Tous les articles et traductions

The European Union is changing its rules on how carbon is traded in response to a series of fraud cases and the financial crisis. This report looks at how corporate lobbies are trying to influence this process, and notes that such measures are bound to fall short since they attempt to "regulate (…)

Climate change predominantly impacts those who have benefited least from fossil fuelled industrialisation. The poor have less social, economic and political capacity to adapt to climate change than the rich. The arrival of the global climate negotiating lobby on African shores must focus the (…)

The idea of taxing international financial transactions is gaining ground. The European Union is promoting it internationally and studying the possibility of imposing it throughout the bloc, or at least in the euro area.
But it is still not clear what the scope of the tax would be or what the (…)

With a crucial conference on climate change taking place in Durban, South Africa, in December, Patrick Bond cuts through the elite conspiracy that will result in a no deal scenario and a continued rise in global temperatures. ’The strongest possible stance will be needed to finally address the (…)

Next year, in June, world leaders will get together in the joyful city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to mark 20 years of UNCED—the Earth Summit (see Down to Earth, May 15, 1992).
Unbelievably, it will be 40 years since the Stockholm conference, when the question of the environment first caught (…)

By Philippe Bourbeau, Routledge Editions, 176 pages.
The international movement of people is provoking worldwide anxiety and apprehension. Nation-states around the globe, especially Western ones, are cracking down on migration for security reasons. International migration has become a key (…)

The world is tipping over into unknown territory. All the pundits are now starting to agree with US economist, Nouriel Roubini, famous for his prediction of the 2008 financial crash, that a second recession is inevitable. South Africa’s Reserve Bank governor Gill Marcus has also added her voice (…)

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations to be hosted in Durban later this year, with this round of talks commonly referred to as COP 17, must not be seen in isolation of the troubled waters gnawing at the knees of multilateral environmental agreements (…)

The landmine is a morally outlawed weapon, and it is time now for Sri Lanka to accede to the Mine Ban Treaty.
SRI LANKA’S protracted internal conflict, which lasted for three decades, ended in May 2009, but landmines and other explosive remnants of war (ERW) continue to kill or injure both (…)

The revolution in Libya, led by a motley group of democrats and Islamists and their imperialist allies, is likely to entrench the deep divisions in the country, writes Samir Amin, warning of the possibility of disintegration of the nation.
Libya is neither Tunisia nor Egypt. The ruling group (…)

Africa is again becoming a “country” in the popular discourse of Western media intent on rebranding the entire continent as the eternal basket case.
Despite North Africa’s Arab Spring (which has inspired a global movement against corrupt and undemocratic leadership) and the birth of Africa’s (…)

The United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) has recently released a practical strategic analysis that provides a “greenprint” to shift us from our collective environmental crises toward a sustainable future.
Entitled “Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sustainable Development and (…)

South Sudan faces severe challenges; although 99 per cent of the south voted for independence, the people there are far from united.
ON July 9, South Sudan officially joined the international community as an independent nation. Its President, Salva Kiir, in his speech to mark the historic (…)

In the final analysis, sanctions are unlikely to produce the desired effect in time. Assad’s killing machine will continue to target civilians, but sanctions will suck the economic and political oxygen out of the regime.
Western countries are at loss about how to pressure Bashar al-Assad to (…)

The idea that Africa could benefit from a so-called “Green Revolution” of the kind that failed to deliver on its promises in the 1960s has made unfortunate headway since 2004 when Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, declared himself in favour of a “uniquely African green (…)

The Horn of Africa drought exposes the continuing gap between our ability to predict disaster and to take effective humanitarian action.
Earlier this week, the UN declared the drought in southern Somalia had become so bad that it could be officially declared a famine — the first time the word (…)

Consider Targeted Sanctions, Arms Embargo, Commission of Inquiry
The United Nations Security Council should press Syria to comply with the council’s demand to end attacks against peaceful protesters, Human Rights Watch said today. Syria should comply with the Security Council’s August 3, 2011 (…)

Globalization has contributed to the destabilization and marginalization of women, but has also meant enhanced communications and organization and atransnational connectivity that must be united asorganizations and networks struggle to sustain themselves and maintain resilience in the face of (…)

Interviewed by Frank Barat, Coordinator of the Russel Tribunal on Palestine, Noam Chomsky answers a series of six questions regarding the major current international issues such as the role of intellectuals in challenging the established order, the Arab Revolutions or corporate power. He ends up (…)

Since cross-LoC trade began between Muzaffarabad-Uri and Poonch-Rawalakot, traders have found a way of insulating the process from outside influences with a fair amount of success.
“Both sides agreed to convene a meeting of the Working Group on cross-Line of Control (LoC) Confidence Building (…)