PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Informal Economy Ensures Equitable Development

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Catherine Wilson PORT MORESBY, Jan 24, 2012 (IPS) – Although Papua New Guinea is known as a resource-rich country, 85 percent of the population depends on the informal economy for a living. The need for a grassroots-led economic enterprise to aid equitable and sustainable development is nationally [...]

HIZBUT-TAHRIR ( HT) STEPS UP ATTEMPTS TO SUBVERT BD ARMY

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy B.RAMAN It is learnt from reliable sources that the Bangladesh authorities suspect that the Hizbut-Tahrir (HT), Party of Liberation, banned in October 2009 had links with 16 middle-level officers of the Bangladesh Army involved in the plot to stage a coup against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which was discovered in [...]

FUTURE OF KASHMIRI PANDITS

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy B.RAMAN It is 23 years today since Jammu & Kashmir saw the beginning of the ethnic-cleansing of the Kashmiri Pandits, the original inhabitants of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K), from their homeland at the instigation of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) by a group of Kashmiri jihadi elements trained, armed and motivated [...]

INDIA: Advancing Economy Reveals a Hungry Underbelly

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By K.S. Harikrishnan THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India, Jan 21, 2012 (IPS) – Even a year after Rani, a three-year-old tribal girl in the backward Wayanad district of southern Kerala state, was treated in a government hospital for gastroenteritis she remains grossly underweight and suffers from frequent bouts of diarrhoea. Rani [...]

CHINA: Dragon Drags the World In

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Antoaneta Becker LONDON, Jan 20, 2012 (IPS) – Chinese fengshui masters have been busy advising edgy followers how to optimise their luck in the auspicious but volatile Year of the Dragon, which according to the lunar calendar begins on Jan.23. In the West though, Chinese superstitions about [...]

Pakistan to Produce Gas – by Burning Underground Coal

Republished on Global Geopolitics & Political Economy By. John C.K. Daly of Oilprice.com As we start a new year, consider the miserable plight of the average Pakistani electricity consumer. With about 50 per cent less electricity generation capability than the actual demand, Pakistan’s National Grid is facing more than a 5,000-megawatt shortfall in power generation, [...]

THAILAND: Malay-Muslim Insurgency – Lessons Learnt

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Marwaan Macan-Markar BANGKOK, Jan 17 , 2012 (IPS) – Teachers’ Day on Jan. 16 was a sombre affair in Thailand’s troubled southern provinces where memories are strong of 155 educators killed over the past eight years in an insurgency led by Malay-Muslim separatists. Yet, this grim fact [...]

SPECULATION REGARDING ZARDARI

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy B.RAMAN The “Dawn News” of Karachi has reported as follows: “President Asif Ali Zardari on Tuesday (December 6,2011) arrived in Dubai for a medical check-up. According to presidential spokesperson Farhatullah Babar, the President has traveled to Dubai along with his team of doctors for an extensive medical examination. He added [...]

INDIA: Industrial Pollution Brings Crocodile Tears

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS By Malini Shankar DANDELI, India, Dec 7, 2011 (IPS) – Industrial pollution from a paper manufacturing factory in one of India’s most precious biodiversity hotspots is wreaking havoc on the local ecology, driving up the population of wild crocodiles in the area while simultaneously destroying the creatures’ habitat [...]

OPENING-UP OF MYANMAR

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy B.RAMAN The three-day (Nov.30—Dec 2,2011) visit of Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, to Myanmar— the first by a US Secretary of State since the visit of Johan Foster Dulles in 1955— indicated the growing self-confidence of President Thein Sein that the cautious policy of domestic reforms and external opening-up [...]