Debt: 1/5 of 5

How secretive government agency funded BP pipeline blighted by human rights allegations

Sarah Bentley

15th March, 2011

The Export Credit Guarantee Department is accused of underwriting unethical and carbon-intensive business deals in developing countries and operating with a lack of transparency - charges it denies. more...

Dams: development or control?

Khadija Sharife

1st June, 2009

The vast dams clogging the veins of Africa are instruments of control rather than promised hydroelectric liberation. Khadija Sharife investigates.
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Life and debt

Molly Scott Cato

23rd April, 2009

This budget season, and so a short perambulation around the vexed question of the national debt seems in order. As a nation we've been living with debt for more the 300 years now, since 1694 to be precise, when Scottish privateer William Paterson persuaded the government of the time that creating £1.2 million of IOUs would get them out of their spending difficulties. more...

The money pit

James Bruges

7th August, 2008

Commercial banks should be forbidden from creating ‘virtual’ money, argues James Bruges – our debt-and-interest economies can only lead to collapse or war. more...

Farming despair

Raj Patel

1st November, 2007

As the bluetongue virus sinks its teeth into British livestock, there is one appalling certainty: like the outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease and foot-and-mouth before it, some farmers will see no way out, and take their own lives. Farmers in Britain are the profession second most likely to commit suicide (after, bizarrely, dentistry). more...