Opinion and Analysis Archive

30.11.2005 An Islamic charity with modest English roots is now a worldwide network. A lesson for southern NGOs, says openDemocracy columnist Ehsan Masood.

28.11.2005 As the UN General Assembly debate on oceans gets underway, Dr Jeffrey Sachs and Dr. Ellen K. Pikitch plead for action, now.

25.11.2005 The battle for universal suffrage is hotting up in Hong Kong, reports China-based journalist and author Nury Vittachi in his East Asia column for OneWorld UK.

22.11.2005 Savage beatings from the secret services and 20-year prison sentences handed down by the government have forced Zimbabwean journalists into exile across the world. Elisabeth Witchel of the Committee to Protect Journalists tracks down the journalists reporting from South Africa and London.

20.11.2005 What lessons can be learned by examining the economic and financial consequences of natural disasters in eight developing countries and droughts in sub-Saharan Africa?

20.11.2005 The military in Iraq is scrambling to limit the damage from the stunning revelation about the men who are running Iraq today. We toppled Saddam—and in his place we've installed a hundred mini-Saddams. By Robert Dreyfuss.

18.11.2005 Media coverage of the effects of the tsunami helped inspire the fastest and largest-ever donation of disaster aid. But did that justify victims' most vulnerable moments being beamed around the world at the speed of light? Nalaka Gunawardene voices doubts.

17.11.2005 Southern journalists working for Panos bring you news, views and insights as the World Summit on the Information Society unfolds.

16.11.2005 Who controls the internet? Wrong question! As the World Summit on the Information Society opens in Tunis, Becky Hogge says delegates should focus on the real not be trapped in the virtual.

15.11.2005 The Chinese government knows that it is losing the battle to control the accessing and sharing of information it would prefer to restrict.

11.11.2005 France's assimilationist policy of minority denial, while founded on a desire for "colour blind" equality, fails to address the reality of widespread discrimination, racism and exclusion, says the Minority Rights Group.

10.11.2005 The violence in France reflects a larger struggle between a "Euro-Islam" that is well-integrated into a globalised European Union, and a "ghetto Islam" that is turning to a closed and increasingly violent form of identity to resist a system that excludes or exploits most of them, says Mark Levine.

09.11.2005 The riots in Paris and across France have been ignited by decades of inequality, police racism and impunity, argues Naima Bouteldja.

07.11.2005 Charles Mkoka and Mike Shanahan report on the drive to produce 'biodiesel' from billions of trees planted across the developing world.

04.11.2005 Sytex, a subsidiary of Lockheed, the world's largest military contractor, has emerged as one of the biggest recruiters of private interrogators deployed to the United States-run prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, reports Pratap Chatterjee.

03.11.2005 "Last week I sat in the back of a land rover that was rushing a critically ill baby to hospital." Caroline Hickson comes face to face with reality in Niger.

02.11.2005 A series of short online videos by Manchester-based groups tells the 'untold stories behind the political and media hype' surrounding asylum seekers.

01.11.2005 Blogs. What does an obscure format which started with computer geeks have to do with development? Quite a bit, say Tim Harford and Pablo Halkyard, who write the Private Sector Development Blog, the World Bank's first venture into internet blogging.