With intertwined food and financial systems, we stand to face a hungry planet and the threat of "financial Armageddon." However, rather than failed free-market policies, we can stabilize the planet by investing in local economies argues Annie Shattuck.
The international financial institutions are
succumbing to the
pressures of globalization, recent trade
disputes and competition from Asia. As they desperately try to regain credibility and power, a debate over the best route to development has returned along with alternative
approaches that are springing up around the world. By Robin Broad and John Cavanagh
A banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into recession, the era of turbo-capitalism is coming to an end and US military might is ebbing. Still, is this the time to gloat? By Spiegel.
Palestinians cannot survive on handouts through a charity-like economic system. They need, and deserve, sustainable economic development, with a long-term vision, one that can overhaul the economies of the West Bank and Gaza, writes Ramzy Baroud.
Unlike the crisis of
1970s stagflation that signalled the end for the Keynesian social-democratic
model, the food crisis of 2008 could be marked down in history for setting in
motion an opposite trend, writes Adam W. Parsons.
The claims that a bailout of Wall Street would mark unprecendented "American Socialism" are unfounded. Rather, the $700 billion in banking subsidies rejected by the US Congress
are as American as apple pie and obesity, argues George Monbiot.
As a spreading financial crisis threatens to
deepen the economic recession in the United States, the news of an unprecedented
$700 billion bailout package reverberated through the UN last week as over 100 world leaders gathered in New York for the
annual talk-fest: the 63rd session of the General Assembly. Reported by Thalif Deen.
The film "Battle
in Seattle" ends
with the admonition that "the battle continues" - and the struggle in the
coming years will be to compel those in power to transform
campaign-trail rhetoric into a real rejection of corporate
globalization, writes Mark Engler.
In the battle for a sustainable water future, a
far-reaching revolt is needed to reclaim citizenship and redefine how we interact with our environment - otherwise, these twenty-first century water wars could be merely a last stand
against an inevitable corporatized future. By
Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman.
The privatisation of water means that profits
spring from the fact that the poor population for whom it is harder and
harder to get safe drinking water is growing. We must create a movement to take back control of the
water that is so essential to our lives, says Sakuma Tomoko.
