Inequality

Zimbabweans Left Worse Off by Local Mining Companies

By Tatenda Dewa
Ranganai Zimbeva, from the rural village of Mutoko, which lies about 200 km northeast of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, plugs his ears with his fingers and shakes his head as he watches miners close to his village blast the hard rock to extract the black granite within.

Teen Pregnancy Rooted in Powerlessness

By Joan Erakit
Before we begin, perhaps we can set aside the stereotypes: no, she didn’t "mess herself up by following boys around", and no, it is not in fact her fault that she became pregnant.

Caught Between Two Sudans

By Andrew Green
When Chris Bak returned two weeks ago to the disputed border town of Abyei, which voted this week on whether to join Sudan or South Sudan, he barely recognised it as the place where he grew up. “Everything is dirty,” he told IPS. “We were just going around and around, but we didn’t [recognise] this place.”

Swiss Knife Sharpened to Cut Bosses’ Pay

By Ray Smith
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.

Bangladesh Ailing After Aila

By Robert Stefanicki
It has been four years since Cyclone Aila struck Bangladesh, triggering floods and widespread destruction. But the villagers of Koira subdistrict, among the worst affected of the 11 districts hit by the cyclone, are yet to recover from its impact.

Refugees Eating Dogs to Beat Starvation

By Mutawalli Abou Nasser
Acute food shortages have reached desperate levels in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus. Leading religious figures in the camps have issued a fatwa permitting the killing and consumption of cats, dogs, mice, rats and donkeys.

‘Dirty’ Christians Now Afraid to Clean

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Like most Christians in Pakistan, Johar Maseeh did a little cleaning job. He was a sweeper in a factory in Peshawar, capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northern Pakistan.

Mirror, Mirror – Who Is that Woman on TV?

By Walter García and Fabiana Frayssinet
Carla Vilas Boas is of mixed-race descent – African, European and indigenous - like a majority of the population of Brazil. But she spends hours straightening her hair, trying to look more like the blond, blue-eyed women she sees in the mirror of television.

When Poverty Quietly Morphs into Catastrophe

By Miriam Gathigah and George Gao
Wambui Karunyu, 72, and her seven-year-old grandson are the only surviving members of their immediate family.  Karunyu’s husband and five children all succumbed to the hardships of living in the semi-arid area of lower Mukurweini district in central Kenya.

Walking an Economic Tightrope with No Safety Net

By Thalif Deen
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.

Homeless Again

By Inés Benítez
A police cordon kept everyone out of the Buenaventura “corrala” on Thursday after the police evicted 13 families living in the occupied building in the centre of this southern Spanish city early in the morning.

Africa’s Growth Story Brightens

By Jacey Fortin
Not far from the headquarters of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Ethiopia's capital city of Addis Ababa, a young woman named Bosena, 25, sits on the side of a busy road with a baby in her arms.

Parallel Economy Keeps Indians Poor

By Ranjit Devraj
As India grapples with rising prices and a rapidly sinking rupee, attention has turned to the country's massive parallel economy that siphons wealth away from development programmes and into the pockets of a corrupt ruling elite.

Ugandan Women Put On Their Boxing Gloves

By Amy Fallon
Helen Baleke took up boxing at 16, after she was attacked by a man in Kampala’s Katanga slum. But the beating turned her into what she is today – one of only several female Ugandan amateur boxers.

100-Dollar Dream Teases Bangladesh Workers

By Robert Stefanicki
On the industrial outskirts of Dhaka, which is dotted with big and small clothes factories, thousands of workers took to the streets demanding a minimum wage rise.

Hunger Decreases, but Unevenly, U.N. Reports

By Sabina Zaccaro
Some 842 million people still suffer from chronic hunger, according to the State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI 2013), published Tuesday by the three Rome-based U.N. food agencies.

U.S.-Africa Trade Mostly Benefits Oil, Textiles

By Ramy Srour
With a key U.S.-Africa trade agreement up for renewal in 2015, advocates on all sides of the issue say current policies are rife with shortcomings that leave many African businesses out in the cold.

People Pressure Piles up to Cleanse the Philippines

By Richard Heydarian
Under the reformist leadership of President Benigno Aquino III who has placed “good governance” initiatives at the heart of his administration’s agenda, the Philippines has enjoyed an unprecedented period of economic revival and political stability. 

Egypt Paying a Price for ‘Cheap’ Labour

By Cam McGrath
Egyptian workers who mobilised during the 2011 uprising that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak have used the past two and a half years to organise into unions, press for labour reforms, and strike for better wages and working conditions.

Haitian Government Applies Make-up to Misery

By Correspondents
Pink, green, blue, red. From a distance, the thousands of brightly coloured houses look like a painting. The observer can’t see the suffering and dangers threatening the residents of the Jalousie neighbourhood – problems that are being ignored by the government, which is spending six million dollars on a massive make-up job.

Poverty Declines as Inequality Deepens

By Thalif Deen
As world leaders from 193 countries evaluate the successes and failures of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) during high-level meetings and special events here, the United Nations claims that extreme poverty worldwide has been cut in half.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*