South Africa suffered a sobering case of civil society failure at the COP17 climate summit last December. This doesn’t auger well for unity in future campaigns to save the climate, nor for mobilising to save the SA economy from the Minerals-Energy Complex and its own finance ministers, says Patrick Bond.

Critics say the proposed .75 billion World Bank loan for a new coal-fired power plant in South Africa is primarily intended to benefit large multinational companies. Will the government heed the growing opposition to a potentially disastrous project? Articles compiled by William Minter.

Instead of 'false solutions' to climate change based on market mechanisms, the Copenhagen Climate Conference should use compensation for the ecological debt owed by the North as a mechanism for financing alternative energy and production systems, argues Patrick Bond.

The financial crisis, an unjustified faith in multilateral system solutions and a potentially relegitimised form of neoliberalism via the election of Barack Obama as US president points to a sober conclusion: that free market economics is far from over, says Patrick Bond.

The global financial crisis will hit African countries hard, especially the exemplar of neo-liberal adjustment policy - South Africa. Now the call for Africa to contest international financial orthodoxy becomes all the more compelling, writes Patrick Bond.

The roots of the economic crisis lie in overaccumulation, financialisation and ‘global apartheid’ - and international financial volatility is now constraining social, political and environmental progress in the developing world, argues Patrick Bond. 

Despite a history of colonial repression and exploitative modern-day trade deals with the EU, African civil society movements are beginning to win through.

Author Patrick Bond on the neoliberal project: