Local Money Sets Its Own Stamp

Bristol, the eighth most populous town in the UK, has launched a local currency - the Bristol Pound. That makes it one of the largest localities to embrace a complementary currency among more than 2,500 worldwide.

U.S. Military Assistance to Central Asia Highly “Opaque”

U.S. military assistance to key Central Asian governments has increased dramatically in recent years, but remains highly “unexamined”, according to new research presented in Washington on Tuesday.

Most EU Nuclear Power Plants ‘Unsafe’

The so-called ‘stress tests’ on nuclear power plants in the European Union (EU) have confirmed environmental and energy activists’ worst fears: most European nuclear facilities do not meet minimum security standards.

Purveyors of Death Flourish in Spain During Crisis

At the height of the economic and financial crisis, the Spanish government is promoting the export of weapons, creating concern among civil society organisations that say commercial interests are prevailing over the law and human rights.

Death Penalty Campaigners Worry About the Steps Back

Ten years of campaigning by the World Coalition against the Death Penalty have brought fruit: the number of countries that have abolished capital punishment in law or practice has gone up to 140. But some countries have resumed executions this year.

KYRGYZSTAN: Mining Sector in Nationalists’ Crosshairs

When nationalist MP Kamchybek Tashiev led his supporters over a fence surrounding parliament in early October, both foreign and local executives working in Kyrgyzstan’s mining industry braced for the worst.

Greek State on Life Support

Like a person on life support whose vital functions are failing, the Greek economy is slowly but surely shutting down as radiation from the so-called ‘austerity plan’ erodes public institutions.

Besieged Homs Areas Endure Heavy Bombardment

Syria's military has intensified its shelling of rebel-held areas of the city Homs, activists say, amid reports of aerial and ground bombardment elsewhere in the country.

Helsinki Boycotts Tax Havens

The City of Helsinki added its voice to a growing global call against corporate tax evasion with the passage of a new responsibility strategy that leaves no room for unethical business practices.

Turkey Authorises Use of Force in Syria

Turkey’s parliament has authorised cross-border military action against Syria, if deemed necessary by the government.

UZBEKISTAN-TAJIKISTAN: Souring Political Relations Damaging Human Ties

This summer, a 32-year-old musician with Uzbek citizenship was visiting her mother in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. For the last decade, the musician has lived in the Tajik capital Dushanbe with her husband, an ethnic Uzbek, and their 10-year-old daughter.

Europe’s Support Crucial for Ongoing Arab Spring

The Arab Spring is far from over. The protracted conflict in Syria continues to swallow lives while the international community, hamstrung by geopolitics, looks on; riots across the Muslim world following the release of a low-budget American movie that is disrespctful of the Prophet Muhammad resulted in the death of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya; Tunisia and Egypt continue to struggle with post-revolutionary economies; and a string of democratically elected Islamist governments has taken root in newly-liberated countries throughout the region.

Doubts Linger About Caribbean-EU Trade Pact

P.J. Patterson, the former Jamaican prime minister, has had a long relationship with the European Union.

Debt Swallows Everything in Spain

One of every three euros that the Spanish government plans to spend in 2013 will go to servicing the public debt.

EU Seeks Protection from Emerging Economies

For many years, the European Union (EU) and its individual member states counted among the strongest advocates for free trade, arguing that it would boost economic growth and welfare both at home and abroad.

Multilateralism is at a Crossroads

Multilateralism is at a crossroads. This is a crucial matter for environmental and sustainability issues, as we have seen in the Rio+20 Summit, and for trade and other economic matters. The G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, focused precisely on improving our collective response to the current economic turbulence, which is at the heart of developments in the European Union (EU) as well.

Serbians Unite Against Nickel Extraction

A popular Serbian proverb quips that when it comes to politics there are as many opinions as there are people in this central European country of seven million.

Stevia, a Flourishing Business in Spain

On a parcel of land a few kilometres outside the southern Spanish city of Málaga, unemployed activists are growing 2,000 seedlings of stevia, a plant used by the Guaraní indigenous people for centuries as a natural sweetener that is awakening ever greater interest in Spain.

Ivorians Deal With European Stink

Nouma Camara, a 40-year-old tailor, remembers waking up on Aug. 20, 2006 to a smell he described as “something catastrophic.” His home in Akouedo village, in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital city of Abidjan, lies adjacent to a large, open-air dumpsite where toxic waste had been dumped the night before.

Will India Still Supply Cheap Drugs to the World?

India may be famous for the Taj Mahal, its religious ceremonies, Bollywood films and one of the highest economic growth rates in recent years. But more importantly, India has had a positive global impact through its supply of vast quantities of low-cost, good-quality generic medicines, which have saved or prolonged millions of lives.

South Invited to ‘De-Grow’

“We should find the way, with our small degrowth movement in the global North, to align ourselves with the environmental justice movement originating with indigenous peoples from the South,” Catalan ecological economist Juan Martinez-Alier said at the third international degrowth conference in Venice, Italy.