By William Fisher NEW YORK, Dec 22 (IPS) – Key appointments announced by President-elect Barack Obama suggest that science will soon make a major comeback in the U.S. government. The outgoing administration of President George W. Bush has been harshly… Continue Reading
Dean Baker The data hugely overestimate jobs created in new firms, which will be corrected next year. The economy shed 533,000 jobs in November. This loss, combined with sharp upward revisions to the September and October data, brought the three-month… Continue Reading
By William Fisher NEW YORK, Dec 19 (IPS) – On the heels of a bipartisan Congressional report blaming high-level officials of the George W. Bush administration for employing harsh interrogation techniques on detainees captured in the “global war on terror”,… Continue Reading
By Alex Perry – TIME Zimbabwe’s farms are ruined, its economy has evaporated, and its people have begun to starve and die of cholera. What better time to call a feast? According to reports in Zimbabwe’s domestic press on Thursday,… Continue Reading
By David Cronin BRUSSELS, Dec 17 (IPS) – Greenhouse gas emissions from the European Union may fall by as little as four percent between now and 2020 as a result of a new decision by the bloc’s law-makers. In a… Continue Reading
IRIN CAIRO, 16 December 2008 (IRIN) – In the darkest alleys of Shubra, a district in Cairo, illegal organ traffickers hunt down destitute young Egyptians to try to persuade them to sell a kidney for less than US$3,000. “It is… Continue Reading
BLANCA VILÀ * – El PaÃs La revuelta que estalló en Atenas tras la muerte de un escolar ha mostrado errores comunes a otros paÃses: una clase polÃtica ineficiente y un sistema universitario caduco. El componente ácrata ha sido lo… Continue Reading
Por Stephen Leahy UXBRIDGE, Canadá, dic (Tierramérica ) – Expertos en clima reunidos en Poznan, Polonia, prometieron crear un cofre dorado de créditos de carbono para financiar a comunidades rurales pobres que se conviertan en guardianas de tierras y bosques.… Continue Reading
By Bruce Crumley – TIME / Paris Even as Greece awakened Monday to relative calm following eight days of rioting by outraged youths, French officials were moving to placate protesting students amid rising fears that violence could break out across… Continue Reading
By Michael Flynn GENEVA, Dec 16 (IPS) – In the first two pages of his book on the neoconservative movement, historian Stephen Sniegoski tells us that U.S. Mideast policy during the George W. Bush presidency has been “colossally erroneous” and… Continue Reading
Mary Hennock – NEWSWEEK Boosting consumption is key to economic recovery. But that will take fixing a disastrous health system. From the magazine issue dated Dec 22, 2008. This month marks the 30th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in… Continue Reading
By Gareth Porter* TEHRAN, Dec 15 (IPS) – Would a negotiated agreement between Iran and the Barack Obama administration be feasible if Obama sent the right signals? The answer one gets from Iranian officials and think tank analysts is, “Yes,… Continue Reading
By Ramesh Jaura POZNAN, Dec 12 (IPS) – UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called for a new green deal that would work for all nations, rich as well as poor, in the face of both climate change and the global… Continue Reading
Greg Bruno, Council on Foreign Relations Newsweek Saudi Arabia may be making more than just peace with the Taliban. Dec 11, 2008 . Reports of Saudi-brokered talks between Afghan officials and the Taliban in late 2008 prompted a new round… Continue Reading
Omid Memarian interviews ABDOLFATTAH SOLTANI, Iranian human rights lawyer BERKELEY, California, Dec 11 (IPS) – Abdolfattah Soltani has received the Nuremberg annual human rights award in appreciation of more than a decade defending individuals who have been prosecuted for their… Continue Reading
From The Economist print edition Africans, Europeans and Americans must together rescue a dying country Dec 11th 2008 . THE Zimbabwe crisis has reached a new level that is both hideous and, paradoxically, hopeful. The hideous part is that people… Continue Reading
By Ramesh Jaura POZNAN, Dec 10 (IPS) – Leading environment groups have opposed plans to hand over financing to check climate change to the World Bank. Industrialised countries may be required to provide more than 100 billion dollars for developing… Continue Reading
Kenneth Roth – guardian.co.uk. The lasting legacy of the UDHR is the knowledge that governments that abuse human rights do so at a cost Wednesday December 10 2008 . As we mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of… Continue Reading
By Rebecca Murray HARBEL, Liberia, Dec 9 (IPS) – “We are not just going to let a bulldozer come in and demolish our land. If possible we will use our children as shields. We will have to do that,” exclaims… Continue Reading
By Javier Blas, Commodities Correspondent – The Financial Times December 9 2008 .The food crisis has pushed the number of hungry people in the world to almost 1bn, in what the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation described on Tuesday… Continue Reading
