This page was last updated February 3, 2010
The world is facing enormous challenges and here are a few important pages and articles that have struck me
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Things to ponder * The richest 10% of the world's adults own 85% of the world total of global assets. Half the world's adult population, however, owns barely 1% of global wealth. * In 2008, we passed the point where 50% of the world's population is living in cities.
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The US spends almost three times as much on subsidies for domestic cotton production as it does
on aid for the whole of Africa
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Sources and
resources on some Major Global Issues
Global Policy Forum’s
mission is to monitor policy making at the United Nations, promote accountability
of global decisions, educate and mobilize for global citizen participation, and
advocate on vital issues of international peace and justice.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an
independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis
on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
Oxfam runs a campaign to Make Trade Fair. This
is only one of their Campaigns:
Oxfam campaigns for policy and practice change on Fair Trade, Conflict and
Humanitarian Response, and on issues such as Debt Relief, Arms Trade, Poverty
Reduction and Universal Basic Education.
Christian Aid is
much involved in campaigns in
facor of trade justice. It runs an ongoing news service.
Eldis supports the
documentation, exchange and use of evidence-based development knowledge, a
service provided by the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. They offer
many resources on a vast range of topics, and provide an ongoing NewsBlog.
The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) works in favor of "sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty."
For AIDS see UN AIDS.
For Human Rights see Amnesty International
For Children's issues see Unicef
For Health issues see WHO.
I also have started a separate page on Global
Warming
Articles on various topics I reckon are worth reading and recommending
2010
An important new topic in the coming time will be
the potential consequences of population ageing and shrinking
birthrates across the world.
The overall statistics can be seen through the Guardian's Datablog
Fred Pearce has just published a book on Population ageing : Peoplequake: Mass Migration, Ageing Nations and the
Coming Population Crash, 352pp, Eden Project Books
He has also written on the potential disasters resulting from low birthrates.
2009
George Monbiot has neatly summarized the shameful sources of Britain's wealth past and present in the Guardian
2008
(Global warming is now a daily topic, not possible to keep track of it in detail any longer!
The point where 50% of the world's population lives in cities, to be
passed in 2008, makes it important to reflect on what form the world's
cities should take. The bulky report Endless City, edited by Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic, was published by Phaidon in 2008. A lengthy Guardian article by one of the authors summarizes its main contents.
2007
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is to issue a grave warning on the future consequences of reduced water supply on April 6. The Independent on Sunday published this preliminary summary.
Will Hutton, who writes for the Guardian, has published a book The Writing on the Wall (Little, Brown), critical of China and of the West's response to its recent development. The main thesis is contained in an extract published in the Guardian where other extracts and columns by him (see the China article archive) can also be read.
The BBC givs a vivid vignette of the pollution rampant in China's coal-mining region.
2006
Unless fishing is severely limited and controlled, there will be no fish left in the oceans in less than 50 years time.
The very important Stern Review (October 30, 2006) says that climate change
represents the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. From the BBC. The main points
from the Guardian. His central argument is that spending large sums of
money now on measures to reduce carbon emissions will bring dividends
on a colossal scale. It would be wholly irrational, therefore, not to
spend this money. If we do nothing to stem climate change, there could
be a permanent reduction in consumption per head of 20%.
Each year, the day that the global economy starts to operate with an ecological deficit is designated as ‘ecological debt day’ (known internationally as ‘overshoot day’). This year it was it was October 9. This marks the date that the planet’s environmental resource flow goes into the red and we begin operating on a non-existent environmental overdraft. Humanity first went into global ecological debt in 1987, when the year's resources were spent by December 19. Since then, the date has leapt forward year by year to November 21 by 1995 and October 11 last year. (1) Article in New Economics Foundation:
Some very
striking points are made in Africa - Up in Smoke 2. The second report on
Africa and global warming from the Working Group on Climate Change and
Development. Link here to (1) an introduction
by the New Economics Foundation (2) an
article by the same; (3) the
whole report in PDF; (4) a BBC report; (5) a summary in the Independent;
(6) an
article in the Observer. Arid or semi-arid areas in northern,
western, eastern and parts of southern Africa are becoming drier, while
equatorial Africa and other parts of southern Africa are getting wetter, the
report says.
WWF's biannual Living Planet Report 2006 (link to full text) is a very alarming report on the way humanity is destroying the ecosystem.
A workshop held in Taize
on major world issues, led by Michel Camdessus, a specialist in
worldwide economic questions, former director of the International
Monetary Fund and member of the Pontifical Commission on Justice and
Peace.
The Independent published a special issue devoted to Africa's problems, including this fine article about Africa's women.
John Feffer is an expert on Korea and his lengthy paper on Globalization and Korean Agriculture
is extremely interesting for anyone concerned about recent trends in
global agriculture and food cultures. He has also written an extremely
fine review of some recently published translations of Korean literature (including our Ten Thousand Lives by Ko Un) in The Nation.
The desperate efforts of Africans trying to reach Europe are provoking
equally desperate measures by European authorities to prevent their
arrival, while the people are suffering and dying. The situation in Somalia is especially terrible, as the Independent reported on May 25. The BBC covered the story of events in Senegal twice, once recording recent events and then a few days later locating them in a longer, more personal history. Then the Guardian reported the arrival in Barbados of a ship carrying corpses from Senegal, apparently deliberately cut adrift.
UNICEF has issued a new report, indicating that 10 children die every minute as a result of malnutrition. The Independent ran an article about it. Since very many of these deaths are the result of infections caught by drinking unclean water, this other Independent article, about the water wasted on irrigating cash crops for British markets, might be of interest. All published late April-early May 2006.
