Worldcrunch
Even those on the French left who resist the country’s color-blindness were dismayed when an optional question on parental origin was added to the census. Although the issue may seem benign in countries where race is routinely asked about, in France the question acted as a lighting rod for debates over how to address discrimination considering the country’s dark past and the current rise of the far right.
From the ancient Greeks to modern times, thinkers and economists have pointed to the economic virtues of sympathy. So what role should empathy — and even social equity — have in Argentina’s economy?
More good news this week from Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has avoided new tariffs from the U.S. What’s the secret to her success? It has to do with her pragmatic interpretation of from the same socialist National Regeneration Movement as her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
While Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum comes from the same socialist National Regeneration Movement as her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, their stories are different. What does that mean for the country’s future?
In economics, disruption describes an ordinary process: innovations replace outdated technologies. But in politics? It takes on a far darker meaning, writes German weekly Die Zeit.
A region torn by centuries of conflict, caught in the relentless grip of global power struggles. The Middle East’s wars are no longer just battles for territory, but for control over narratives, lives, and destinies. And it’s all playing out on your phone.
Wild nature, good childcare, equal rights: Sweden is often romanticized as a paradise for parents to raise kids. But the reality is far more complicated.
AI could offer a great new way in to the global economy for sub-Saharan Africa. Yet with some 20 million jobs needed to be created annually to absorb the massive influx of young people in the labor market, AI could also create new unemployment.
What’s in a name? For married women in India, it is ultimately a marker of patriarchy — and an instrument of marginalization.
In the Middle East and North Africa, divisions are as stark as they can be. War-torn nations stand side-by-side with wealthy oil-rich countries where the elites feel disconnected from the rest of the region. But, as Yemeni freelance journalist and a human rights defender Afrah Nasser, warns, these inequalities breed monsters, and wealth will not prevent oil-rich countries from experiencing chaos and destruction.
The global fight against climate change is essential, but the solutions are not universal. Measures must account for the local realities of the Global South, where economic development is equally important and where the imposition of strict environmental standards by the North has devastating social and economic consequences.
The Argentine comic strip, who is now about to get its own Netflix series, was created at a time when Latin America was going through political censorship. A testament to Mafalda’s innocent-but-serious attitude toward world problems, an excellent example of how young people often see more clearly than the rest of us.
Young people have played a pivotal role in bringing down Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government, offering hope of a bottom-up transition to democracy for the South Asian country. The army has promised an all-party inclusive interim government, but will youth leaders be invited to the decision-making table?
Laws in the late 1990s ended bans on women from wearing pants in Brazil’s courts and legislature, a practice that de facto has continued in many place. Female judges and legislators discuss how dress codes hinder women’s access to power, and the battle to change habits.
Similarities have been drawn between the cases of New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and Porto Alegre, which last month the worst flooding in 80 years. But the U.S. reconstruction was an enormous failure, and Brazil should not look at it for solutions.
As South Africa goes to the polls, Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress party is facing disillusionment among its voters, and risks losing its absolute majority in parliament. Corruption, crime and persistent social inequality are at the root of this disenchantment — and the memory of the liberation struggle is fading.
Chatbots and other machine learning tools could make the legal system more equitable for those seeking civil justice, or it could do other things with that power too….
Before the G20 summit, which took place in New Delhi from Sept. 9-10, Indian authorities carried out a “beautification” of the city. Entire slums were bulldozed, forcing some of the city’s most vulnerable residents into homelessness.
For some Haitian students, navigating dangerous, dilapidated roads or catching a rider with a stranger is the only way to get to class.
A new melodrama broadcast in China about sexual assault in the workplace is a sign that some difficult questions are being addressed, but that serious taboos remain in Chinese society and public life.
The public sector has seen a revival in response to COVID-19. This can be a good thing, but must be checked carefully because history tells us of the risks of too much control in the government’s hands.
Absent in India’s schools, which help reinforce power imbalances, is any real acknowledgement of street-level efforts to push back.
This new year may be one of greater justice and better social conditions, but only if people fight for them.
More than half of girls in South Sudan are married before they turn 18, and only 1.3% still attend school at age 16.
Rafaela Dutra was working in Rio de Janeiro’s tourism industry and studying to become a nurse when the coronavirus arrived. A resident of the sprawling low-income favelas in the city’s Zona Norte, she had worked in one of Copacabana’s shiny, high-rise hotels, earning up to twice the region’s minimum monthly wage of 1,200 reais ($220). […]
After the topic of bulk sanitary napkins went viral online, the broader issue of the gap between rich and poor has come out of the shadows across the communist nation, including the availability of laptops for students.
The pandemic and the response to it threaten to exacerbate entrenched economic and social disparities.
If societies really want to tackle inequality, they’ll need to do more than just improve access to new technologies.
As vast sums are donated to rebuild Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, the same billionaires don’t step up to protect dying species or reverse global warming.
The global economy is doing wonderfully well. And yet, its key players are wary. Why? Because for all the good news about GDP growth, there are signs of deepening divisions in society, and a sense that for many people around the world, life will be harder for their children than it has been for themselves. […]
The former capital of letterbox companies has reinvented itself, minus the tax evasion. Liechtensteiners are discretely delighted by Panama’s troubles.
In Brazil, where you’re born not only affects how you live, but can also have an enormous impact on how long you’ll live. The results of the latest report from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, published in Folha de S. Paulo, show that life expectancy in the country of samba varies from what […]
-Op-Ed- SAO PAULO — Two studies published in recent months show how inequality around the world is becoming even more obscene than before. One such study is the UBS report on the rich that focuses on capital. The figures involved are predictably shocking, but one element in particular caught our attention: The wealth owned by […]
Known as the “household registration” system, hukou has denied certain basic rights to millions who have migrated from rural to urban areas. This may be set to change radically.
Economic growth has brought more people into Latin America’s middle class, a first but insufficient sign of progress in one of the world’s most unequal regions.
Some 100 million people have emerged from poverty since the 1980s. Is that enough?
MOSCOW – “At the time of transition, there were hopes that Russia would transform itself into a high-skilled, high-income economy with strong social protection programs inherited from the Soviet Union era…” So starts the Credit Suisse report on Russia as part of its 2012 Global Wealth Report. According to the bank’s experts, since 2000 the […]