Danielle Nierenberg The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is a federal initiative of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provides funding for states to feed their children when schools are closed for the summer. The funds are available to…
Masum Billah When a group of people meet to generate new ideas around a specific area of interest, this situation can be called brainstorming which employs individual’s interest, time and trying to go deep into a topic or area. People are…
By George Capaccio I have walked the streets of Baghdad’s Karrada district when it was safe to do so. Before the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, no one worried about car bombs exploding in crowded markets, killing and maiming innocent people.…
Robert J. Burrowes Two of the drivers of world affairs that manifest in the daily decisions that affect our lives are ideology and religion. Ideology is the term widely used to describe the underlying set of values, myths, ideas, attitudes,…
Masum Billah The recent decision which has been flashed in different news media that the government is going to nationalize 199 colleges has sparked mixed feelings across the country. The teachers who have got the good news are doing pleasant…
Sudhirendar Sharma While the collective power of many small (apolitical) efforts to bring about change is acknowledged, what gets missed out is the fact that development is inherently a political process. India is a land of paradox: if there is…
Danielle Nierenberg Indigenous and traditional crops are an important source of food and fiber for people around the globe. Often these crops are resilient to pests and disease or can tolerate high temperatures, drought, or flooding. And while millions of…
By David Hearst Turkey’s reaction on 15 July night was that of a mature democracy. The West’s was that of corrupted democracy tainted by its support of autocracy To mount a coup, senior Turkish army officers from the commando units,…
By Jeffrey Sachs New York – The Brexit vote was a triple protest: against surging immigration, City of London bankers, and European Union institutions, in that order. It will have major consequences. Donald Trump’s campaign for the US presidency will…
Danielle Nierenberg The food service industry is one of the fastest growing economic sectors. Since 2006, the industry in the United States has grown by more than 2 million employees, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor…
Robert J. Burrowes One of the many interesting details to be learned by understanding human psychology is how a person’s unconscious fear works in a myriad of ways to make them believe that they bear no responsibility for a particular…
By Chandra Muzaffar The decision of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague on the China- Philippines territorial dispute announced on the 12th of July 2016 may well emerge as a turning-point in the long-standing wrangles over islands in…
Sudhirendar Sharma The B-2 Stealth Bomber built at a whopping cost of $2 billion apiece have taken inspiration from the flying-wing design of the Javan cucumber seeds. Accomplished artists may have painted hundreds of verses on a kernel but the…
Felipe Calderón New York – Climate change affects us all, but we still are not acting as quickly as we should to address its causes, mitigate the damage, and adapt to its effects. Many people don’t understand the risks climate…
By Vinod Thomas Manila, (IPS) – Across the world, the pendulum has swung from a focus on social development to infrastructure development. Recognizing that infrastructure is only one variable in the development equation, we must try to get the most…
Danielle Nierenberg It’s no secret that food loss and food waste are big problems. At least 1.3 billion tons of food is lost or wasted every year—in fields, during transport, in storage, at restaurants, and in markets in industrialized and…
Sudhirendar Sharma To keep some fountains running while million others survive on ‘hydration packs’ is the worst form of inequality that human civilization could usher in the name of progress.
Lili Fuhr , Thomas Fatheuer and Barbara Unmüßig Berlin – In recent years, the push to build a “green economy” that can deliver the world from continual environmental and economic crisis and usher in a new era of sustainable growth…
Margaret Kimberley This week the world has to be thankful for hubris and political miscalculation. These two factors have temporarily thrown a wrench into the imperialist project. No one in the British or American establishment foresaw the “Brexit” vote that…
Robert J. Burrowes Deeply affected by the death of my two uncles in World War II, on 1 July 1966, the 24th anniversary of the USS Sturgeon sinking of the Japanese prisoner-of-war ship Montevideo Maru which killed the man after…
By Sharifah Nazneen Agha The advent of the Islamic faith was set against such formidable themes as persecution, asylum and migration. The watershed of Muslim history known as the Hijra or migration in 622 AC signifies the passage to safety…
By Chandra Muzaffar A hegemonic power never says sorry. Three recent episodes underscore this truism. When US President Barack Obama offered a floral wreath at the cenotaph of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park on 27 May 2016, some peace advocates…
Kenneth Roth The human-rights building blocks of democratic society are the ideas that we should see the humanity in each individual, respect and value differences, and treat others with the respect that we want them to give us. Yet these…
By Hassanal Noor Rashid The recent heinous murders at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida has had massive reverberations around the world and is a tragedy that has affected many communities. In a single swift moment, a lone gunman, Omar Mateen,…
By Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi Today, we inaugurate, by God’s Grace, the tenth national party congress of Nahdha Party, the second national congress after the revolution. Even during the most difficult periods of secret activity and police harassment under dictatorship, our…
Danielle Nierenberg According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), approximately 80 percent of all flowering plant species reproduce with the help of pollinator animals like bees, butterflies, birds, and more. This accounts for at least one third of…
Robert J. Burrowes There is a long history of social critics and progressive thinkers offering critiques of human society. Among those who are better known, Karl Marx offered a critique of capitalism, anarchists have critiqued the state, Mohandas K. Gandhi…
Japan, leading pre-second world war thespian but post-second world war impotent power, is staging a come-back in the political firmaments of Asia with all its tastes, colors, velocity and comprehensiveness. Japan, an island nation in the Pacific Ocean in East…
Chandra Muzaffar According to media reports, President-Elect Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines would be staking a fresh claim on Sabah. He recognises Sabah as a Sulu Sultanate territory. It is a recognition that has been challenged by various quarters including…
Sudhirendar Sharma Thor Hanson’s book is a thoroughly engaging treatise on the many ways in which seeds sustain life on this planet Accomplished artists may have painted hundreds of verses on a kernel but the unwritten genetic instructions a seed…