By Rt News Dutch lawmakers have questioned the course of the investigation into the MH17 crash in Ukraine, highlighting innuendos in the Dutch Safety Board report, and lack of raw data despite US claims of picking up ‘imagery’ as the…
Category: Columns
The original champions of secularism
Sudhirendar Sharma It is a sheer enigma that the feel-good ideology of pluralism has outlived four decades of populist viewing.
Managing the politics of water
Prince El Hassan bin Talal and Sundeep Waslekar Amman – This year’s World Water Day, on March 22, provides an opportunity to highlight what in many countries has become a grim reality: The availability of fresh water is increasingly a…
Ensuring Africa’s continued rise
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala Lagos – Africa’s rise is in danger of faltering. After years during which the continent’s economy grew at an average annual rate of 5%, global uncertainty, depressed commodity prices, and jittery external conditions are threatening to undermine decades…
A state-powered green revolution
Mariana Mazzucato London – Discussions about building a green future tend to focus on the need to improve the generation of energy from renewable sources. But that is just the first step. Better mechanisms for storing and releasing that energy…
Prospects of organic farming in Bangladesh
Rasha Binte Mohiuddin With radically increased population rapid economic growth, expansion of urbanization and industrialization, mega cities of Bangladesh are facing a lot of challenges and food security is one of them. Bangladesh is one of the top 10 food…
Changing the future of fish
Danielle Nierenberg According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), “Fish represents a valuable source of proteins and nutrients in the diet of many countries and its importance in contributing to food security is rising significantly.” This week, March…
Leonardo DiCaprio, the Oscars and climate change
S Gopikrishna Warrier Leonardo DiCaprio packs energy into his acting. Remember him as he runs to catch the Titanic, or as the ambitious young stockbroker Jordan Belfort in The wolf of Wall Street. When DiCaprio spoke after receiving his Oscar…
North Korea and the nuclear question
By Chandra Muzaffar As expected, the North Korean leadership has escalated its rhetoric in the wake of the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) new, harsh sanctions on Pyongyang. Whenever the international community speaks or acts against North Korea, it responds…
Why the E=West is keen dividing the Arabs
Ramzy Baroud When Arab streets exploded with fury, from Tunis to Sanaa, pan-Arabism seemed, then, like a nominal notion. Neither did the so-called ‘Jasmine Revolution’ use slogans that affirmed its Arab identity, nor did angry Egyptian youth raise the banner…
International Women’s Day: Improving the lives of women farmers
Danielle Nierenberg Tuesday, March 8 is International Women’s Day (IWD). The theme, “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality,” addresses the continuing injustices faced by women across the globe. Women farmers’ yields, for example, are often 20–30…
‘NATO turned Libya into a destroyed state, not a failed state’
By RT news Libya should be called a ‘destroyed state’ instead of a ‘failed state’ because it didn’t fail on its own but was destroyed by US and NATO bombing, says Sara Flounders, Co-Director of the International Action Center. RT:…
Time to introspect
Sudhirendar Sharma There is no denying the fact that the society needs to host intelligent, civil conversations about controversial and often heated issues, with the aim of widening them both in scope and participation.
Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future
by Zia Qureshi WASHINGTON, DC – Infrastructure is a powerful driver of economic growth and inclusive development, capable of boosting aggregate demand today and laying the foundations for future growth. It is also a key element of the climate-change agenda.…
A Year of Ocean Regeneration
by Isabella Lövin,Ratu Inoke Kubuabola,Trevor Manuel Oxford – The importance of the world’s ocean cannot be overstated. They supply 50% of the oxygen we breathe, feed billions of people, and provide livelihoods for millions more. They are the great biological…
The media are misleading the public on Syria
By Stephen Kinzer Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why. For…
Deconstructing tourism in global South: Who benefits?
By Caesar D’Mello Tourism is instinctively taken as a given by most as an undoubtedly good enterprise. So its advocates would consider that subjecting this popular activity to scrutiny is uncalled for. Tourism’s presence is worldwide, including strikingly in the…
Unreal in pampered India
Sunita Narain Many years ago, when Delhi’s air pollution was as high as it is today, my colleague Anil Agarwal and I had gone to meet a high-ranking, responsible government official. This was in the mid-1990s, when air was black…
Anything but bitter truth: Structural crisis of capitalism
By Jon Kofas In so far as capital markets predict economic trends, the downturn in global markets during December 2015-January 2016 indicate the kind of contraction that IMF economists are also predicting after revising earlier estimate downward for GDP of…
Groundbreaking new book: Eating planet
Danielle Nierenberg This week, I am participating in an event to launch the new edition of the Barilla Center for Food & Nutrition Foundation’s (BCFN) groundbreaking book, Eating Planet. Please CLICK HERE to read a free excerpt and learn more.…
Chomsky wants you to wake up from the American Dream
By David Swanson If you’ve just seen Michael Moore’s movie and are wondering how in the world the United States got diverted into the slow lane to hell, go watch Noam Chomsky’s movie. If you’ve just seen Noam Chomsky’s movie…
Sustainable dev impossible in Asia-Pacific without better data
Shamshad Akhtar As governments embark on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the first thing they must do is identify and plug gaps in data availability and quality, says UN ESCAP Under-Secretary-General Shamshad Akhtar. 2016 marks the start of the…
In this race, the rat is ahead
Sudhirendar Sharma Whether or not you smell them, their presence remains ubiquitous. You will find them everywhere. Having followed humans to just about every corner of the globe, these creatures have demonstrated their incredible propensity for travel. Rats are as…
Is oil becoming stranded
Paul Spedding London – The conventional wisdom regarding the recent plunge in the price of oil is that we are seeing a repeat of the 1985-1986 collapse, when Saudi Arabia ramped up production as part of a dispute with other…
The post Iran nuclear deal deal scenario
By Chandra Muzaffar Now that the Iran nuclear deal is being implemented, it is perhaps time to ask, what does it mean for Iran, if implemented for other nations in West Asia and North Africa (WANA), for Israel, for the…
10 questions for US presidential candidates
Danielle Nierenberg In a recent poll by the Union of Concerned Scientists, 94 percent of American voters expressed concern about the state of the food system – and also said that food was a very important issue to them. More…
The environmental costs of Valentine’s Day flowers?
Kathleen Buckingham With Valentine’s Day around the corner, World Resources Institute research associate Kathleen Buckingham examines the environmental impact of flowers. Valentine’s Day has come around again. Far from a modern invention, pre-Christian Romans celebrated the Saint beheaded by Claudius…
Preventing violent extremism thru inclusive Politics
By Geoffrey Macdonald Why is the role of Islam in Bangladeshi politics a lightning rod for violence? Geoffrey Macdonald puts the blame on the country’s fractious political culture and the institutionalized repression of Islamic parties. He also thinks it’s time…
The coming wave of oil refugees
by Michael Meyer Nairobi – The idea that oil wealth can be a curse is an old one – and it should need no explaining. Every few decades, energy prices rise to the heavens, kicking off a scramble for new…
Right wing renaissance
By Hassanal Noor Rashid With 2016 still at its infancy, the beginning of the year has been marked with extraordinarily explosive events that may very well set the trend for the year and will continue to persist for a longer…