News headlines in March 2009, page 15

Differences between the United States and Europe over how to restore global economic growth have given rise to speculations here on whether a failure to agree on a grand strategy at the upcoming G20 summit might create room for China to assert its national agenda.

Rosevic Colli’s ambition is to run her own Internet café in her hometown of Davao, southern Philippines. 'I don’t want to work for anyone, I want to be my own boss,' she says.

The main challenges faced by El Salvador’s leftwing president-elect Mauricio Funes are forging understandings with other political sectors, adopting measures to deal with the economic crisis, and especially its effects on the poor, and strengthening the country’s institutions, say analysts.

The Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute estimates 250 million people in Africa - a quarter of the population - rely on livestock for their livelihoods, yet African governments invest almost nothing to support the sector.

The victory of Mauricio Funes, El Salvador's new president elect and candidate of the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), completes a striking movement to the left in Latin American politics. Today, with the exception of Mexico and Colombia on one side and Cuba on the other, the continent is governed by either the moderate left with social democratic leanings or by neo-populists, writes Joaquin Roy, ''Jean Monnet'' professor and Director of the European Union Centre of the University of Miami.

Given the way the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations have been based on the requirement for reciprocal market opening with the European Union (EU), they are likely to bring more losses than gains for Africa and make the path to development even more difficult, writes Aileen Kwa, coordinator of the Trade and Development Programme at the South Centre, Geneva.

Given the way the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations have been based on the requirement for reciprocal market opening with the European Union (EU), they are likely to bring more losses than gains for Africa and make the path to development even more difficult, writes Aileen Kwa, coordinator of the Trade and Development Programme at the South Centre, Geneva.

Crying out in opposition to war and nuclear weapons is neither emotionalism nor self-pity. It is the highest expression of human reason based on an unflinching commitment to the dignity of life, writes Daisaku Ikeda, a Japanese Buddhist philosopher and peace-builder and president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) grassroots Buddhist movement.

Since its beginnings in the 1960s, Liberation Theology has adopted a global perspective, focusing on the conditions of the poor and oppressed throughout the world, victims of a system that thrives off the exploitation of labour and the plundering of nature, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian and writer and co-author of the Earth Charter.

In today's global financial crisis, the question inevitably arises, Who will the new financiers be? writes Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy (2006), co-creator of the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators.