poverty

India: The State of Independence

India celebrates its independence from Britain on 15 August. However, the system of British colonial dominance has been replaced by a new hegemony based on the systemic rule of transnational capital, enforced by global institutions like the World Bank and WTO. At the same time, global agribusiness corporations are stepping into the boots of the former East India Company.

Batam Island: Indonesia’s Pathetic Attempt to Create Second Singapore

This time it was really supposed to work! The turbo-capitalist, anti-Communist and obedient Indonesia got so used to hearing bizarrely inflated compliments from its Western handlers, that it began to believe that it finally could do it – to build at least one dignified, livable urban center complete with sidewalks, public parks, public transportation, sport facilities and decent cultural institutions.

San Francisco: Major Convention Cancels Due to Homeless Problems of Drugs, Behavior and Feces

Tourism is San Francisco’s biggest industry, bringing in $9 billion a year, employing 80,000 people and generating more than $725 million in local taxes.  A major convention canceled future plans due to the open drug use, threatening behavior, and mental illness that are common on the streets. [...]

Porkins Policy Radio episode 149 Paul Wright on Prison Legal News, and Kevin Gosztola on Reality Winner Plea

In the first hour Paul Wright of the Human Rights Defense Center and Prison Legal News joins me to discuss prisoner rights. We talk about the current state of America’s 2.5 million incarcerated individuals and the tremendous hardships they face. Paul talks about the legacy of Prison Legal News and how it represents one of the only truly independent media outlets talking about the prison system.

2018 Update: More Evidence That Half of Americans Are in or Near Poverty

(CD) — Deniers like Nikki Haley refuse to admit that mass poverty exists in their prosperous nation. That would reflect poorly on their capitalist beliefs. But if the skeptics would look at the half of America they don’t care to see, the stark display of destitution might shock them. At least until they invent an excuse to remove it all from […]

Poverty estimation: A mockery of the unprivileged

  As reported by The Times of India, according to a study published in the ‘Future Development’ blog of Brookings, Nigeria has overtaken India in terms of the highest number of extremely poor people (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/india-no-longer-home-to-the-l…). The study estimates that at the end of May, 2018, Nigeria had about 87 million people in extreme poverty compared to India’s 73 million.

Hepatitis Spikes as Poverty and Isolation Take Hold Among America’s Forgotten

DETROIT — The first signs that something was amiss surfaced in the weeks before the 2016 election, when public-health officials began to notice one patient after another walking into a clinic, or hospital emergency room in the Detroit metropolitan area complaining of the same symptoms: nausea and vomiting, pains in their stomach and joints, fatigue, fever, loss of appetite, yellowing of the skin and eyes, dark urine, and pale-colored feces.
It didn’t take long for the medical community to hone in on the culprit: hepatitis A.

Report: US has highest income inequality in the Western world

UN ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, withdrew the US from the UN Human Rights Council just days before a report was to be presented detailing the threat which poverty poses to human rights in America, and the threat which it poses to America’s democracy. Haley’s withdrawal took place on Tuesday, and UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston’s report came out on Friday.