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Research suggests that trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, when specifically applied to “traditional” or indigenous knowledge, genetic material and plant and animal life, have a detrimental effect on biodiversity. The 2001 Doha Declaration suggested that the TRIPS Council look at the “patent-ability or non patent-ability of plant and animal […]

Nothing in Australian politics has caused so much controversy since the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2000. What is it? The recent announcement of a blueprint for carbon tax by Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Although the tax will not become effective until July 2012, the opposition […]

Re-socialization the Arab Spring The Arab Spring did not start with political claims. The Sidi Bouzid events were sparked by socio-economic factors, and it was only when Ben Ali killed many protestors[1] that the social uprising took on a regime-change objective. With hindsight, however, all the other events of the […]

In April, the Columbia Journalism Review raised the question of whether non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Africa benefit from particular representations of the continent as conflict and poverty-ridden. „Yet US journalism continues to portray a continent of unending horrors. Last June, for example, Time magazine published graphic pictures of a naked […]

The African diaspora is comprised of over 30 million emigrants from Africa‘s 54 nations. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) estimates that each year the African diaspora contributes about 40 billion USD in the form of remittances to their families and communities. Between 1960 and 2003, the continent of […]