STWR - Share The World's Resources

The one trillion dollar bailout package that President Bush is promising could have wiped out the last traces of poverty, hunger, malnutrition and squalor from the face of the Earth - if only our global leadership prioritised the poor with the same level of urgency as the financial crisis, writes Devinder Sharma.

Sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in a world gripped by conflicts erupting on almost every continent, what hope is there for extending respect, freedom and rights to everyone? Perhaps it's time to rethink the politics of human rights for the 21st century, says Nick Fraser.

The debt crisis that hit the advanced industrial countries in 2007 could radically change the conditions of indebtedness in developing countries in the near future - all the more so since some of them have already been severely affected by the world food crisis of 2008, writes Éric Toussaint.

Some 220 million people are "on the edge of emergency" in 2008, almost twice as many as in 2006, says a report by CARE released ahead of next week's UN summit to measure progress toward the Millennium Development Goals. By Alison Raphael.

As Evo Morales, the Bolivian president, begins talks with rebel state governors in an attempt to end the political turmoil that paralyzed the nation last week, analysts are questioning the implications for the distribution of Bolivia's natural wealth - and the success of U.S. intervention in support for rightist elements and neoliberal economic policies.

We are in the midst of the most serious financial crisis since the 1929 Wall Street crash. When viewed in a global context, taking into account the instability generated by speculative trade, the implications of this crisis are far-reaching, argues Michel Chossudovsky.

Restructuring the world order will have to be based on conscious attempts to reduce income and wealth inequalities - requiring the north to reduce its consumption of scarce resources and carbon emissions. It's not going to be easy, says Jayati Ghosh.

Western companies are pushing to acquire vast stretches of African land to meet the world's biofuel needs. Local farmers and governments are being showered with promises. But is this just another form of economic colonialism? By Horand Knaup.

The collapse of Lehman Brothers marks the beginning of the collapse of the international financial architecture, as constructed, on very shaky foundations, by Richard Nixon in 1971 when the Bretton Woods system was dismantled - and ‘globalisation’ began to be shaped, argues Ann Pettifor.

President Bush will leave office boasting that the United States has the most powerful military machine in the world - but his true legacy is a Pentagon bloated almost beyond recognition and crippled by its dependence on private military corporations, says Frida Berrigan.