Gaza Returns to Donkey Days

The garbage trucks of Gaza city are at a standstill due to an ongoing fuel shortage affecting all aspects of daily life, including garbage collection, sewage and waste disposal and other vital services. But the local donkeys are here to help.

Where Is the Global Economy Heading?

In a passage in Charles Darwin’s The Voyage of the Beagle, he condemns an egalitarian native people at the tip of South America to remain primitive.

Egypt Begs Gulf for Rescue

“Subsidies from the Arab world are large and reflect Arabs’ love towards the Egyptian people, but we cannot depend on that to build an economy that can compete with other countries,” said economist Dr Alia el Mahdi.

More Chileans Want the Benefits of Living in Latin America’s ‘Tiger’

Hugo Hurtado, 47, is a chef. Anyone would say that in his country, Chile, the Latin American “tiger”, his profession would be synonymous with success and even fame. But unfortunately that’s not true.

Bank Crash Hits Women Harder

Women in Iceland have been more badly affected by the economic collapse in 2008 than their male counterparts, both in terms of physical and mental health, studies show.

The NSA and the End of the U.S. Empire

The linchpin of an empire is the link between two elites, one in the imperial centre, the others in the peripheries. Symmetric alliances exist, but not when there is a superpower at the centre.

Cancer a Heavy Burden for Cash-Strapped Cuban Families

The meagre budgets of Cuban families are put to the test when one of the members is diagnosed with cancer. Although treatment is free of cost, only extended networks of support help alleviate the economic impact of the disease, which is now the number one cause of death.

OP-ED: A Global Green New Deal for Sustainable Development

Eight decades ago, during the Great Depression, newly elected U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt introduced the New Deal consisting of a number of mutually supporting initiatives of which the most prominent were:

Opportunity Knocking

A sense of urgency brought on in recent years by food price volatility inspired collective action to reduce the likelihood of further price spikes and food supply shocks.

Dwindling Aid Slows Sri Lanka

When the first trains in almost two and a half decades started running through this war-ravaged town in Sri Lanka in mid-September, Sinngamuththu Jesudasan could not resist the temptation to go and have a look - repeatedly.

New Policies Beyond Austerity and Stimulus

It is time to move the global policy debate beyond the binary options of “austerity” versus “stimulus.” Both these macroeconomic policies have caused untold harm to millions and produced dangerous policy stalemates in Europe and the U.S., Japan and other countries.

The West, Shifting to the Right to the Beat of the Crisis

Much has been written about U.S. brinkmanship with default, but the clear lesson that can be drawn from this unprecedented situation is that a lunatic fringe can block democracy.

Swiss Knife Sharpened to Cut Bosses’ Pay

Swiss voters will decide Nov. 24 on introducing a salary cap that would limit the wage spread in companies to 1:12. The economic lobby is nervous - success for the proposal in the referendum is not as unrealistic as once expected.

There are Solutions to U.S. Calamities

Political terrorism failed. The House Republicans used voting in one chamber to put the livelihoods of millions of people inside and outside the U.S. at risk, for their own political goals. And made the mistake of most terrorists, non-state or state: when people suffer they will join us, against our enemy; to find out that people turn against the terrorists instead.

Key Global Financial Agencies Fall Short on Poverty Reduction

Key multilateral institutions charged with improving regulation of the international financial system are failing to democratise their governance and adequately consider the impact of their actions on the world's poor, says a new report by anti-poverty groups.

Private Initiative Finds Garbage Profitable in Cuba

As self-employment and cooperatives expand in socialist Cuba, they are making incursions into new areas, such as waste picking and recycling – for many a means of subsistence, but for others, a gold mine.

The Uncertain Future of the World Economy

Five years into the crisis, growth in the U.S. is still below potential, Europe is struggling to pull out of recession and major emerging economies are slowing rapidly after an initial resilience during 2010-2011.

Walking an Economic Tightrope with No Safety Net

With the richest one percent of the population now owning 40 percent of global assets, and the bottom half sharing just one percent, inequality is fast being recognised as a stubborn underlying obstacle to development.

Not Fukushima Again

Two and a half years ago, Ayako Oga, now 30, found herself helpless as an earthquake and the tsunami it triggered hit Japan and crippled four reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. She and her husband were forced to abandon their village Ookuma Machi, barely five kilometres away.

European Union at the Crossroads

"One of the fundamental contradictions is this: that whereas economic life has internationalism, or better still cosmopolitanism, as a necessary premise, state life has developed ever more in the direction of 'nationalism,' of 'self-sufficiency' and so on."

Some Rice, Served With Rainwater

The quiet Cambodian village of Chouk, set in the beautiful forests of the Cardamom Mountains near the Thai border, seems peaceful. But things are difficult in this largely empty village of simple wooden houses, populated mainly by children and the elderly.