For decades, Western governments (and their economies) have been delivering real growth and economic well-being to their citizens. But changes that have occurred since the 1980s have made it increasingly difficult to distinguish real growth from nominal growth, while the…
Liberals across Europe seem happy: President Mattarella has prevented populists from taking over the Italian government and averted another Euro crisis. Their joy will be short-lived, however.
Robert J. Burrowes In a recent article titled ‘Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts’, I pointed out that existing conflict theory pays little attention to the extinction-causing conflict being ongoingly generated by human over-consumption in the finite planetary biosphere (and, among…
Danielle Nierenberg I am here at the 2018 General Assembly of the World Farmers’ Organization (WFO), an organization representing farmers and agribusinesses of all sizes. This year’s theme is how farmers around the globe are coping with climate change. Last…
Historians are often tempted to think that events of the past return to the present under new clothes in a cyclical way. The Greek historian Thucydides was probably the first to propose this cyclical conception of history. In his narrative…
By Thalif Deen Stockholm, Sweden, May 28, 2018 (IPS) – The United Nations is continuing to fight a relentless battle to eradicate extreme hunger – particularly in the world’s poorest nations—by 2030.
Kumi Naidoo Not since 1951 has the international community produced a treaty to protect the legal status of the world’s refugees. Now, two agreements are currently under discussion at the United Nations, and each offers a rare opportunity to protect…
By Nava Thakuria Assam, if not the Barak valley, is definitely burning. At least, if someone follows the media reporting and related contents, it’s convincing that the Brahmaputra valley of the Northeastern State has been witnessing an uproarious situation for…
Two mantras guide German thinking about eurozone integration: responsibilities and control must be aligned (so no mutualization of risk without shared jurisdiction); and legacy risks must be settled before any pooling of risks among euro members takes place. Since 2010,…
by Kristalina Georgieva I opened my first bank account as a new student at the London School of Economics in 1987. This seemingly small act meant that I could manage my own finances, spend my own money, and make my…
Reports by select committees of MPs after some scandal should be treated with care. There is nothing MPs like more than to take the moral high ground and heap blame on others in front of TV cameras, whether their victims…
The election of March 4, 2018 left Italy with a fragmented parliament, where the two biggest parties, the Five Star Movement and the Lega, are populist and Eurosceptic.
Danielle Nierenberg Considering the complexity of the global food system, it is easy to forget how much this system depends on the contributions of one group: bees. Close to 75 percent of the crops that humans grow for food must…
Why is democracy under siege throughout the West? How much of the story is cultural or racial, and how much is economic? And can the slide into authoritarianism be reversed? I think it can.
At a Nordic-Baltic Development Forum meeting, held in Riga some years ago, there arose a lively controversy on the relative merits of the Swedish (Nordic) model, on the one hand, and the minimal government and low-tax regimes of the Baltic…
By Thalif Deen Stockholm, May 21 (IPS) – In the paradoxical battle against military conflicts, is preventive diplomacy one of the political remedies that can help deter wars before they break out?
A new Italian government is in the making, with an unprecedented alliance between the Five Stars Movement (33% of votes in the March 2018 elections; 36% of seats in the House of Deputies) and the Lega (17% of votes; 20%…
By Chandra Muzaffar The significance of the fourteenth General Election goes beyond Malaysian shores. 9th May will be remembered as the day when the multi-ethnic population of a country ousted the world’s longest ruling coalition through the ballot-box in a…
Manzoor Qadir , Vladimir Smakhtin Sustainable Development Goal 6 calls for universal access to clean water and sanitation. But if governments do not embrace unconventional water resources, achieving that goal will be as difficult as getting water from a stone…
By Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein Geneva, May 18 (IPS) – Appalling recent events in Gaza have called this Council into Special Session. Since the protests began on 30 March, 87 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli security forces in…
By Shamshad Akhtar Bangkok, Thailand, May (IPS) – Inequality is increasing in Asia and the Pacific. Our region’s remarkable economic success story belies a widening gap between rich and poor. A gap that’s trapping people in poverty and, if not…
From Danielle Nierenberg Transitioning to more sustainable forms of agriculture remains critical, as many current agriculture practices have serious consequences including deforestation and soil degradation. But despite agriculture’s enormous potential to hurt the environment, it also has enormous potential to…
IPS caught up with Dr. Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), at the end of the flagship side event of the GGGI during the 51st Annual Meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila on…
A high-profile United States trade delegation appears to have returned empty-handed from its mission in China. The result is hardly a surprise, given the scale and one-sided nature of the US demands. The Americans pushed for a wholesale remaking of…
By Askiah Adam May 15 – Nakaba or Catastrophe Day is being remembered today in Palestine. The March of Return, which has been going on for over a month, culminates in its commemoration. The Nakba began when Palestinians were robbed…
In the next few months the UK will make one of the most momentous political decisions in its post-war history finalising and approving the withdrawal agreement with the EU27. Although the UK is a parliamentary democracy, it is not entirely…
In her most recent book Kari Polanyi Levitt observes that the word “globalization” cannot be found in the Oxford Shorter English dictionaries predating 1994 nor in the spell-check programs of that era. It emerged from nowhere at that time and…
Why did working class voters choose a selfish, thin-skinned, petulant, lying, narcissistic, boastful, megalomaniac for president?
The underlying message at the fifth annual Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development was summed up in its telling title “The politics of peace.”
In 1978 Vaclav Havel wrote The Power of the Powerless in which he argued against the communist regime, maintaining that it forced people to “live in a lie”. For Havel, the resistance against the lie was to begin living in…