FN Brill

The fanfare and euphoria that greeted the discovery of oil in Ghana is not only based on the assumption that it will help boost the not-so-healthy economy of this poor nation but more fundamental though unvoiced factors also account for the uproar. The dismal reality of the actions of the global oil magnates in...
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“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as ‘right to work.’ It provides no ‘rights’ and no ‘works.’ Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining.” — Martin Luther King Jr. “What we’re trying to get to is to get...
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CEOs, government leaders and academics around the world are headed to ski-resort Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting – a power gathering that mixes business, politics and champagne. It is an event that draws a wide range of decision makers, from Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, to the Prime...
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Review of Karl Marx and the Anarchists by Paul Thomas This excellent book is a running commentery on Marx’s fierce battles with crackpots he regarded as disasters to the socialist movement: the anarchists Max Stirner, P. J. Proudhon and Michael Bakunin. One of its principal merits is that it debunks, with the support of voluminous...
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The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) defines “middle class” as people who have at their disposal between 70 percent and 150 percent of the average after-tax income. For a single person, that means between €1070 and €2350 per month. despite falling unemployment, the proportion of individuals and families living on roughly average incomes...
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Canada is now a superpower in the African mining sector. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources Canada , only the Republic of South Africa, with over 35% of assets and investments, is just ahead of Canada in the African mining industry. But with South Africa’s assets concentrated on its own territory, Canada dominates...
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Millions of poor Americans living in distressed regions of the country are chronically sick, afflicted by a host of hidden diseases that are not being monitored, diagnosed or treated, researchers say. More than 20 chronic diseases are promoting the cycle of poverty in conditions of inadequate sanitation, unsafe water supplies and rundown housing. “These...
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“Poverty will be eradicated in a generation. Our children will have to go to a ‘poverty museum’ to see what all the fuss was about.” once declared Mohammad Yunus of the Grameen Bank, the microfinance institution he set up and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Grameen’s origins began with Sufiya Begum, a young mother who,...
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Africa is a vast continent comprised of nations which because of their colonial past have different histories, just as they have variegated geographical landmarks that distinguish them. Thus African nations do not share many things in common except the forcible grouping together of tribes regardless of the interaction that existed before colonialisation. In the...
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On Saturday, our comrades in Edinburgh, UK attended and leafleted a meeting of the Edinburgh World Justice Festival . The following is one of the leaflets that they distributed. People are right to protest against the deal capitalism is meting out to the poor in the underdeveloped parts of the world, but the Robin...
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