With a U.S.-trained military officer now running Burkina Faso, will Washington press for a democratic transition or legitimize a military coup?
The U.S. Just Lost a Client State in West Africa. What Happens Now?
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poverty
Terror, Repression, and Diaspora: The Baby Doc Legacy
Haiti’s late dictator leaves behind a 1-million-strong Diaspora unlikely to ever return home.
Funding Roma Autonomy
Despite a worldwide reduction in poverty, the economic situation of Roma in East-Central Europe has declined.
El Chapo Capture: What Happens When the Kingpin Falls?
U.S. officials are propping up the capture of Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman as a major drug war victory. They’re wrong.
Africa’s Supposed Failure to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals
Some African economies would need to grow at the impossible rate of seven percent to meet the Millennium Development Goal for poverty eradication.
Zapatistas at Twenty
There are two tests of social change movements: endurance and regeneration. After two decades, Mexico’s Zapatista movement can now say it passed both.
Economics by Other Means: War, Poverty, and Conflict Minerals in Africa
With support from Moscow, Washington, and the former imperial capitals no longer assured, armed groups in Africa now compete for riches in diamond mines, gold pits, oil wells, and rare earth deposits.
Human Rights from the Ground Up: Women and the Egyptian Revolution
Amid ongoing battles over the shape of political systems in the Arab world, intense sexual violence against women in those countries, and protest movements by women fighting for their rights, advancing the causes of Arab women is of utmost importance. But it’s not just a matter of laws of culture. Central to understanding violence against women is understanding state violence, political exclusion, and poverty.
Brazilians’ Demands: From Lower Bus Fares to a Fair Society
With a million people demonstrating in the streets of cities throughout Brazil, everyone’s scrambling to understand how a 20-cent bus fare hike turned into a social revolt.
NAFTA at 20: The New Spin
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into effect on January 1, 1994, was touted as the cure for Mexico’s economic “backwardness.” Promoters argued that the trilateral trade agreement would dig Mexico out of its economic rut and modernize it along the lines of its mighty neighbor, the United States. Fat chance.