Globalisation

London cabs at Heathrow airport Credit: Wikipedia commons

ECONOMY: Get the Cab From Shanghai to London

By Sanjay Suri
The black, curvy London cab is so much more than just a taxi. It is an icon without which the picture of London can never be complete.

CLIMATE CHANGE: Asian Delegates Want ‘Political Accord’, For Now

By Athar Parvaiz
Asian delegations to the ongoing global negotiations on climate change are insisting that a political agreement must be reached to pave the way for a legally binding treaty in the near future.

Q&A: ‘Nuclear Energy Is Not a Solution to Climate Change’

By Neena Bhandari
As the threat of nuclear weapons looms large over the very existence of life on earth, Dr Sue Wareham, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear weapons’ (ICAN) Australian board member, is calling for a speedy abolition of these weapons and the rejection of nuclear power as a solution to climate change.

POLITICS: Defiant China Asserts Role in Global Affairs

By IPS Correspondents
The symbolism of Beijing dispatching its second top leader for celebrations with the reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il almost at the same time as Washington was deciding to break a tradition by refusing the Dalai Lama a meeting with the U.S. President last week has not been lost on observers here — keen to glimpse ever more signs of China's rise.

POLITICS: China Resists U.S.’s ‘Covert' Trade Agenda

By IPS Correspondents
As the United States talks about rebalancing global growth, China sees a covert agenda of trade protectionism. And while Beijing seems to agree that there is a price to pay for its new ascent as a global power, it bristles at suggestions that it needs to let its export powerhouse fade from prominence by allowing its currency, the yuan, to appreciate faster.

POLITICS: China Swaggers On, Yet Future Looks Uncertain

By IPS Correspondents
Showing off China’s new wealth and national might on the anniversary of the birth of the People’s Republic, the country’s leaders attributed its rise as a rejuvenated world power to the 60 years of communist rule.

PAKISTAN: Local Residents Tacitly Approve of Swat Killings

By IPS Correspondents
Widespread reports of extrajudicial killings of suspected Taliban by the military do not seem to have raised alarm bells among a people that have been deeply traumatized by the militant group's atrocities.

POLITICS: China, Burma Bust Up Over Border Unrest

By Larry Jagan
The border dispute between two close allies, China and Burma, has now been compounded by concerns over the junta’s future relations with the United States.

SRI LANKA: Coastal Village Rises Up from Ravages of War, Disaster

By IPS Correspondents
Vakarai is a dust bowl of a village, right at the edge of the coast in Sri Lanka’s east. The last three decades have not been too good for this fishing village — located about 300 kilometres east of the capital Colombo — and its inhabitants, mostly from the minority Tamil community.

RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Win Some, Lose Some for Beleaguered Penan Tribe

By Baradan Kuppusamy
In wealthy Malaysia that employs over four million Asians to service its high- rolling lifestyle, a tiny indigenous tribe is fighting for its survival against state inaction and bureaucratic apathy, as well as marauding giant multinationals and timber loggers.

THAILAND: Licence to Arm Civilians against Muslim Insurgency

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
With an insurgency threatening to worsen, Thailand’s military is turning to civilians like Nipa Waya to return fire in the three southern provinces close to the Malaysian border.

SRI LANKA: Gov’t to Resettle Displaced Tamils Ahead of Monsoon

By Feizal Samath
The Sri Lankan government, accused of keeping the refugees who fled fighting between the military and Tamil rebels against their will, is preparing to resettle these minority civilians ahead of next month’s monsoon period, officials from non-government agencies said Friday.

G20: Moving Up BRIC by BRIC

By Sanjay Suri
Every one of these 'G' meetings becomes now an occasion for the developing countries - say the emerging economies - to turn that extra energy into a louder voice in the business of global decision-taking.

G20: More May Be Needed, to Do More

By Sanjay Suri
The tests are coming thick and fast. After the G20 summit in Washington last year, the G20 in London in April, and the G8 in L'Aquila that was substantially a G20, the G20 finance ministers are meeting in London this Friday and Saturday ahead of the G20 gathering in Pittsburgh later this month.

DEVELOPMENT: Brazil, India, South Africa to Broaden “Voice of the South”

By Fabiana Frayssinet
The sixth ministerial meeting of the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) forum agreed Tuesday in Brasilia to strengthen the dialogue between the three emerging powers in order to establish common positions on regional and international matters and boost South-South cooperation.

POLITICS-CENTRAL AMERICA: Falling Out and Falling Apart?

By Daniel Zueras
The late June coup d'état in Honduras was a body blow to political integration in Central America. The institutions of the regional integration process have been incapable of reacting to the event, leaving the future of the process increasingly uncertain and trade agreements, themselves in poor shape, as the only viable way forward, experts say.
Ken Hewitt, recently unemployed, remains concerned about his family's future Credit: Stephen de Tarczynski/IPS

AUSTRALIA: Male Job Losses Rise as Families Count Costs

By Stephen de Tarczynski
Despite concerns that female workers would bear the brunt of Australian job losses due to the global economic downturn, employees in the male-dominated manufacturing industry have so far been the hardest hit.

MEDIA-CHINA: News of Ethnic Strife Skirts Chinese Censors

By Antoaneta Bezlova
The story of ethnic strife engulfing China's far-western province of Xinjiang may have been relegated to the inner pages of the country's state-controlled newspapers, but this time, the government could barely suppress the outflow of information.

NEPAL: Crime Grows Amid Political Instability

By IPS Correspondents
Khyati Shrestha, a 17-year-old high school student in Kathmandu, was abducted and brutally murdered last month. 17 days later, her body parts were found in the outskirts of the valley. The accused, Biren Pradhan, later chillingly revealed that she was killed within 24 hours of kidnapping.

G8: Some Aid Can be Hard to Stomach

By Sanjay Suri
As numbers go, and as expectations went, 20 billion dollars would be a fair bit for the G8 to produce to fight the food crisis and bring down hunger. Certainly, it was more than most expected.

CLIMATE CHANGE: G8 Declares a Lack of Promise

By Sanjay Suri
The G8 summit is no climate change meeting, and not formally associated in any sense with the series of negotiating meetings leading up to the climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. But the outcome of a G8 sponsored forum on climate change should get environmentalists worried about any outcome in Copenhagen.
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