Opinions
Development aid: Enemy of emancipation
In attendance at Dakar’s World Social Forum (WSF), the Kenyan scholar Firoze Manji gives us his thoughts on the renaissance of popular movements in Africa. The editor of Pambazuka News, he is very critical of the ‘aid industry’, an industry which hampers Africans’ recovery of their continent...
A precarious victory in El Salvador: Washington is threatening to withhold development aid unless El Salvador adopts economic policies that Salvadoran...
After a closely contested election in El Salvador, the progressive Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) has emerged victorious, declaring a narrow victory over a right-wing opposition party that appealed to the military for intervention....
Harkening back to dark days in Haiti: The president of Haiti—a country with no external threats, a history of military repression, and an abundance ...
This article is a joint publication of Foreign Policy In Focus and TheNation.com. On October 16, 1993, Alerte Belance was abducted from her home and taken to Titanyen, a small seaside village used by Haiti’s rulers as a mass grave for political opponents. There she received machete chops to her...
Meat makes the planet thirsty
AUSTIN, Tex. — CALIFORNIA is experiencing one of its worst droughts on record. Just two and a half years ago, Folsom Lake, a major reservoir outside Sacramento, was at 83 percent capacity....
Expand national paid family leave
The law has been a great success. Since 1993, the Family and Medical Leave Act has been used more than 100 million times by women and men and has been a boon for those who have had to provide much needed care for themselves or their families....
Some progress on eating and health
For those concerned about eating and health, the glass was more than half full last week; some activists were actually exuberant. First, there was evidence that obesity rates among pre-school children had fallen significantly. ...
North Korea’s atrocities
The world has long been aware of North Korea’s repression and brutality against its citizens, through the stories of escapees and reports by human rights groups and the State Department. But a study by a special United Nations commission has produced the most authoritative indictment yet....
The dust bowl returns to California’s Central Valley
FRESNO, Calif. — EVERY Saturday in late December and January, as reports of brutal temperatures and historic snowfalls streamed in from family in Vermont, New York and even southern Louisiana, we made weekly pilgrimages to our local beer garden to enjoy craft brews and unseasonably warm afternoons...
The case for a higher minimum wage
The political posturing over raising the minimum wage sometimes obscures the huge and growing number of low-wage workers it would affect. An estimated 27.8 million people would earn more money under the Democratic proposal to lift the hourly minimum from $7.25 today to $10.10 by 2016. And most of th...
Most African leaders not making promised investments in agriculture: 10 years after committing to increase government spending on food production, onl...
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The African Union commemorated the 10-year anniversary of the Maputo Declaration on agricultural development with the launch of the “Year of Agriculture and Food Security” last week at its summit in Addis Ababa....
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