By Simon Denyer29 May 2016 LANZHOU NEW AREA, China (Washington Post) – This city is supposed to be the “diamond” on China’s Silk Road Economic Belt — a new metropolis carved out of the mountains in the country’s arid northwest. But it is shaping up to be fool’s gold, a ghost city in the making. […]
By Danica Kirka9 May 2016 (AP) – Hundreds of economists urged world leaders Monday to end the era of tax havens, arguing they only benefit rich individuals and multinational corporations and serve to increase inequality. The 300 economists, in a letter coordinated by activist group Oxfam, say poorer countries are hit hardest by tax dodging. […]
By Pola Lem4 May 2016 (ClimateWire) – Water scarcity is expected to increase globally as populations boom and climate change sharpens uncertainty around the resource’s availability, according to a report by the World Bank. The conclusion adds to a growing body of research, and it comes days before this year’s Climate Action 2016 summit in […]
[cf. U.K. parliamentary group warns that global fossil fuels could peak in less than 10 years] By Neil Irwin28 April 2016 (The New York Times) – More than 151 million Americans count themselves employed, a number that has risen sharply in the last few years. The question is this: What are they doing all day? […]
[cf. MIT researchers predict ‘global economic collapse’ by 2030 – ‘We are not on a sustainable trajectory’ and The Limits to Growth at forty: Is collapse now inevitable?] By Nafeez Ahmed19 April 2016 (Insurge Intelligence) – A report commissioned on behalf of a cross-party group of British MPs authored by a former UK government advisor, […]
By Roxana Zega14 April 2016 (Bloomberg) – A year ago today, European equities hit their highest levels ever. But the euphoria about Mario Draghi’s stimulus program didn’t last, and trader skepticism is now rampant. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index has lost 17 percent since its record, and investors who piled in last year are now […]
FLORENCE/NEW YORK, 14 April 2016 (UNICEF) – A new UNICEF report presents evidence on how inequality affects children in high-income countries. Innocenti Report Card 13, Fairness for Children: A league table of inequality in child well-being in rich countries, ranks 41 EU and OECD countries according to how far children at the bottom of the […]
By Alan Gomez10 April 2016 MIAMI (USA TODAY) – Anyone familiar with Panama’s economic history isn’t surprised by revelations of shell companies and hidden assets created by a law firm based in the small nation. “I’ve been screaming about it for decades,” said Jack Blum, an attorney and former U.S. Senate staffer who focused on […]
By The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists 3 April 2016 (ICIJ) – A new investigation published today by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other news organizations around the globe, reveals the offshore links of some of the planet’s most prominent people. In terms of size, […]
[The blog is here: GooBing Detroit.] By Kate Abbey-Lambertz26 March 2016 (The Huffington Post) – Google Street View’s trove of data and visuals has been used to collect images of streets that made history, of colorful glitches and surreal scenes of oblivious bystanders. For Alex Alsup, it’s a tool to track Detroit’s rapid and continuing […]
