Thinking global, living local: Voices in a globalized world

All Recent FutureChallenges Posts

  • The Darker Face of EU Solidarity

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    As Europe struggles on with the effects of the economic crisis, the debate on the upcoming EU budget is raising renewed concerns about solidarity. With calls for cuts to the Union’s budget becoming ever louder, we need to think about what effects fewer subsidies for poorer member states would have […]

  • El oro de la discordia

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    Abstract:  Since Canada-based Pacific Rim Mining Corp.  and other mining companies have tried to get authorizations to extract gold from El Salvador’s underground, there have been division among local people, legal battles, and even homicides. The stronger concern is the effect of the mining activity, and the use of chemicals, […]

  • Mexico and the 2008 Financial Crisis, from Flu to Pneumonia

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    In early 2008 preceding the American economic crisis, former Mexican Treasury Secretary Agustín Carstens stated that the effects of such a recession on the Mexican economy would be “a simple flu rather than a pneumonia.” It only took a few months to prove how wrong he was. The deep interconnection […]

  • Uganda’s Remittance Blues

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    African countries like Uganda are paying more attention to migrant workers’ remittances because this money has become another avenue for spurring domestic development. The reason for this attention is simple: “remittance flows directly impact on consumption, savings and investment“. As of 2007 Uganda was among the top 10 African remittance […]

  • Banksy @ Bristol City Museum Picture published by fingertrouble on Flickr under a CC BY 2.0 license

    East Europe’s Lost Generation?

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    Being young often means being unemployed or working in the wrong job. More and more young people cannot find suitable work after leaving university. I’ve read a lot about youth unemployment in Western Europe and the States, but I haven’t heard much about young people out of work in Eastern Europe. When […]

  • HIV & AIDS. Image by the author (CC-by-SA 3.0)

    World AIDS Day 2012: When Will We Live in an AIDS-free World?

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    On Nov 20, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) Executive Director Michel Sidibé announced the main findings published in the latest AIDS report. Encouragingly, the number of adults and children worldwide acquiring HIV infection in 2011 was 20% lower than in 2001. Noticeably, AIDS-related deaths have decreased by […]