As welcome as it was, the removal of George W. Bush was not enough to cure what ails the US. It goes to the root of our political system. Only real democracy can save this country. Read more
As welcome as it was, the removal of George W. Bush was not enough to cure what ails the US. It goes to the root of our political system. Only real democracy can save this country. Read more
The birthplace of the World Social Forum (WSF), conceived as an alternative to international meetings pursuing free-market economics, Brazil is on its way to becoming a major economic power, analysts say. The question is, what kind of model will it adopt to avoid the behaviour it has (...)
On Democracy Now!, a tribute to the late historian, writer and activist Howard Zinn, who died suddenly on Wednesday of a heart attack at the age of eighty-seven. Howard Zinn’s classic work A People’s History of the United States changed the way we look at history in America. It has sold over a (...)
Under the title “Haiti: Microcosm of the crisis of development”, issue 467 of Pambazuka News, "the authoritative electronic weekly newsletter and platform for social justice in Africa", features several articles on the Haiti quake, its causes and the political lessons to be drawn from this (...)
Edited by Sokari Ekine, Pambazuka Press
SMS Uprising provides a unique insight into how activists and social change advocates are addressing Africa’s many challenges from within, and how they are using mobile telephone technologies to facilitate these changes.
This collection of essays by those engaged in using mobile phone (...)
A few weeks ago Bruce Levine wrote a provocative article titled "Are Americans a Broken People? Why We’ve Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression." Levine suggested that many progressives and much of the general population may be so broken by the system that they’ve given up (...)
One year after the devastating attack on Hamas in Gaza a new wave of reports castigating Israel for war crimes has emerged.
Now, Israel is fighting back with a report on the reports, picking on international NGOs such as Amnesty, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Trocaire , Finn Church Aid, Diakonia and (...)
The Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) was shut down by the Constitutional Court of Turkey, unanimously, sparking mass protests. Raphael Tsavkko Garcia takes a closer look at Kurdish blogs for reactions. Read more
Technology transfer is one of the four key topics being discussed under negotiations on Long-Term Cooperative Actions in Copenhagen (the others are mitigation, adaptation and financing). The inter-governmental negotiating text that is under discussion contemplates various measures for (...)
Edgardo Lander, Walden Bello
This publication aims to contribute to a more sophisticated understanding of the emerging climate justice movement and to create resonances between different perspectives and spheres of engagement. The activities around the COP 15 in Copenhagen are a starting point in the creation of such a (...)
Today’s food is well travelled. A pack of green beans in a Northern supermarket may have journeyed 6000 miles, or 60. But while food miles loom large in our carbon-aware times, transporting it counts for less than you might think. And there is a far bigger picture. Food is more than a plateful (...)
What we really need is a new women’s health movement, one that’s sharp and skeptical enough to ask all the hard questions: What are the environmental (or possibly life-style) causes of the breast cancer epidemic? Why are existing treatments like chemotherapy so toxic and heavy-handed? And, if (...)
Next month, at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the wealthy nations that produce most of the excess carbon in our atmosphere will almost certainly fail to embrace measures adequate to ward off the devastation of our planet by heat and chaotic weather. Their leaders will probably (...)
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 (...)
Since the Revolution in 1979, Iranians have coped with an increasingly repressive regime. Attempts for greater social and political freedoms have resulted in brutal crackdowns by the hardline government. The ensuing apathy and significant boycott of the 2005 presidential elections led to the (...)
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 (...)
Foodfirst.org
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 (...)
The international debate and the alter-globalist movement’s approach
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 (...)
This text is the initial result of the 1st which took place in Belém on 26-27 January 2009.
It has been written and accepted by citizens of 18 countries from 4 continents. It initiates an open and inclusive global process that seeks to build an international network of movements, (...)
Walden Bello interviewed by Gabriel Elizondo
As the WSF was winding down in Belem in Brazil, Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo spoke with Walden Bello about his thoughts on this year’s meeting.
Al Jazeera: How has the 2009 World Social Forum different from the past years’?
Bello: This represents the triumph of the World Social Forum over (...)