INDIA: Reverse Migration Casts Shadow on Kerala Economy

Recession in petroleum-rich Middle Eastern countries is causing thousands of workers to return to their homes in southern Kerala triggering fears of a negative impact on the local economy.

CARIBBEAN: Deportation Row Takes Centre-Stage at Caricom

Caribbean leaders are due to meet for a full working week starting Thursday to discuss issues ranging from climate change to the global economic crisis.

ENVIRONMENT: ‘Slow Down Living’

A group of Christian environmentalists met in Pistoia in central Italy over the weekend to call for an end to mass consumption and a return to family values.

ECONOMY-US: Congress Pushing for Federal Reserve Audit

A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives is now in support of a historic bill by Republican lawmaker Ron Paul to audit the Federal Reserve (the Fed), the privately run central bank that sets monetary policy for the United States.

SOUTH AFRICA: Young, Educated and Unemployed

Unemployment among young South Africans is hovering at 30 percent, shooting up to over 60 percent for youths in their late teens and early twenties. But tertiary education and skills development seem not to be making much of a dent in what is now regarded as a crisis.

POLITICS: U.N. Plan for Financial Crisis Derided as Weak

When the General Assembly adopted a proposed plan of action aimed at overcoming the global financial crisis, one of the political surprises was that all 192 member states gave their blessings to the wide range of proposals spelled out in an "outcome document".

DEVELOPMENT: Not Another Missed Opportunity, Civil Society Urges

A coalition of civil society organisations called the Global Social Economy Group (GSEG) is pressing for the immediate and long-term financing needs of developing countries to take centre-stage at the U.N. Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis.

ECONOMY: "Patching Up Bretton Woods Makes No Sense"

The world community must take immediate action to overhaul the current global financial system – that's what a vast majority of political leaders and policymakers from the developing world who are attending a three-day U.N. conference on the global economic crisis are saying.

DEVELOPMENT: Western Aid Declines, Financial Bailouts Mount

As the world's poorer nations warn about the gravity of the global financial crisis on their fragile economies, the United Nations has exposed the hypocrisy of Western donors who cry poverty even while they raise trillions of dollars to rescue their beleaguered financial institutions.

ECONOMY: More Democracy the Cure for Broken System, U.N. Says

The United Nations General Assembly kicked off a three-day conference on the world financial crisis Wednesday with calls for a substantial overhaul of the decades-long model under which the world's richest countries set the terms of global fiscal and trade policy.

ECONOMY-AFRICA: Deny Neoliberal Consensus

Africa should ‘‘deny consensus'' at multilateral level to ensure that the region's interests are taken seriously, says Professor Patrick Bond speaking on how Africa should approach this week's high-level United Nations' meeting on the global economic crisis.

DEVELOPMENT: China Lends Support to U.N. Finance Summit

China has lent its support to a U.N. finance summit where developing countries are pressing to air their grievances over how the global economic crisis has affected the world’s poorest. Yet, for the largest developing country the crisis remains a debacle with a silver lining - a matchless opportunity to accomplish its dream of regaining the regional and global clout it once held, and fast forward its ambitions.

DEVELOPMENT: UN Meet May Short-Change the Poor

As United Nations members gather for talks on how best to end the global financial crisis, anti-poverty campaigners fear that instead of addressing poverty in the developing world, governments will work to prop up financial structures.

Q&A: U.N.’s Enormous Potential Being Marginalised

An international conference on the global financial crisis - hosted by the United Nations - is being marginalised by Western countries which have refused to send any of their political leaders to the meeting.

ECONOMY-CUBA: Holiday Blues in Times of Crisis

Anxieties about making ends meet in Cuba are heightened at the start of the summer holiday season, when there is increased demand for food, transport and electricity, all of which are affected by restrictions intended to ease the country's economic problems, intensified by the global recession.

POLITICS: World Bank, IMF Heads Skip Summit on Global Crisis

When a major international conference on financing for development took place in the Qatari capital of Doha last November, the heads of both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) skipped the meeting.

ALBANIA: Poll Brings Old Recipes, New Expectations

The Jun. 28 general election in Albania is being seen as a crucial test in the country's evolution towards a democratic future. The two main parties that have dominated the post-communist period both have ambitious agendas whose top priority is European integration.

POLITICS: Will Women Be an Afterthought at U.N. Crisis Meet?

A groundbreaking U.N. General Assembly conference on the global economic crisis and its impact on development, set to begin Wednesday, may sideline women's numerous concerns, civil society groups say.

ECONOMY-ZAMBIA: Hard Times on the Copperbelt

Nowhere in Zambia is the impact of the global financial crisis being felt harder than in the copper and cobalt-rich province of the Copperbelt.

Q&A: Financial Crisis Unprecedented Since 1930s*

Since the Great Depression of the 1930s, there have been more than 100 crises worldwide, says the secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi.

NICARAGUA: Women Bear the Brunt of the Crisis

"Don’t worry, your job will be here when you come back," Lorena Castillo’s supervisor reassured her when she asked to take a day off for a gynaecologist appointment. She had been working at the textile factory for the past six months and it was the first time she asked for a day off. It turned out to be her last.