When the global financial crisis struck in 2008, expectations were high that the Sri Lankan economy would be severely affected. But as it turned out, the number of job losses was not as bad as anticipated.
As president of an independent think tank advocating minimal government, Bienvenido Oplas, Jr. believes that a society will be more peaceful and dynamic if people will assume more individual and voluntary responsibilities over their lives, their families and their communities.
Until the global financial crisis hit, a journey out of poverty for women in rural Cambodia was assured by the vibrant garment sector that had taken root in the country’s capital. Tens of thousands of women in their twenties poured into Phnom Penh to secure jobs in the hundreds of export-oriented factories.
The immense diversity of peoples was apparent at the World Social Forum (WSF), which ended Sunday in Belém, the capital of the state of Pará in the Brazilian Amazon region.
The World Social Forum ended its ninth edition Sunday in Belém with its "Assembly of assemblies" adopting dozens of resolutions and proposals to be the subjects of a programme of mobilisations around the world in 2009.
As the economic crisis bites deeper, a revolutionary outcome may be possible, in the view of French academic Alain Bihr. Everything depends on citizens' capacity for struggle, he told IPS in an interview during events at The Other Davos, in this Swiss city.
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso told the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the Swiss mountain resort of Davos on Saturday that Japan will provide 17 billion US dollars worth of aid to stimulate Asia’s economies.
Civil society in this port city, victim of the Nov. 26-29 terrorist attacks and host to the 2004 World Social Forum, has one question to ask - will the movement seriously address terrorism?
One of the few indicators on the rise at this time of economic and financial crisis is the level of repudiation expressed about those responsible for the disaster, and about the institutions sponsoring them.
"True socialism is feminist," and is already being built, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, standing next to three other South American presidents, all of them men, at a dialogue that took place Thursday at the World Social Forum (WSF).
Onyango Oloo was the national coordinator of the Kenyan Social Forum in 2007 when the last global World Social Forum (WSF)took place in Nairobi. As another gathering of activists from around the world unfolds in Belém, Brazil, IPS asked Oloo for his views on the Forum's past and future.
As the ninth edition of the World Social Forum (WSF) opened in Belem, capital of the north Brazilian state of Para, half way around the globe in Pakistan the movement seems to have run out of steam.
Of all the questions raised by the global economic crisis, one that is by no means insignificant may be answered this week: How will the pressure groups that influenced the policies that led to the present chaos adapt to the new world situation?
The global economy is barely showing a pulse, and the world's poor are especially at risk, the International Monetary Fund declared Wednesday.
The Davos delegate seems short of faith this year about anyone's ability to save the world from the financial tsunami that the bosses have unleashed.
A human banner made up of more than 1,000 people, seen and photographed from the air, sent the message "SOS Amazon" to the world, in the first action taken by indigenous people hours before the opening in northern Brazil on Tuesday of the 2009 World Social Forum (WSF).
Thanks to the deepening global financial crisis, capitalism will never be the same again, according to the director of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analyses (IBase) and one of the main organisers of the World Social Forum (WSF), in an interview with Radio Tierra of Chile (a member of Amarc).
Prominent Mexico-based German political analyst Heinz Dieterich said he believes the World Social Forum, which is meeting this week in the northern Brazilian Amazon jungle city of Belem, falls short in the innovation department and fails to generate real change.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva "betrayed" community radio stations, said Magno Cruz, the head of Radio Conquista, speaking at a round table discussion at the International Laboratory for Free Media, held in the capital of the northeastern state of Maranhao.
Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos argues that community radio and alternative media are the only platforms that can compete with corporate media. In an interview with TerraViva's Alejandro Kirk, de Sousa Santos stressed that the current crisis requires that participants at the World Social Forum (WSF) take a unified political stance.
Civil society groups are looking to the World Social Forum this year to strengthen their campaign for justice in the face of organised crime.