Opinion: Crisis, Emergency Measures and Failure of the ISDS System: The Case of Argentina

The investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system has come under increasing criticism in recent years.

One Tune, Different Hymns – Tackling Climate Change in South Africa

Anti-nuclear energy activists are up in arms, and have taken to vigils outside South Africa’s parliament in Cape Town to protest against President Jacob Zuma’s push for nuclear development.

Opinion: Unrestrained ‘Privatisation of Poverty-Reduction’ Puts Human Rights at Risk

Corporate lobbyists are unusual guests at development meetings, but when the United Nations held its Financing for Development conference in Addis Ababa this week to decide who pays for its new “Sustainable Development Goals”, some governments laid out the red carpet for the private sector.

Opinion: A Development Fairytale or a Global Land Rush?

In our work at Greenpeace and the Oakland Institute around access and control over natural resources, we face constant accusations of being anti-development or “Northern NGOs who care more for the trees”, despite working with communities around the world, from Cameroon, to China, to the Czech Republic.

No Woman, No World

Almost exactly two years ago, on the morning of Apr. 24, over 3,600 workers – 80 percent of them young women between the ages of 18 and 20 – refused to enter the Rana Plaza garment factory building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, because there were large ominous cracks in the walls. They were beaten with sticks and forced to enter.

The Two Koreas: Between Economic Success and Nuclear Threat

The two Koreas are an odd match – both are talking about possible dialogue but both have different ideas of the conditions, and that difference comes from the 62-year-old division following the 1950-53 Korean War.

How Long Before Another Soma Mine Disaster?

Six days a week, Tahir Cetin spends seven and a half hours hundreds of feet underground on a narrow ledge, mining coal near Soma, Turkey. He breathes in dust that is destroying his lungs, and digs into walls that could collapse on top of him. With one false step, he could fall to his death.

Growing Calls for Reforms of El Salvador’s Privatised Pension System

Two of the promises made 16 years ago when El Salvador’s pension system was privatised have failed to materialise: There was no expansion of social security coverage and no improvement in pensions. Now pressure is growing for a reform of the system.

Greek Privatisation of Key Sectors Meets Strong Opposition

Plans by the Greek government to sell companies that handle the key resources of energy and water face serious obstacles and its policy to offer investors exceptional privileges in an effort to boost interest in privatisation is coming under strong pressure.

Debt and Dirty Energy Weigh Heavy on Puerto Rico’s Utility

Everyone in Puerto Rico agrees that the island's ailing Electric Power Authority (PREPA) is badly in need of an overhaul, both in engineering and economic terms.

Switching Off Market ‘Reforms’ in the Philippines

After two decades of aggressively privatising its public services, the Philippines is beginning to realise the cost of mindless market reforms.

Blackouts in Argentina Highlight Failings of Privatisation

Record temperatures at the start of the southern hemisphere summer in Argentina have been accompanied by highs on the thermometer of social discontent, as consumption peaks left thousands without electricity and threw into sharp focus the failings of the privatisation of the power industry in the 1990s.

Mexico Needs a Bouncer at the Oil Industry Door

As Mexico is about to open its oil industry up to foreign investment, it will need penalties for negligence and regulations that force private firms to follow best practices in order to avoid problems like oil spills, analysts say.

WTO Urged Not to Treat Water Like Widgets

As government representatives gather Tuesday in Indonesia for what could be final negotiations towards a global trade agreement under the World Trade Organisation (WTO), environmentalists and social justice campaigners are urging them to specify that water resources cannot be treated as commodities.

The Role of the State in Developing Countries under Attack from New FTAs

Two new trade agreements involving the two economic giants, the United States and the European Union, are leading a charge against the role of the state in the economy of developing countries.

Argentina’s Rail Tragedy Shows Changes Coming Too Slowly

The latest railway tragedy in the Argentine capital, the third in less than two years on the same commuter line, brought to light the severe limitations of a hybrid public-private system, despite the changes underway.

Turkey’s Excessive Neo-liberalism Threatens ‘Peace at Home’

"Peace at home, peace in the world" is the official motto of the Turkish Republic. Coined in 1931 by the republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, it implies a causal relationship, but the events this week in Istanbul and dozens of other cities of Turkey suggest that causality can work in reverse order, too.

Greeks Fight Canadian Gold-Diggers

Any sense of tranquility that hangs around the mountain of Skouries in northern Greece, 80 km east of Greece’s second largest city Thessaloniki, is a façade. Home to some of the oldest forests in Greece, the pristine region is now a battleground, as the local population takes on the Canadian mining giant Eldorado Gold Corporation and its local subsidiary, Hellas Gold.

Mining and Logging Companies “Leaving Chile without Water”

More than 100 environmental, social and indigenous organisations protested Monday in the Chilean capital to demand that the state regain control over the management of water, which was privatised by the dictatorship in 1981.

Mexico Mired in Oil Debates

Oil, the symbol of modern Mexico, is once again stirring up local political waters, with turbulent debates on the fate of the state-owned oil monopoly and conflicts over the privatisation of key economic and strategic areas.