Ifeanyi Uddin writes in NEXT: There was … a time when the public sector “delivered”. Now, there may have been issues with its balance sheet. In other words, the services we enjoyed in those days may have been provided below the rate at which the market would ordinarily have cleared the demand for and the… Read More »
Joschka Fischer, former leader of the German Green Party and former foreign minister of Germany, writes in Project Syndicate: … political power, not the requirements of energy policy, is what makes giving up nuclear energy so difficult. As a rule, the path to nuclear-power status always begins with so-called “civilian” nuclear programs. The supposed “civilian”… Read More »
In The New York Review of Books: Many years ago, the Belgian anthropologist Johannes Fabian identified a tendency he called “the denial of coevalness.” “The history of our discipline,” he wrote, reveals the use of time for “distancing those who are observed from the Time of the observer.” But this isn’t just a professional deformation of… Read More »
Imagine how gratifying it is for me to wake up this morning and find this post by Edward Caar through a Twitter link: What brings me to today’s post is the new piece on hunger in Foreign Policy by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo. On one hand, this is great news – good to see… Read More »
Via Africasacountry
Former City banker Alex Preston writes in The Independent: The relationship between faith and finance runs deep. Quaker-run banks such as Barclays – founded three centuries ago on Lombard Street – survived when many of their peers crumbled during the crashes of the mid-1700s precisely because of the Christian ethics that underpinned their businesses. More… Read More »
Just got this REGULATING THE SOCIAL IMPACTS OF SPECULATIVE FINANCIAL PRACTICES Meeting sponsored by the Essex Business and Human Rights Project and the Law Society of England and Wales 18 May 2011, 7-9 PM The Law Society’s Hall – 113 Chancery Lane – London The world’s attention on the link between Human Rights and Business… Read More »
The Economist: Once feted as saviours in much of Africa, Chinese have come to be viewed with mixed feelings—especially in smaller countries where China’s weight is felt all the more. To blame, in part, are poor business practices imported alongside goods and services. Chinese construction work can be slapdash and buildings erected by mainland firms… Read More »
First of all, may we not be cursed with The Hype, otherwise known as being-blown-out-of-proportion-to-the-point-that-a-thing-can-only-disappoint. I really don’t understand this simplistic search for a silver bullet that will catalyse development and “solve the problem of poverty”. Poverty is caused by a whole lot of different factors that are horribly specific in different contexts, so why… Read More »
Radiolab duo, Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad team up with avant cellist Zoë Keating for this Musicians@Google event. If you don’t listen to Radiolab you are missing a lot. This is Zoë Keating’s website.