaria
By the time the reader gets to the end of this paragraph, an African child, likely under five years old, will have died from malaria.Martelly-Clinton Seal Deal for Next Wave of Disaster Capitalism in Haiti
Miles from his island nation’s earthquake-ravaged capital city Port-au-Prince, Haitian president elect Michel Martelly exchanged warm handshakes and heartfelt promises with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington Wednesday, just prior to the formal announcement of the pop star’s victory in the highly-contested Mar. 20 election.Colonial-Style Land Grabbing Back on the Table
The highly-contested Principles on Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI), a set of priorities that peasants’ collectives and food rights groups have been battling for years, are back on the table this week, as the annual Conference on Land and Poverty opened at World Bank headquarters here Monday.Financiers Lock Horns over Macro Policies While Millions Go Hungry
As weeks of what the International Monetary Fund's managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn called "painful" negotiations over a host of macroeconomic policies drew to a close here Saturday, confusion over coherent strategies for sustainable economic recovery hangs thick in the air.Emerging Markets Clash with Anachronistic Institutions
The first weeks of April have witnessed a maelstrom of multilateralism – from the chambers of the annual Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) here to the round tables of the BRICS summit in the resort island of the Hainan province in China – leaving in its wake a tome of unanswered questions regarding the contours and configurations of the new world order.Diminishing Potential of the Old Medical Paradigm
While the curtain was being raised Tuesday on a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) initiative to pour one billion dollars of federal funding into the Partnerships for Patients Act – a new project designed to save thousands of lives and millions of dollars – the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) held a media briefing here simultaneously presenting studies from their theme issue on 'Infectious Diseases and Immunology'.New World Development Report Repackages Old Ideas
With over 1.5 billion people living in countries blighted by incessant or recurring violence, the World Bank's annual World Development Report (WDR), with this year's focus on how conflict derails development, was anxiously received Monday by scores of development agencies, governments and NGOs all over the world.
“Sweet Mickey” Hitches Haitian Recovery to Washington Bandwagon
With hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in destitution as the country flounders under political, economic and climate wreckage, critics say celebrations of the inevitable profits of disaster capitalism have already begun between the right- wing President-elect Michel Martelly and his neoliberal allies in Washington.Broken Promises Loom Large in 2012 Election Run-Up
Just days after United States President Barack Obama announced his reelection campaign for the 2012 run-off via a Youtube video, the White House is poised on the brink of its first shutdown in 15 years, with budget wars, an immigration maelstrom and determined opposition to the administration's seeming tolerance for union-busting barricading the path to a second term for the Democrat incumbent.
WORLD HEALTH DAY: The Ten-Year Timeline for Antibiotics Burnout
Though the World Health Organisation (WHO) has focused this year's World Health Day Apr. 7 on prioritising the struggle against the global spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), scores of international researchers and scientists fear this decision is coming too late, with 2011 already shadowed by the failure of pharmaceutical antibiotics to curb the proliferation of diseases.
A Creative Boost for South-South Cooperation
In a rare and timely collaboration, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) teamed up with the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to produce a report on the urgent need for developing nations to pour effort and resources into their so-called creative economies.
Least Developed Countries Stagnate Under Ailing Strategies
A report released Tuesday by the International Labour Organization (ILO) for the Fourth Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) slated to take place in Istanbul, Turkey in early May expressed a strong critique of the snail's pace of development, but stopped just short of calling for radical new policies to be implemented.New Yorkers Rage Against the Cuts
In the shadow of towering colonial-style office buildings of the world's most powerful financial district, a crowd over 5,000-strong amassed outside Manhattan's City Hall Thursday, chanting "The people united will never be defeated!"
Q&A: “Microfinance Is Much More Than Just Credit”
A day after U.S. assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs Robert Blake appealed to the Bangladeshi government to reconsider its dismissal of 70-year-old microfinance guru Muhammad Yunus from the Grameen Bank, IPS spoke with the president and CEO of Women's World Banking (WWB), currently the most comprehensive network of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the world.
Regional Support Erodes for Air War on Libya
When the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) imposing a no-fly zone in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya passed Thursday by a predicted 10-0, no one stopped to ask what ends the means of military force hoped to achieve.FILM: What a Palestinian Girl Saw Through Her Window
At the 331st meeting of the Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People held at United Nations headquarters Thursday, delegates made speeches most likely doomed to be lost in the abyss of countless Security Council resolutions, numerous rulings by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the basic provisions of the Geneva Conventions.« Previous Page — Next Page »
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