Tous les articles et traductions

Dec 12, 2010 (IPS) - Nearly three years into President Álvaro Colom’s four-year term, Guatemala’s indigenous people have seen little improvement in their lives — and they represent approximately half the country’s population.
"The situation of the native peoples may be even worse than (...)

The European Union is a significant player in the widespread occurrence of land-grabbing in Southeast Asia; both through its corporate sector and public policies.
Summary
Land-grabbing is occurring at a significant extent and pace in Southeast Asia; some of the characteristics of this land (...)

Few South Africans realise the power of Co-operatives in the global economy. Canada, Norway, Italy, India, China and Brazil each have a significant amount of their GDP generated by Co-operative organisations. One in four citizens in the USA and Germany are members of Co-ops. Even though our (...)

One telling example was the recent Chinese government-sponsored ‘top Chinese enterprises in Africa’ competition, won by China Road and Bridge Corporation [CRBC]. The aim of the award was officially stated as being ‘to commend the contributions by Chinese enterprises in Africa’ and ‘reply to (...)

"China has made remarkable economic and social progress over the past three decades, lifting several hundred millions out of poverty, and food security benefited significantly from this overall progress. However, the shrinking of arable land and the massive land degradation threatens the (...)

Old political-economy problems always nibble at the feet of new aspirant runners. These problems are systemic and get carried from one era to another despite the changing face of political players.
In the last 15 years, South Africa rode the economic wave on the basis of a commodity boom, (...)

Seven years after the March 2003 US-led invasion, Iraq remains deeply divided. Iraqis have been internally displaced in three periods: either under the former Ba’ath government; from the March 2003 invasion until the February 2006 Samarra bombing; and since then. Today, one in ten Iraqi is (...)

As 2010 draws to a close, both the United States and the United Nations have reached out to one of the world’s most marginalised groups in society: indigenous peoples.
The 192-member General Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution last week calling for a first-ever World Conference on (...)

Seen by some as a desirable and irreversible engine of prosperity and progress, globalization is resisted by others as the soft underbelly of a corporate imperialism that plunders and profiteers in the global marketplace. Globalization has brought many benefits, including the reduction of (...)

On the international scene South Africa plays diplomacy for high stakes. Often in the name of Africa and for itself, but this may receive some heckles from those who know that the game of diplomacy is mostly about enlightened self-interest, as the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables more than capably (...)

On 24 December 2010, Dr Binayak Sen — a man who has now become a cause célèbre across the country — was sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, for “conspiracy to commit sedition”. Sen had worked for 30 years with the tribal poor in the state both as a (...)

Two recent judicial interventions on the exercise of freedom of expression have given rise to some uneasiness. Judge Navita Kumari Bagha, Metropolitan Magistrate of the Patiala Courts, New Delhi, delivered on November 27 a 12-page order that sought to reverse years of free-speech jurisprudence (...)

Last fortnight we discussed the clandestine endgame afoot at Cancun to change the framework of the climate change negotiations to suit big and powerful polluters.
Since then Cancun has concluded and a deal, in the form of a spate of agreements, has been gavelled into existence by the chair. (...)

The following presentation was delivered to a packed meeting in inner-city Sydney on November 24, 2010. Pip Hinman was one of two local residents to organise the "town hall" meeting in response to community concern at far-right Christian Democrat MP Fred Nile’s bill to "ban face coverings" and (...)

The Big Downturn? Nanogeopolitics, ETC Group’s new 68-page report on global governance of nanoscale technologies, is an update of our 2005 Nanogeopolitics survey. In the intervening five years, policymakers – some kicking and screaming – have begun to acknowledge that fast-tracking nanotech (...)

Land grabbing in massive proportions is happening all over the world, threatening not only the survival of small farms but the very food sovereignty of nations. Prospective foreign buyers and speculators are justifying the land rush with the continuing global food crisis, rising energy demand (...)

This report speaks to the heart of what local government is about: supporting a better life for people and helping to build resilient communities, now and over the longer term. This report presents the findings of a project commissioned Local Government Improvement and Development and the (...)

Against the background of governments’ consolidation strategies, European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) researcher Vera Glassner provides an overview of recent developments in terms of pay, employment and reforms of the pay system in the public sector. Cuts and freezes of public sector wages (...)

Giant multinational brewer SABMiller – the company that owns Grolsch, Peroni, Miller and Castle – is avoiding an estimated £20m of taxes in Africa and India every year, enough money to educate a quarter-of-a-million African children, according to a new report released today by the (...)

In february 2010, quietly, unannounced, Arundhati Roy decided to visit the forbidding and forbidden precincts of Central India’s Dandakaranya Forests, home to a melange of tribespeople many of whom have taken up arms to protect their people against state-backed marauders and exploiters. She (...)