The United Nations has just issued its 2nd World Water Development Report. It is alarming, as the BBC reports. The 4th World Water Forum opened in Mexico March 16
It is often hard for people in the West to realize the significance of what is happening in China. This fine March 2006 article in the Guardian gives a good impression of the way things are moving in one major city. There is an index of major Guardian articles about China.
The BBC has an ongoing special scetion devoted to the Food Crisis in Africa. In late March, it reported on the new report about the loss of soil fertility
in most of sub-Saharan Africa caused by over-intensive and
poverty-stricken farming. In sub-Saharan Africa soil quality is
classified as degraded in about 72% of arable land and 31% of pasture
land.
Noam Chomsky recently gave an interview (Guardian, March 15) on the big changes under way in the relationship between Latin America and the United States. The BBC puts what he says alongside quotations from Otto Reich (former adviser to President George Bush). The BBC is devoting a series of broadcasts to Latin America, highlighting the same regional developments, with a detailed initial analysis (April 3).
2004-5
George
Monbiot argues that the rich world's brutal diplomacy is worsening the
plight of poor nations.
Soya
(Soy bean) is in almost everything but the effects of eating it are less clear
than they might be, and the way growing it to feeed animals is taking over
entire coutries, destroying priceless human and natural habitats is certainly
too little known. (The
Guardian, Nov. 7 2004)
On the (much
needed) abolition
of the death penalty in the United States (note the appalling sentence:
'The US and Somalia are now the only countries that have not signed up to the
Convention on the Rights of the Child.') (The Guardian, November 22, 2004)
A
hope-inspiring article on progress in cancer research. (The
Observer, November 28, 2004)
A very moving
and sharply annotated report, quoting 8 African
women to illustrate the plight of the continent. (June 2005)
A touching
page devoted to coping with the news that you (or someone close) has
Cancer. (July 2005)
The first part
of a harrowing
account of the state of things in the city of Chongjin (North Korea) after
15 years of economic and social collapse. (LA Times, may require registration)
and also the
second part. (July 2005) If ever the site closes access, it might be
possible to read a copy of both parts combined
into a single file here.
A disturbing article
about the way billions of dollars have vanished in Iraq since it was
'liberated' by America. (July 2005)
A November 2005
Guardian article on the fight against AIDS in Africa, by Madeleine Bunting,
with links to other resources.
A November
2005 article from the Independent summarizing the latest (dramatic) Report (summary
here, press
release here, full
report here) from the European
Environment Agency.
The BBC (Dec 2005) reports research
suggesting strongly that the Gulf Stream is weakening, threatening to cool
North Europe.
Harold
Pinter's Nobel Prize acceptance speech asks the Major Question of the
ghastly role played by the United States in modern world history, often in the
name of civilization, democracy and God.
The BBC indicates
the cunning linguistic deception involved in recent US
references to torture.
Bruce Cumings
presents a strong and very well-researched account of Korean history since 1945
in a review of 2 books about North Korea.
A Guardan article
(Dec 12, 2005) on what
is at stake in the December 2005 Hong Kong WTO negociations. Also a Guardian
leader on the same question, that includes the information that "the
immediate cause (of the current impasse in negociations) is the refusal of
Europe - and France in particular - to make any fresh reforms in the common
agricultural policy (CAP) which, according to the Economist, accounts for 90%
of a French farmer's pre-tax income."
An article (Dec 9,
2005) viewing the
WTO negociations from the viewpoint of ActionAid.
An article on the African trade plight
in the (US-based) Environmental Working Group's
site (November 2005) mainly focussing on the cotton isse, but including the
now-notorious statistic: "World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern
estimates that a European cow receives $2.50 a day in subsidies, while 75% of
Africans live on less than $2 a day."
George Monbiot (Guardian,
December 29, 2005) mentions some very terrible events in Britain's recent
(imperial / colonial) history (and recalls there were many more), asking why
almost no one even knows they happened. A very important reminder that
Britain's past is far from the positive, civilizing image so diligently
propagated.
Max Hastings (October 2005) writes about the horrors inflicted on the world’s fish and the oceans by overfishing.
(2005) European Sugar and the African Economy / Agricultural Subsidies / WTO
A list of recent
Guardian articles about Fair Trade.
A simple
quiz introducing some fundamental statistics about Africa (like:
300,000 people die of poverty and disease every month). From the Learning Africa
educational resource.
(Related
articles) George
Monbiot points to some small print in the G8 Africa debt-relief project in June 2005
and has some sharp points to make in another article July
2005
A full-length study
from Sweden (2003) on the
international problems caused by the EU's Common Agricultural Policy, with
a clear initial reminder of the way 40% of the EU's total budget goes to
agriculture although it represents only 4% of the EU's Gross Domestic Product.
Downside for Africa
in cutting sugar price. The Guardian
June 2005
Global Policy Forum offers a selection of links to articles about Agricultural Subsidies: Rich countries spend billions subsidizing their agricultural sector, leading to chronic overproduction and dumping surpluses on global markets. Poor countries demand reform of this trade practice that impoverishes small-scale farmers while enriching large agri-business.
In May 2005 Africa Focus ran a shortened form of a
Christian Aid document: Europe
/ Africa: Partnership for Whom?
Oxfam has protested (November 2005) at the
latest European proposals, as it already did in June 2005 when the
broad lines were already clear. In June 2005, they published a full
Critique of the EU's proposals.
In April 2005 Christian
Aid issued a major report, For Richer or Poorer:
Transforming economic partnerships between Europe and Africa. (Full text in PDF)
Oxfam has published (December
1, 2005) a
briefing paper denouncing the EU and the US for paying $13 in illegal farm
subsidies (press
release)