Immanuel Wallerstein comments on the global financial crisis from a long-term historical perspective, and on the opportunities it offers for global justice movements (Harold Wolpe Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 5 November 2009). Read more
Immanuel Wallerstein comments on the global financial crisis from a long-term historical perspective, and on the opportunities it offers for global justice movements (Harold Wolpe Lecture, University of KwaZulu-Natal, 5 November 2009). Read more
Migrants’ rights have to be addressed on two fronts: end the neoliberal policies that are responsible for creating poverty in their home countries, thus forcing them to emigrate, and demand that they are given full rights in their host countries. Read more
Penguin Books India, 2009, 464 pages, 450 INR
Financial wizards, economists, business persons and social activists around the globe have been challenging the free market orthodoxy. They seek to recover the virtues of bazaars from the tyranny of a market model that emerged about two centuries ago. This book is a chronicle of their (...)
Global initiatives have in recent years stressed the contribution that arts and culture can make to development. This has led African and European artists, bureaucrats and policy makers to increasingly confront the unequal relations in North-South cultural and artistic exchanges. Read more
The biggest roadblock standing in the way of many people’s recognition of the importance of the commons came tumbling down this week when Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for economics.
Over many decades Ostrom has documented how various communities manage (...)
On June 28, the democratically elected President of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was forcibly removed from power and exiled to Costa Rica by the Honduran military in a coup d’état. On September 21, Zelaya returned to Honduras with the support of the government of Brazil and has taken refuge in the (...)
By Oishik Sircar
Multiculturalism is the official policy that countries adopt to legally protect racial, ethnic and cultural diversity. But multiculturalism is going awry in a world that encourages the free movement of capital across borders while guarding against the free movement of people who threaten our (...)
Jonathan Mundell
It is common knowledge that the African continent has been hit hardest by the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Over the past 25 years, Africa has been the prime victim of a small, but highly intelligent virus, which has infected and killed millions of people, and significantly hampered the growth and (...)
by Natalia Sineaeva-Pankowska, Special to Kyiv Post
Moldova is the country known in the world as one of the poorest ex-Soviet states, like Armenia and Georgia. It is also one of the most multi-cultural and multi-lingual countries, with a long tradition of mixed marriages and hybrid identities. According to the latest census conducted in 2004, (...)
Chris Sands
A correspondent looks back at the deterioration across the country over the past three years: the resurgence of both the Taliban and the old corrupt elites, the failure of the occupation forces, and the worsening conditions of life for everybody else.
As the summer of 2005 faded, everyone in (...)
Doudou Diène, Le Courrier de l’Unesco n° 10, 2008
Xenophobia and racism are intellectual constructs that have taken root in the human mind over the centuries. Legal measures are proving inadequate, as they only touch the visible tip of the iceberg. An intellectual strategy is needed, in order to reach into the historical and cultural depths (...)
by Linda Nordling
Last year’s row between two pan-African policy bodies is feeding a split between regional and federal approaches to science, says Linda Nordling.
Research and innovation is an area that could benefit from coordinating projects and pooling resources between nations. So it was disappointing (...)
A paper presented at the 2006 African Feminist Forum
The essential paradox about a globalised world is that as global business and micro politics have relentlessly spread across the globe, there has been a tendency for many people to get closer to the ethnic, national, religious and racial identities. This nestling within a known identity has (...)
Global Monitoring Report 2008 of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
A mid-term assessment of where the world stands on its commitment to provide basic education for all children, youth and adults by 2015.
What education policies and programmes have been successful? What are the main challenges? How much aid is needed? Is aid being properly targeted? Read
by Patrick Bond
Far-reaching strategic debate is underway about how to respond to the global financial crisis, and indeed how the North’s problems can be tied into a broader critique of capitalism.
At minimum, the ongoing chaos offers new ideological space and material justifications for African finance (...)
Two Palestinian views
– The only alternative to two states is conflict
by Ghassan Khatib
Israel is interested in and working on a future for the Gaza Strip that is different from that of the West Bank. Read more
Two Israeli views
– One state definitely not an option (...)
Focus on the Global South
Assaulted on all sides owing to its entanglement in the ZTE-NBN corruption scandal, the administration has confronted its critics with the image of an economy that is purring along, that is doing just fine except for the rise in the price of rice, for which it says it is blameless. Read more
Brutal attacks on the Christian community by Hindutva forces ravaged Orissa’s Kandhamal district during Christmas week 2007. As an unconcerned and partisan administration looked on, a coordinated and well-planned series of attacks was launched on Christians and Christian institutions across (...)
By Inés Benítez
"Before forming part of the association, we were shut up in our houses. Now we have overcome our fear and shame of going out and seeing new places, and we are bringing money in for our families," says Nicolasa Raxtun, a 30-year-old Maya Cakchiquel Indian woman. Read more
by Jean-Frédéric Morin
The proliferation of bilateral agreements is a new and fascinating trend in the world trading system. The number of bilateral agreements has been steadily increasing since the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995 and the slow progress of the current Doha Round seems to have (...)