poverty

A vast icy pool of Siberian air, the coldest in 50 years, settled over all Europe in late January. At least 150 people without shelter were killed.

Yet the suffering from this extreme cold snap will be nothing compared with that of the economic ice age now threatening to entomb Europe’s most vulnerable economies.

Over the past fortnight southern Europe’s growth prospects have become increasingly wintry:

The nationwide strike in Nigeria against a petrol price hike ended under rather curious circumstances on January 16. The strike called by trade unions had crippled the economy, save for the fact that the oil pipelines continued to deliver their load.

Labour leaders and civil society coalitions entered into dialogue with a government that favours monologues. It was not surprising that the game was over before the labour leaders knew it.

A Facebook page campaigning to bring radical US-based Afro-Peruvian hip hop artist Immortal Technique to Australia has been set a target by the man himself.

Immortal Technique, real name Filipe Andres Coronel, posted on the wall of the page, We want Immortal Technique in Australia, that he would agree to tour if the page received 15,000 “likes”.

See all of Green Left's extensive Occupy coverage here

The global Occupy movement has inspired huge numbers of Australians who have grown chronically disengaged with the political game-playing of the two big parties and an economic system that puts profit before people and the planet.

The Philippines, one of the poorest Asian nations with a huge foreign debt ― caused by successive corrupt governments ― remains a place of simmering class tension.

In the past six weeks, there have been mobilisations around a range of issues.

On October 11, there was a national day of action against rising energy costs. There were protests right across the archiapelago.

Residents turned off their power for half-an-hour and created a “noise barrage” with whistles and horns.

An estimated 2.4 million Kenyans are facing food insecurity this year.

One cause is poor rains, which have affected all of north-east Africa and are probably at least partially the result of climate change. Another is the rising cost of imported food.

Rising food costs are also partly caused by climate change, but also by speculation. For the finance industry, food is just another commodity to be bought, sold or hoarded to generate the most profits.

More than 13 million people are facing extreme food insecurity in the Horn of Africa in Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and Kenya.

Almost 30,000 children have already died in Somalia in 90 days.

Famines in the region have become common enough for the Western media response to be cliched. Out-of-context images and sound-bites depict hopeless Africans needing Western charity yet again, and references to conflict making the situation worse depict conflict as local failing that Western intervention may be able to remedy.

There is a sharp reality disconnect in the Black community.

On the one hand, the Black population continues to support the first African American president, Barack Obama, by more than 90%.

Yet the plight of the Black communities is at its worst condition in three decades. Official unemployment is over 16% ― twice that of whites and iabout 30% for young African Americans.

Black household income is in decline and the lowest of the five major ethnic groups. Poverty is at the highest levels in 30 years.

September 25 will go down as one of the darkest days in Bolivia since Evo Morales was elected as the country’s first indigenous president almost six years ago.

After more than 40 days of indigenous protesters marching, police officers moved in to repress those opposed to the government’s proposed highway that would run through the Isiboro-Secure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS).

See also
NGOs wrong over Morales, Amazon