Global News and Analysis

Source: Huffington Post

Recently, First Lady Michelle Obama announced that SUPERVALU, Walgreens and Walmart committed to open or expand 1,500 supermarkets across America’s food deserts — low-income areas without easy access to a supermarket. But while improving food access is a noble goal, the announcement merits a closer look.

Critics of the program note that health disparities are more strongly related to poverty than location of grocery stores. In fact, a recently published study in a top medical journal found that “greater supermarket availability was generally unrelated to diet quality…” Responding to the announcement, Joe Hansen, of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW), pointed out that “Walmart is more responsible than any other private employer in our country for creating poverty-level jobs that leave workers unable to purchase healthy food.”  read more

Source: Al Jazeera

Local women’s voices have begun to be heard over a community radio station now broadcasting in Complexo do Alemao, a clump of favelas or shantytowns on the north side of this Brazilian city that were ruled until recently by armed drug gangs.

Gender issues, social and health matters, local environmental problems, employment and women’s rights are the focus of Radio Mulher, or “women’s radio station”, which began to broadcast this month.

Before going on the air, the participants received a year of training about the workings of a radio station, including general courses for all, as well as specific training in different areas depending on each woman’s role in the station, as determined by each individual’s strengths and talents. read more

Source: Alternet

On July 28, 1932, World War I veterans marched on Washington to demand their service bonus. Today, in the face of austerity, we see very little protest like that march.

Seventy-nine years ago today, the U.S. Army attacked American World War I veterans, their families and thousands of other citizens gathered in peaceful assembly in Washington, D.C.  In March, and as the Depression mounted, an estimated 15,000 people flooded the nation’s capital demanding payment of their veterans’ service bonus.  By June, 20,000 had amassed. read more

On the 29^th of June, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met with editors of a few newspapers. When asked about whether he had been putting pressure on the Environment Ministry to approve environmentally destructive projects, he said “yes”, and justified by quoting Indira Gandhi “poverty is the biggest polluter, we need to have a balance”. Indira Gandhi had said this in Stockholm in 1972 at the first Environmental Conference. She had also quoted from the Atharvaveda –

“Whatever, I dig of you, O Earth, read more

Al Jazeera

Source: Alternet

Being a resourceful people, Americans are adapting to their new economic situation in a variety of ways.

Most of us are familiar with the tragic numbers that tell the tale of this grueling downturn. During the last peak, about 65 percent of Americans held a job; today, that number is below 59 percent. We just saw the largest two-year drop in “labor compensation” – wages and benefits – since the early 1960s, the foreclosure crisis continues unabated, and for the first time, the number of “99ers” – unemployed Americans whose benefits have run out – has pushed past the two million mark. read more