In The News

New Thai Immigration Rules Come Under Fire

Patrick Barta March 3, 2010
In Thailand, tensions are mounting as the state has introduced a more rigorous registration process for foreigners that includes proving one's home country. Around half of the country's 1.5 million migrant laborers have refused to come forward to register, which human rights activists reason is due to Thailand's history of immigrant abuse and a fear of retribution. On the other...

Free Trade, Loss of Support Systems Crippling Food Production in Africa

February 18, 2010
Free trade and privatization, two hallmarks of development strategy in the last few decades, have not produced the intended benefits in developing countries. In fact, these policies increased poverty and decreased food production, exacerbating food shortages in the developing world like the one in 2008, according to a multi-university study. The problem is that free trade is not really free and...

How Europe's Discarded Computers Are Poisoning Africa's Kids

Clemens Höges December 9, 2009
Twenty years ago, the international community drew up the Basel Convention in order to prevent developed nations from dumping their computer scraps in the developing world. Yet, the last two decades have shown that enforcing such a treaty is difficult. Some countries, such as the US, still haven't ratified the treaty; meanwhile, those who have, such as Germany, still struggle to abide by it...

The Fight Over the Future of Food

Claudia Parsons, Russell Blinch, Svetlana Kovalyova November 18, 2009
Population growth and climate change are creating the need for a second Green Revolution. But the form that revolution should take is heavily contested. Activists argue that the second revolution can’t be like the first, which left behind environmental damage and some claim is not sustainable. The debate is further complicated by a divide between developed and developing nations, and differing...

Mobile Marvels

September 25, 2009
In the last decade, mobile phones penetrated even the world's poorest communities, as established Western companies and developing world upstarts filled demand for communication that could not be met in time through landlines and traditional mail delivery. Studies suggest that this telecommunications boom leads to substantial growth in GDP per capita. As a result, the developing world's...

Elimination of Food Waste Could Lift 1bn Out of Hunger

Adam Vaughan September 9, 2009
Eliminating food waste could have a number of beneficial, and potentially multiplicative, effects. First, if a quarter of the amount of food typically thrown away annually in the US and UK was instead redistributed globally to the poor, this action could lift over a billion people out of the hunger. Second, by reducing food waste, consumption would decline, thereby lowering demand and thus prices...

Numerous Foreign Trainees Forced to Work under Harsh Conditions in Japan

September 1, 2009
Far away from home and eager to work, migrant workers can be easy targets for exploitation. In Japan, the story is no different. Foreign vocational trainees in Japan, especially from China, have been forced to work overtime at little or no pay and are often paid illegally low wages. Even worse, foreign employment agencies charged exorbitant fees to send trainees to Japan, leaving many indebted...