Deborah James

When the history of the seismic shifts occurring today in the global economy is written, the failure in July 2008 of corporate interests and some governments to expand the World Trade Organization (WTO) through the Doha Round will stand as a watershed moment.
(more…)

Interview with Barack Obama

DETROIT, Sep 3 (IPS) - Whether he wins or loses in the November election, Barack Obama will have made U.S. history as the first African American to lead a major political party.

In this Sep. 2, post-nomination exclusive interview with IPS correspondent Bankole Thompson, the Democratic presidential nominee defends his choice of Sen. Joe Biden as his vice president and answers wide-ranging questions, from the genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region, the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and the state of the economy to improving incomes and health care for all U.S. citizens.
(more…)

Interview with David Bonior, veteran Congressman and workers’ advocate

DETROIT, Sep 2 (IPS) - Michigan is a key state either presidential nominee needs to win the White House on Nov. 4. Unlike Democratic nominee Barack Obama, John McCain has carried Michigan before when he ran against President George Bush.
(more…)

Analysis by Ramesh Jaura

BERLIN, Aug (IPS) - Imagine the dawn of a day when development aid ministries in Europe are shut down because there are no countries left in the ‘South’ that depend on financial assistance from the ‘North’.

It sounds rather utopian. Nevertheless, more than 1,000 officials from ‘donor’ and developing countries and heads of multilateral and bilateral development agencies are looking to take collective ownership of that utopia when they gather in Accra next Tuesday for the Third High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF3).
(more…)

Interview with Ines Alberdi, executive director of UNIFEM

ROME, Aug 28 (IPS) - Ines Alberdi has worked for over 25 years on gender issues and in politics.

She comes to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) from her previous position as professor of sociology at Madrid University where she has taught political sociology and sociology of gender since 1993. Prior to that, she was director for research at the Centre for Sociological Research. Her main interest has been gender-based violence.
(more…)

Natural Solutions Foundation

HealthFreedomUSA.org, the website of the Natural Solutions Foundation, is beholden to no one: our only interest is health freedom. Rima E. Laibow, MD, successful natural medicine physician since the 1970s, has studied 16,000 pages of Codex documentation. Her conclusion is that people who say that Codex is “consumer protection", voluntary", or “harmless” are, at best, seriously mistaken.
(more…)

Interview with blogger and globe-trotter Michelle May

OAKLAND, California, Aug 26 (IPS) - When Michelle May, an avid traveler, returned to New York’s John F. Kennedy airport after a seven-week trip to Iran this summer, she says she was closely questioned and her luggage searched after officials read on her customs card that she had been to the Islamic Republic.

When May asked why she was being subjected to such scrutiny, a customs agent said, “They were the ones who attacked us.”
(more…)

By Miriam Mannak

CAPE TOWN, Aug 27 (IPS) - Geographic Information Systems (GIS) could play a vital role in improving agriculture and boosting food security in Africa. However, only a few African countries are capable of developing such systems, partly because of a lack of basic geographical data.

This arose during the third Map Africa conference, which took place in the South African city of Cape Town from August 25 to 26.
(more…)

Interview with Nadia D’Ávila Ferreira, Amazonas Environment Secretary*

MANAOS, Brazil, Aug 23 (Tierramérica) - The Brazilian state of Amazonas is “a quarry of ideas and creativity” and is in the vanguard for having preserved 98 percent of its native forests, paying for environmental services, and enacting the pioneering Climate Change Act, says Nadia D’Ávila Ferreira, the state’s secretary for the environment and sustainable development.
(more…)

Analysis by Zoltán Dujisin

BUDAPEST, Aug 25 (IPS) - Following tough negotiations, the U.S. and Poland have signed a deal on extension of the U.S. missile defence system to Eastern Europe, weeks after the outbreak of the Georgian-Russian conflict.

The U.S. wants to build a radar in the Czech Republic and a missile base in Poland that will allegedly protect Europe from missile attacks by ‘rogue’ states in the Middle East.
(more…)

By Andrew Nette

PHNOM PENH, Aug 22 (IPS) - It was known as the ‘secret war’, a covert operation waged by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) throughout the sixties and early seventies against communist guerrillas in Laos.

And the most secret location in this clandestine war was the former CIA air base of Long Chen, in central Laos, a place that remain off limits even today.
(more…)

By Miriam Mannak

CAPE TOWN, Aug 20 (IPS) - The International Criminal Court (ICC) is using Africa as a guinea pig, and is too selective when it comes to arresting, indicting and prosecuting perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This was one of the opinions raised during a recent seminar in Cape Town organised by the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR).
(more…)

By Jonas Gahr Store (*)

OSLO, Aug (IPS) There is a clear lesson to be drawn from the unsuccessful World Trade Organisation negotiations held in Geneva July 21-29: the world is witnessing a shift of power in the arena of the world economy and world trade. New states with growing economies and political ambitions are asserting themselves.
(more…)

Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Aug 19 (IPS) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s resignation Monday brings to an end an extraordinarily close relationship between Musharraf and the George W. Bush administration, in which Musharraf was lavished with political and economic benefits from the United States despite policies that were in sharp conflict with U.S. security interests.
(more…)

Myriam Vander Stichele

The collapse of WTO talks has brought the problems of the international trade system to the surface. It is now time to overhaul a ‘free trade’ system that protects corporate globalisation at the expense of poverty eradication and sustainability.
(more…)

Interview with journalist and author Deborah Campbell

NEW YORK, Aug 18 (IPS) - Since the Israel-Lebanon 34-day war two years ago, and particularly after the Doha accord in May which restored Hezbollah to the Lebanese government and essentially gave it the veto power it demanded, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has been the most popular figure anywhere in the Arab world.
(more…)

Irin -humanitarian news and analysis

DAKAR, 11 August 2008 (IRIN) - Recent visits between coup leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz and leaders from the African Union, League of Arab States, United Nations, and Mauritania’s major donors have prompted both protest and promises.
(more…)

Interview with Dr. Daisaku Ikeda, President of Soka Gakkai International

UNITED NATIONS, Aug (IPS) - As citizens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are painfully reminded of the horrors of atomic bombings that devastated the two Japanese cities in August 1945, one of the country’s most influential peace organisations is intensifying its longstanding efforts for nuclear disarmament.
(more…)

Analysis by Zoltán Dujisin

PRAGUE, Aug 11 (IPS) - As war breaks out in Georgia, the geopolitical struggle between the U.S. and Russia becomes more violent and closer to Russia’s border than ever.

The conflict started after Georgian troops tried to take control of the Georgian breakaway region of South Ossetia, which had been de facto independent and protected by Russian peacekeeping forces since 1992.
(more…)

By Jane Lampman
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Changemakers.net hosts global competition for innovative solutions to human trafficking.
from the August 11, 2008 edition

How do you eliminate slavery and human trafficking? Modern abolitionists across the globe are tackling that question head on – and collaborating via the Internet on their efforts.
(more…)