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
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro will sign a decree that will allow shooters, hunters, and gun collectors to roam around the streets with loaded weapons.
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Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro will sign a gun decree allowing transportation of loaded weapons. | Photo: Reuters | {hoto from teleSUR.
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6 May 2019 (teleSUR)* — Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro will sign a decree Tuesday relaxing rules of carrying weapons for collectors, hunters, and sports shooters, known by the acronym CAC.
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“I’m going to sign [the decree] on Tuesday at 4 p.m. You can rest easy. CAC will not have a limit on the amount of ammunition and they will also be able to transport the loaded weapon,” Bolsonaro told a supporter Sunday [5 May 2019].
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.
This marks the first time Le Pen’s party overtakes REM in an Ipsos survey ahead of the European Union (EU) election this year.
Marine Le Pen, France’s far-right National Front (FN) political party leader, speaks during a rally in Laon, France, February 18, 2018. | Photo: Reuters | Photo fromteleSUR.
5 May 2019 (teleSUR)* — The National Rally (RN), formerly the National Front party of far-right leader Marine Le Pen leads voter intention with 22 percent for the upcoming European Parliament elections, just ahead of French President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic in March (REM) party, according to an Ipsos poll released on Sunday [5 May 2019].
UNITED NATIONS, New York, 3 May 2019 (UNFPA)* – Twenty-five years ago, the world was transforming. South Africa held its first multiracial elections, electing Nelson Mandela as President. Sweden began to allow the registration of same-sex partnerships. It was the dawn of the Internet age.
And it was the start of a new global consensus on sexual and reproductive health – one that aimed to empower women and communities to determine their own futures.
HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 