Greece's refusal to accept a century of debt servitude to illegitimate creditors is a decisive moment for Greece, Europe and indebted nations everywhere, writes Yanis Varoufakis. With even the IMF agreeing with SYRIZA's economic analysis, the troika's insistence on endless austerity was only meant to ruin Greece and humiliate its government. But now everything has changed.
OXI ! Our NO is a majestic, big YES to a democratic, rational Europe! Yanis Varoufakis | 6th July 2015 News Greece EU Finance Politics …
World Bank President Jim Kim talks a good talk on cutting support to fossil fuels. But what the bank does, writes Victoria Seabrook, is a whole other story. Not only is the WB Group still pouring money into the sector, but its funding doubled between 2011 and 2015.
… Jim Kim, warned that climate change rivals migration and pandemics as the major threat to …
The finance industry faces a 'wicked' problem, says Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England. Climate change creates risks that threaten the financial system to its foundations - but on a timescale beyond the usual horizon for investment decisions. The only way to reduce those risks is to act with unusual foresight - and avoid abrupt and destabilising transitions.
… broader global impacts on property, migration and political stability, as well as …
Microfinance - lending poor people small sums to capitalise sustainable, profitable livelihoods and businesses - is widely lauded as a 'good thing'. And at its best, so it is. But some micro-lenders in south Asia operate with the methods, and ethics, of loan sharks, write David Hulme & Mathilde Maitrot. Can microfinance save its soul?
Loan sharking and microfinance: What's the difference? David Hulme Mathilde Maitrot | 7th October 2014 News Finance Development microfinance-akbarpura-cut.jpg The way it should be done: the women of …
The EU faces a choice: a green, democratic future of clean prosperity and social justice? Or a dirty future of corporate domination with resurgent nuclear power, expanding fossil fuels, GMO agriculture and weak human and environmental protection? Junckers' Commission represents the latter. We must assert our own vision - or there will be little worth staying in for.
Europe on the brink - green future or industrial wasteland? Oliver Tickell | 12th December 2014 Comment EU UK Nuclear Natural World Trade Finance euro-comm-cut.jpg The EU faces a choice: a green, …
The respected Russian campaign group Sakhalin Environment Watch is being forced to choose between registering as a 'foreign agent' label and closing down, writes Oliver Tickell. Environmental campaigning, it seems, is now a 'political activity'.
… plans to build pipelines across Gray whale migration routes. Since then the group has …
The Government of Honduras is intent on framing the only witness to the murder of Berta Cáceres as the one guilty of the crime, writes Beverly Bell. Gustavo Castro Soto, an eco-defender from Mexico, is now in effective detention in his country's embassy in Tegucigalpa in fear of his life, having himself been injured in the attack and seen the real assassin. The US Government must break its resounding silence.
… return to his homeland. As he approached the migration checkpoint, Castro was set upon by …
In the run-up to the COP21 climate summit in Paris the G20's Antalya Communiqué is weaker on climate, fossil fuel subsidies and support for renewable energy than the G20's 2009 Pittsburgh Statement made shortly before the failed COP15 in Copenhagen six years ago.
… even greater geopolitical conflicts and mass migration of desperate refugees." Oliver …
Both Trump and Brexit can be explained by the failure of mainstream political elites to address the pain inflicted on ordinary citizens in the neoliberal era, write Helena Norberg-Hodge & Rupert Read. In the US and the UK, working class voters rightly rejected the corporate globalisation that has created so much poverty and insecurity. But the real solutions lie not in hatred, but relocalisation.
After Brexit and Trump: don't demonise; localise! Helena Norberg-Hodge Rupert Read | 22nd November 2016 News Brexit Politics Society Trade Finance US UK ladakh-cut.jpg Both Trump and Brexit can be …
UNESCO's Lake Ohrid-Prespa Biosphere Reserve at Mount Galicica, Macedonia, is at risk from a raft of aggressive developments, write Elena Nikolovska & Daniel Scarry: tourism complexes, a new expressway and ski resort all threaten its tranquility and stunning diversity of wildlife, backed by loans from the EU's taxpayer-funded Bank, the EBRD.
… in dry summer months; cut off their vertical migration; obstruct animal access points to …
With five reactors closed in the last three years, the US nuclear industry is in shutdown mode, writes Linda Pentz Gunter - and that means big spending on decommissioning. But now the nuclear regulator is set to exempt owners from safety and emergency costs at their closed plants - allowing them to walk away from the costs and liabilities, and palm them onto taxpayers.
US nuclear industry's plan thanks to NRC: let taxpayers carry the can for closed power plants Linda Pentz Gunter | 13th May 2016 News Nuclear Energy Waste Regulation USA Finance …
The corporate war on traditional farming is nowhere fiercer than in India, writes Colin Todhunter. After decades of the 'Green Revolution' that have impoverished the nation's soils, water, biodiversity and cultivators alike, agribusiness is poised for its final strike. But now the small scale farmers who produce most of the country's food are rediscovering ancient agroecological alternatives.
… depletion, increasing disparities, rural migration to urban areas resulting in …
How to dissent peacefully from the corruption, waste and destruction of the world? By a mindful disengagement from evil, writes Julian Rose: from fossil fuel energy to propagandist media, from sweatshop clothing to the predatory financial system. Some of the steps we can take are easy, others very difficult - but what ultimately matters is the direction of travel.
… farmland, cutting off villages and animal migration routes in the process; simply to …