Global News and Analysis Archives - Page 42 of 294

The world’s richest 1% are on course to control as much as two-thirds of the world’s wealth by 2030, according to a shocking analysis that has lead to a cross-party call for action.

World leaders are being warned that the continued accumulation of wealth at the top will fuel growing distrust and anger over the coming decade unless action is taken to restore the balance.

An alarming projection produced by the House of Commons library suggests that if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world’s wealth by 2030. Even taking the financial crash into account, and measuring their assets over a longer period, they would still hold more than half of all wealth. read more

Zapatista women take the stage to deliver their speeches collectively from each Caracol, or administrative center. (WNV/Shirin Hess)

Zapatista Women Inspire the Fight Against Patriarchy

Shirin Hess April 9, 2018 Shirin Hess

Women’s participation in Mexico’s 25-year-old Zapatista National Liberation Army, or EZLN movement, has represented an incredible organizational achievement since its original uprising in 1994. On International Women’s Day, the female militants of the EZLN did not fail to meet expectations when welcoming 7,000 people to the “First International Political, Artistic, Sports, and Cultural Encounter for Women who Struggle.” Two thousand indigenous Zapatista women from various parts of Chiapas state and 5,000 visitors from all over the world came to Caracol Morelia, near the northeastern town of Altamirano, to hear what they had to say.

The Pentagon Is Planning a Three-Front ‘Long War’ Against China and Russia

Michael Klare April 9, 2018 Michael Klare

The Pentagon headquarters in Washington, DC.

Source: Foreign Policy in Focus

If you thought the “global war on terror” was a significant overreach for a single power, just wait.

Think of it as the most momentous military planning on Earth right now.

Who’s even paying attention, given the eternal changing of the guard at the White House, as well as the latest in tweets, sexual revelations, and investigations of every sort? And yet it increasingly looks as if, thanks to current Pentagon planning, a twenty-first-century version of the Cold War (with dangerous new twists) has begun and hardly anyone has even noticed. read more

Fleeing Myanmar

Parsa Sanjana Sajid April 9, 2018 Parsa Sanjana Sajid

Source: New Internationalist

The treatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya people has been seen as a genocide in the making.

On her mind that day, in September 2017, was all that was immediate. And all that was immediate – the next meal, clean water, safe shelter, sleep without terror – clamoured for her attention but were things over which she had very little control. Rashida* wanted rest.

She was at an NGO-run medical facility at Balukhali refugee camp, Cox’s Bazar in southern Bangladesh, trying to get her five-year-old daughter examined for several ailments: cold, cuts to the knee, stomach pain. read more

The Oklahoma Teachers’ Strike Is a Mutiny Against Austerity

Michelle Chen April 6, 2018 Michelle Chen

Source: In These Times

Oklahoma teachers proudly marked themselves absent from school since Monday, and they had an excellent excuse: They made themselves present in politics instead, with a historic march on the Capitol in hopes of finally capturing the legislature’s undivided attention

Lawmakers thought they could eke through another austerity budget with the last-minute addition of a $6,100 wage hike. But an estimated 30,000 educators stopped work starting Monday to force some 200 schools to shutter, in order to send the message to elected representatives that their gesture is insufficient. The planned raise paled against teachers’ demands for a fully funded school budget, as part of a $3.3 billion package to restore massive cutbacks across state agencies, as well as the basic dignity of a living wage for all state workers. read more

Cornel West: Martin Luther King Jr was a radical. We must not sterilize his legacy

Cornel West April 6, 2018 Cornel West

Source: The Guardian

If King were alive today, his words would threaten most of those who now sing his praises

The major threat of Martin Luther King Jr to us is a spiritual and moral one. King’s courageous and compassionate example shatters the dominant neoliberal soul-craft of smartness, money and bombs. His grand fight against poverty, militarism, materialism and racism undercuts the superficial lip service and pretentious posturing of so-called progressives as well as the candid contempt and proud prejudices of genuine reactionaries. King was neither perfect nor pure in his prophetic witness – but he was the real thing in sharp contrast to the market-driven semblances and simulacra of our day. read more