By Dr Salim Nazzal I believe that there is no political declaration throughout history that has had devastating effects such as the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration has ignited wars lasting 100 years in addition that it has posed a…
Category: Columns
Growth is back! so what?
by Éloi Laurent Reports of the death of growth have been greatly exaggerated. As the IMF noted last month, the world enjoyed in 2017 the “broadest cyclical upswing since the start of the decade”. In other words, after ten years…
Why fear, self-hatred destroy human sharing and solidarity
Robert J. Burrowes As our world spirals deeper into an abyss from which it is becoming increasingly difficult to extricate ourselves, some very prominent activists have lamented the lack of human solidarity in the face of the ongoing genocide of…
Wealth concentration continues to increase
By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, Jan 23 (IPS) – As the ‘masters of the universe’ gather for their annual retreat at Davos, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has just published its Inclusive Development Index…
Observations from a “shithole” country and a note to Trump
Danielle Nierenberg I’ve been in traveling in the West African country of Senegal this week, just a few days after President Trump’s infamous statement about “Haiti and African countries.”
Reversing Brexit: Legal route via Vienna Convention
It is argued both in Britain and on the continent that the Brexit process has advanced so far that it is irreversible. This conclusion comes from a close reading of the two basic EU treaties, On European Union (TEU) and…
“The world has gone in reverse”
By Tharanga Yakupitiyage UN, Jan 18 (IPS) – A year into his position, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that peace remains elusive and that renewed action must be taken in 2018 to set the world on track for…
Austerity: From outrage to progressive alternatives
Social democracy in Europe is not in good shape. Perhaps the main reason for social democratic parties losing support has been their perceived association with austerity policies. Where, however, the centre-left has more categorically rejected austerity, as in the case…
Water management is health management
Giulio Boccaletti London – With climate change accelerating and its effects exacerbating other geopolitical and development crises, the role of environmental protection in preserving and improving human well being has become starkly apparent. This recognition lies at the heart of…
Why EU Parliament’s democratic deficit is unfounded
Critiques of EU democracy are currently high on the public agenda, and are by no means only the prerogative of extreme nationalists. Yanis Varoufakis has called the EU a ‘democracy-free zone’ while Nigel Farage believes the Members of the European…
In defense of economic populism
Populists abhor restraints on the political executive. Since they claim to represent “the people” writ large, they regard limits on their exercise of power as necessarily undermining the popular will. Such constraints can only serve the “enemies of the people”…
Why Turkey-EU need new partnership
As a new year gets under way in a troubled world, it is timely to fix the ailing EU-Turkey relationship with a new Strategic Partnership. Much lip-service has been paid to Turkey’s “eventual full membership”, but neither Brussels nor Ankara…
Instability – not productivity – is the economic problem
by Gerald Holtham There is currently a big debate about productivity growth. Is it as slow as it has been measured or have changes in the economy led to growing measurement errors? If slow growth is real, what causes it?
Why 50pc people in BD are not covered by amenities
Mostafa Kamal Majumder A smart girl in her late twenties, Mazeda works as the receptionist-cum-telephone operator at the Bangladesh Protibnadhi Kallyan Somity complex at Dakkhin Khan Area, on the northeastern fringe of Dhaka City. A newcomer will find it hard…
Sustainable energy critical for achieving Paris Climate Agreement
By Miroslav Lajčák Aby Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, Jan 15 (IPS) – The Paris Agreement ushered in a new global approach to climate change. At the core of this agreement are the Nationally Determined Contributions. We are now implementing these…
Economic austerity and outward migration
Since independence in 1991 the Baltic states have implemented neoliberal economic policies with weak social systems and income and wealth distribution that is among the most unequal in the European Union. Among the consequences is large-scale outward migration. At independence…
The psychology of inequality
Researchers find that much of the damage done by being poor comes from feeling poor. By Elizabeth Kolbert In 2016, the highest-paid employee of the State of California was Jim Mora, the head coach of U.C.L.A.’s football team. (He has…
Israel lobby is slowly being dragged into the light
By Jonathan Cook Nazareth: The scandal surrounding Priti Patel, who was forced to resign as Britain’s international aid minister last week after secret meetings with Israeli officials during a “family holiday”, offers a small, opaque window on the UK’s powerful…
Accelerating Africa’s energy transition
Charlotte Aubin Paris – For much of Africa, the transition from fossil fuels to cleaner forms of energy is seen as an environmental imperative. With fossil fuels comprising a majority – as high as 70% in some cases – of…
7th anniversary of ban on corporal punishment in BD
Sir Frank Peters Let’s be bold, courageous, call a spade a spade, jump-in at the deep end, and make it categorically clear in Bangladesh that there is nothing that justifies corporal punishment in the eyes of Allah or man…NOTHING!
The reality of North Korea s nuclear power
With a track record of six underground nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017, North Korea is desperately yearning to be recognized as the world’s ninth nuclear power – trailing behind the US, UK, France, China, Russia, India, Pakistan and Israel.…
Bitcoin is not the currency of the future
There seems to be no end in sight for the Bitcoin bubble. This comes close to the great bubble developments that we have known in history, including the tulip bulb bubble in sixteenth century Holland, the South Sea bubble in…
For democracy in Cambodia
Robert J. Burrowes A long-standing French protectorate briefly occupied by Japan during World War II, Cambodia became independent in 1953 as the French finally withdrew from Indochina. Under the leadership of Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Cambodia remained officially neutral, including during…
The #MeToo movement disrupts commodification of feminism
By Rangita de Silva de Alwis UN, Jan 8 (IPS) – As the 62nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations in New York draws near, women from every corner of the world…
Tourism should be regulated, before it is too late…
By Roberto Savio Rome, Jan 8 (IPS) – This year, we will have 3 million tourists each day wandering the world. This massive phenomenon is without precedent in human history and is happening (as usual), with only one consideration in…
Better plastics for healthier oceans
Michael Stephen In the global effort to rid the world of plastic pollution, governments are increasingly turning to regulation, from taxation to outright bans. But while anti-plastic policies might make sense in some cases, the best way to protect the…
Trade multilateralism set back yet again
By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram Sydney and Kuala Lumpur, Jan 3 (IPS) – As feared, the Eleventh Ministerial Conference (MC11) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 10-13 December 2017, ended in failure. It…
16 young entrepreneurs revolutionising food and farming
Danielle Nierenberg Today’s young food and agricultural entrepreneurs are developing innovative ways to revolutionize the entire food chain. They are at the forefront of reducing food loss and waste, increasing crop yields, improving market access, developing novel technologies, and increasing…
Religion: Between ‘power’ and ‘force’
By Azza Karam UN, Jan 3 (IPS) – In 1994, Dr. David R. Hawkins wrote a book positing the difference between power and force (Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior – the latest revised version came out…
The political responsibility in the collapse of our planet
By Roberto Savio Rome, (IPS) – On 20 December, Europe’s 28 Ministers of Environment met in Brussels, to discuss the plan for reducing emissions prepared by the Commission, to comply with the Paris Agreement on climate change. Well, it is…