Tous les articles et traductions

The buzz generated online at momentous junctures, such as the uprisings in the Arab world, is certainly more than mere static.
[...] The nature and scope of the agency of the social media in the Arab Spring are, given the continuing flux in the region, a developing story. But the reading in (…)

US ranked fifth in executions with 43 in 2011, Amnesty International reports
Amnesty International has released its annual report on executions and the death penalty and found that executions were up in 2011. The increase, accoring to the report, is largely due to the reaction of Middle (…)

In June this year, the United Nations Conference of Environment and Development (UNCED) popularly known, as the Rio Earth Summit will commemorate 20 years. It was originally held in Brazil in 1992. You may recall that in 2002, South Africa hosted the World Summit on Sustainable Development (…)

Any attempts at playing Good Samaritan in Syria must be tempered by the fact that this is the Levant, where Asia touches the Mediterranean.
Ba’ath Party rule is as despicable a form of Government as is possible to find. Ruthless in their tyranny, Ba’athists employ every possible means of (…)

Two Ecuadoran journalists have been ordered to pay President Rafael Correa US$2 million in moral damages - the latest in a string of incidents that point to a "disturbing" and "deteriorating" free expression situation in Ecuador under President Rafael Correa, says IFEX-ALC, an alliance of 16 (…)

Public demonstrations have been central to South Africa’s democratic life for decades. Yet recent events suggest a narrowing of the substance of the right to assemble, demonstrate and picket, and a de-legitimisation of street politics. In this regard, the City of Cape Town’s near hysterical (…)

John Riddell interviews Felipe Stuart Cournoyer
In a fit of petulant anger, the US government lashed out on January 25 against the outcome of Nicaragua’s recent presidential election. To understand the context of the US threats, I talked to Felipe Stuart Cournoyer, a Nicaraguan citizen and (…)

Malawi is more dependent on environmental assets than most other countries, with over 80 per cent of Malawians involved in farming. The country is also vulnerable to environmental risks, such as floods and droughts and long-term climate change. If the stocks and flows of environmental assets are (…)

Burma edges towards peace.
Hopes of an end to the world’s longest-running insurgency were raised in recent days, as several ethnic rebel groups entered into ceasefire agreements with the Burmese government. The most important of these took place on 12 January, when the Karen National Union (…)

India seems to have arrived at the threshold of polio eradication, but should it lower its guard?
ON January 13, India achieved what had only two years ago seemed impossible in the immediate term. The country, which, given the epidemiological data in the new millennium, had come to be regarded (…)

India fails to extract emission cut commitments from Annex I countries in return for agreeing to the Durban Mandate at the climate talks.
INDIAN negotiators perhaps lost the wood for the trees at the two-week-long 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework (…)

Gender equity is a key element of any genuine program towards sustainable development. Analysis included on the Social Watch Report 2012 and the national contributions to the study prove, once again, the stagnation of the fight against these disparities, with disastrous consequences on the (…)

For the Government of India the first phase of the national solar mission has been a grand success. It not only managed to attract industry to invest in the generation of an energy considered costly, but also dramatically drove down the cost of producing this energy. In its celebration, little (…)

Discussions about Green Economy often ignore the Social, this video considers this issue.
See and read more on Focus on the Global South

By Nnimmo Bassey,, Pambazuka Press, £14.95
People in Africa argue that natural resources are a blessing; it is the way these are plundered and used that can turn them into a curse. The continent has plenty of experience of such plunder. Rich in resources, Africa is a net supplier of energy and (…)

Boris Kagarlitsky: People fed up with lack of economic and democratic rights used in fight within Russian elite
Read more on the Real News

The Syrian popular movement has witnessed an increasing mobilisation in recent weeks – the most important since last summer – despite the continuous violent repression. Defections within the army are still happening on a growing scale. Ten months after the beginning of the revolution – and (…)

In the next few weeks, the Press Freedom Commission will be holding public hearings into the adequacy of the self regulatory system for the press. In terms of this system, complaints of unethical reporting are handled by the Press Council of South Africa (PCSA), which was set up and is run by (…)

Buying Congress in 2012
My resolution for 2012 is to be naïve — dangerously naïve.
I’m aware that the usual recipe for political effectiveness is just the opposite: to be cynical, calculating, an insider. But if you think, as I do, that we need deep change in this country, then cynicism is a (…)

Science and technology can seem remote from the unfolding dramas of the world but they were never far from the front line in the first months of the Arab Spring.
When revolution broke out in Egypt’s Tahrir Square in January, scientists were there in force, helping to plant the seeds of change. (…)