Nonviolent Resistance Is the Most Powerful Tactic Against Oppressive Regimes
On the outskirts of a desert town in the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara, about a dozen young activists are gathered. They are involved in their country?s long struggle for freedom. A group of foreigners?veterans of protracted resistance movements?is conducting a training session in the optimal [...]

It was revolting, monstrous, inhumane ? and scarcely different from what happens in Africa almost every day. The oil trading company Trafigura has just agreed to pay compensation to 31,000 people in Cote d?Ivoire, after the Guardian and the BBC?s Newsnight obtained emails sent by its traders(1). They reveal that Trafigura knew that the oil slops it sent there in 2006 were contaminated with toxic waste(2). But the Ivorian contractor it employed to pump out the hold of its tanker dumped them around inhabited areas in the capital city and the countryside. Tens of thousands of people fell ill and 15 died(3). It is one of the world?s worst cases of chemical exposure since the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. But in all other respects the Trafigura case is unremarkable. It?s just another instance of the rich world?s global fly-tipping.

But, yet, the mass movement that we were a part of ten years ago really isn?t present in the streets. And I think a lot of that has to do with, perhaps, the ?Obama effect? in the United States where everyone is still in this waiting pattern, hoping that he?s going to save the day.

In a speech at the Sydney Opera House to mark his award of Australia’s human rights prize, the Sydney Peace Prize, John Pilger describes the “unique features” of a political silence in Australia: how it affects the national life of his homeland and the way Australians see the world and are manipulated by great power [...]

By Walden Bello*(This paper was delivered at the plenary session of the 2009 National Conference of the Philippine Sociological Society held at the PSSC Building, on Oct. 16, 2009.)

Lecture delivered by Prof Dr. Chandra Muzaffar at the Centre for the Study of World Religions(CSWR), Harvard University on 1st October 2009. The Lecture is the first in the series entitled ” Ecologies of Human Flourishing.”
Please follow think link to listen to the audio of Dr. Chandra Muzaffar’s talk delivered at harvard:
http://www.hds.harvard.edu/cswr/resources/lectures/muzaffar3.html

People world over are disenchanted with free market capitalism, says a new BBC global survey. Those surveyed in 27 countries ? both developed and developing ? have said that there is a need for regulating businesses and distributing wealth evenly.
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new BBC poll has found widespread [...]