The World Bank (WB) on 8 April 2019 reported that migrants remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached a record high in 2018.
According to the WB study, officially recorded annual remittance flows to those countries reached 529 billion dollars last year, an increase of 9.6 percent over the previous record high of 483 billion dollars in 2017.
KUALA LUMPUR and SYDNEY, May 7 2019 (IPS)*– Over the last four decades, growing concentration of market power in the hands of oligopolies, if not monopolies, has been greatly enabled by ostensibly neo-liberal reforms, worsening wealth concentration and gross inequalities in the world.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The ‘counter-revolution’ against Keynesian and development economics four decades ago, which inspired the Washington Consensus, claimed to promote economic liberalization, including market competition, but strengthening property rights entitlements, especially for intellectual property, has been far more important.
Such oligopolistic and monopolistic trends have recently accelerated in much of the world, while already feeble anti-trust efforts have lagged far behind.
There is much diversity. Let us praise that mega aspect of our world as multipolar, passive but peaceful, coexistence of civilizations:
Johan Galtung
Anglo-American; Latin American-Caribbean; Islamic; African pre-, post-colonial; European from Ireland to Russia Far East; West Asian Islamic; with Israel Jewish; Iran Persian; South Asian, SAARC, Hindu and Islamic with India; Southeast Asian, ASEAN, Buddhist, Christian, multi-cultural; Northeast Asian daoist-shinto with China and Japan; Asian-Pacific, multi-cultural, with Maoris, Aborigines, Polynesians, Micronesians, Melanesians from one rim to the other.
14 civilizations. Others stop counting at 8, 10. Around that.
What a wonderful, diverse, polyphonic world! Not monophonic US or European all over, as they both have wanted and maybe still want.
What on 4 April 2019 General Khalifa Hafter hoped would be a victorious march of his Libyan National Army to Tripoli has now bogged down in the suburbs.
René Wadlow
The city is divided between the forces of General Hafter and the militias loyal to the (misnamed) Government of National Accord.
There is no national accord, and the term “government” must be used loosely.
A large number of people have been displaced, seeking relative safety in surrounding towns.
Migrants and refugees being held in detention centers in Tripoli are suffering. Food and medical supplies are lacking for everyone, and the detention centers are the last to be served. There are missile attacks on residential areas because the “front lines” of combat are fluid.
Aden, 7 May 2019 (IOM)* –– Some 3,000 migrants continue to be held in two temporary detention sites in Yemen’s Aden and Abyan governorates. Among those detained are Ethiopian nationals, many practicing Muslims, who are embarking on thirty days of Ramadan fasting while detained.
Some 3000 migrants are detained in temporary detention sites in Yemen, many of whom are fasting for Ramadan. Photo: Olivia Headon / IOM 2019
On Dhaka’s streets and stages, women tell their stories – about issues from violence to sexuality to working conditions. And they demand to be heard.
Tassafy Hossain, Dhaka, 2019. | Photo: Muhmmad Murtada, British Council
6 May 2019 (openDemocracy)* — Tassafy Hossain is smiling broadly when we meet backstage at the feminist arts festival Women of the World (WOW) in Dhaka in March. She talks with enthusiasm about the packed programme that she co-curated, including theatre performances featuring disabled actors, and talks from leading women’s rights activists in Bangladesh.
LONDON, 6 May 2019 (Pressenza)* —The almighty geopolitical and technological row going on about allowing or not the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei to set up the 5G infrastructure in Western countries, for fear of backdoor espionage by the Chinese government, has already cost his post to the UK Secretary of State for Defence Gavin Williamson.
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He was accused of leaking to the press that the UK Government was preparing to disregard the US paranoid advice and go ahead with Huawei installations.
The relationship between the UK Government and Huawei is long and convoluted, which has been comprehensively researched by True Publica.
In summary, the usual financial interests have been given priority over other concerns since David Cameron’s was Prime Minister.
A joint report by the ILO and the European research agency, Eurofound, provides an unprecedented comparative analysis of job quality around the world, including work hours, gender pay differences, exposure to physical risks and opportunities for skills’ upgrading.| español | français | italiano | Nederlands | 中文
GENEVA, 6 May 2019 (ILO)* – A joint ILO-Eurofound report covering about 1.2 billion of the world’s workers found stark differences in working hours, significant levels of intensive and emotionally demanding work and that the least-educated have worse overall working conditions and fewer opportunities to develop their skills.
4 May 2019 (Wall Street International)* — In the brilliant, penetrating and amazingly erudite study by David Wootton Power, Pleasure and Profit, subtitled Insatiable appetites from Machiavelli to Madison, readers are treated to an engaging tour of the ‘Enlightenment paradigm’ gaining in the process a more profound understanding of our modern political economy and ethical situation.
7 May 2019 (UN Environment)* — An asthma attack is a frightening experience, threatening to deprive you of your ability to breathe, and life itself. According to World Health Organization estimates, 235 million people suffer from asthma, which is the most common chronic disease among children. Over 80 per cent of asthma deaths occur in low and lower-middle income countries.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 