Tous les articles et traductions

35 years ago, workers at the Lucas Aerospace company formulated an ‘alternative corporate plan’ to convert military production to socially useful and environmentally desirable purposes. What are the lessons for greening the world economy today? Read more

Secrecy is a central feature of the global financial system. Jurisdictions compete with each other to provide it, in order to attract financial flows – with appalling effects elsewhere. It is essential to identify the worst culprits in providing this secrecy. But nobody has ever tried to do this (…)

‘Belching out the devil’ chronicles a series of journeys to various parts of the world to meet those who have experienced ‘the Coke side of life’ that the adverts don’t tell us about. There are Indian farmers with empty wells, Colombian trade unionists with collections of death threats, hassled (…)

The hike in global food prices has pushed hundreds of millions more people into poverty, and sparked riots and protests in the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Walden Bello, the leading writer and activist on the global South, provides a penetrating analysis of the various causes: not just (…)

A massive rally in Chicago next week aims to express public displeasure with the massive bank bailout outside the American Bank Association annual meeting. Protesters will converge at 11:30 on Monday, October 26, at 301 North Water Street, where the meeting is taking place.
"The same financial (…)

There is at most a weak link between population growth and rising emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, says a study published today (28 September) in the journal Environment and Urbanization.
The paper contradicts growing calls for population growth to be limited as (…)

A year on from the collapse of major banks, and less than 50 days before the UN Climate Change talks in Copenhagen, the new economics foundation is providing policymakers with the first comprehensive blueprint for an economy based on stability, prosperity, fairness, sustainability and (…)

Despite changes in rhetoric, IMF policy advice and conditions are still having the same detrimental effects on social protection, decent work and poverty in countries forced to take out loans due to the financial crisis, a new report released today shows.
Published on the eve of the (…)

The bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment bank in September 2008 is seen by many as the tipping point in a series of collapses in the banking system that spread like prairie fire through the financial markets and stock exchanges of the richest economies of the world. Since then, the word (…)

The current global food crisis — decades in the making — is a crushing indictment against capitalist agriculture and the corporate monopolies that dominate the world’s food systems. The role of the industrial agrifood complex in creating the crisis (through the monopolization of input (…)

Food Rebellions! is a powerful handbook for those seeking to understand the causes and potential solutions to the current food crisis now affecting nearly half of the world’s people. Why are food riots are occurring around the world in a time of record harvests? What are the real impacts of (…)

In its latest Global Employment Trends update of May, the ILO has revised upwards its unemployment projections to levels ranging from 210 million to 239 million unemployed worldwide in 2009. The report notes that the economic crisis is detrimental for both women and men, whether they are at (…)

Debt, often arising from irresponsible lending, has been part of the Global South’s experience for decades. Could the fallout from the most recent
bout of reckless lending in the North see these countries tipped into an even deeper debt crisis?
With traditional sources of finance drying up, (…)

The world is looking at China to save it from depression, but China has built its export based economy on the backs of its rural population, which is too poor to absorb the industry’s output now that global demand has slumped.
Will China be the "growth pole" that will snatch the world from the (…)

This report does not contain an analysis of Shell’s corporate responsibility policies, operational aspects of corporate responsibility management, implementation systems, reporting and transparency, or total performance on any issue. For some controversies, it is indicated which standards or (…)

As the US reports its first known death from the global swine flu, the World Health Organization has raised its pandemic threat level. Several countries around the world have banned the import of US and Mexican pork products. We speak to professor and author Robert Wallace, who says the swine (…)

On 14 May 2009 the Constitutional Court will hear the attempt by the shack dweller’s movement Abahlali baseMjondolo to have the KwaZulu-Natal Slums Act declared unlawful. Other provinces have been mandated to develop similar legislation and the decision of the court may have a significant impact (…)

In 2004 SOMO started researching labour issues in the supply chains of computer companies. This resulted in different reports, company profiles, the launce of the makeITfair campaign and extensive consultation with the computer industry. Now SOMO is looking at how companies have improved their (…)

The London G20 summit was as disappointing as expected. Several declarations were of course of interest insofar as they seem opposite to the policy principles of past years. Let us take note of them and not hesitate to remind the G20 about the promises on regulation. An initial question puts a (…)

As the international financial crisis points to the collapse of laissez faire economics and discredits market fundamentalism, Africa and the global South should break free from failed neoliberal policies and the institutions that have promoted them and define their own paths to development, (…)