China, India Score With Untied Aid

Armed with a smile, Don Marut exposes the pitfalls of Western aid to developing countries. At a conference here, the Indonesian recalled the story of how 40 electric-train carriages were sent from Germany to his country for a journey to nowhere.

KENYA: Poor Struggle as Inflation Soars

As Kenya's inflation rate reached 15.53 percent, compared to 3.18 percent in October 2010, the country's poor have been struggling to afford the most basic of essentials. In some areas families can no longer rely on regular meals and have reduced them to one a day, others mostly eat potatoes to get by, and in one Rift Valley slum, poor families now buy toothpaste by the drop.

ECONOMY-ZIMBABWE: Good Policies Make for Good Business

With effective political and economic policies, Africa can be a haven for multinational companies (MNCs) even in the continent's least developed countries.

MALAWI: Giving Up on Tobacco

Malawi is reducing the production of tobacco following huge losses by smallholder tobacco farmers and commercial estates trading the crop on the country’s only official tobacco markets, the auction floors.

GHANA: Guidelines for Unregulated Microfinance Sector

When Andrew Poku's mother passed away he needed help to pay for her funeral. So the 35-year-old teacher from Accra turned to one of the country's several loan companies for a 670-dollar loan.

AFRICA: Emerging Trend Towards Establishing Offshore Tax Havens

As several African governments examine the possibility of setting up their own "offshore" financial centres, the trade name for tax havens, campaigners are calling for transparency and fair tax regimes.

SWAZILAND: Disagreement on How South African Loan Should be Spent

Despite the 2.4 billion emalangeni (342 million dollar) loan from the South African government to its cash-strapped neighbour, Swaziland is sinking deeper into debt.

Eurozone Crisis Could Spill Over into Developing World

When the global economy was hit by a severe recession in 2008- 2009, the negative fallout impacted heavily on the world's developing nations, hindering the U.N.'s key development goals, including plans for the elimination of extreme poverty and hunger worldwide by 2015.

U.S.: Major Telecom Firm in Struggle With Striking Workers

As unemployed young rioters rage across London and frustrated homeless people in Holon burn tires on the streets of Israel, the great capitalist democracy across the Atlantic is also feeling repercussions from its own floundering economy.

OP-ED: Protest Movements Teach Economics to Bankers

The European Central Bank (ECB) is run by people who are not very good at economics. They continue to adhere to a fundamentally wrongheaded view of the economy and the central bank's role within it.

South Summit of World Leaders in Search of a Venue

The ongoing political turmoil in Libya has derailed plans for a major summit meeting of developing nations scheduled to take place in Tripoli in October.

South America Unites Against “Irresponsible Debtors” in the North

Default, insolvency, fiscal irresponsibility, debt crisis and similar terms form part of the vocabulary used to describe countries in the developing South in the 1980s and 1990s. A decade later, the world seems to have turned upside down.

Q&A: “The Threat of Default Was a Crisis for Wall Street, Not Workers”

After weeks of political wrangling over a budget proposal to settle the country's 14-trillion-dollar debt, U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday signed into law a bill that would slash 2.1 trillion dollars from the deficit over the next decade.

PORTUGAL: Food Aid for “New Poor”, Extra Wealth for Nouveau Riche

"The crisis is only for some of us" has become a commonly heard phrase in Portugal, following the drastic fiscal adjustment policies imposed in May by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund as the condition for a 112 billion dollar financial bailout.

U.S.: Military Hawks Upset with Debt Deal

As both houses of Congress began debating the 11th-hour debt limit deal hashed out Sunday night by senior lawmakers and the White House, neo-conservatives and other national security hawks complained bitterly Monday that the final package may force major cuts in defence spending in the coming years.

SPAIN: “Indignant” Demonstrators Marching to Brussels to Protest Effects of Crisis

Protesters from several European Union cities have begun to follow the example of hundreds of demonstrators from Spain who are marching from Madrid to Brussels, the bloc's de facto capital, in a growing protest against the effects of the economic crisis and the fiscal adjustment policies adopted to combat it.

U.S.: Recession Turned Back Clock for Blacks, Hispanics

While recession in the U.S. delivered a series of record lows, from crashing property prices to residual birth and marriage rates, an analysis of new census data suggests it accomplished at least one record high - the wealth gap between whites and minorities.

U.N. Puts Spotlight on Youth in Tough Global Climate

Government leaders, U.N. officials and representatives from over 400 hundred youth organisations concluded two days of talks Tuesday on such issues as the importance of youth in eradicating poverty and how to stabilise the global economic system in the face of myriad challenges.

Eurozone Leaders Reach Greek Debt Agreement

Eurozone leaders have agreed in a crucial summit to find a way out for Greece to manage its debt crisis.

World Warned Over Greek Debt Crisis

Eurozone leaders must find a solution to Greece's debt crisis or the global economy will pay the price, the European Commission president has said.

China Offers Lifeline to Hard-Hit Europe

As the debt crisis drains the purses of European countries, EU members are trying to alleviate the economic downturn, in part with the aid of Chinese investments.