Transnational Institute

On 5-6 November, 2012 the 9th Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM9) will take place in Vientiane, Lao PDR. Under the theme ‘Friends for Peace, Partners for Prosperity’, leaders of 49 member states and governments in Asia and Europe will exchange views, priorities and plans on regional and global issues that are of common interest to both regions at the summit.

Prior to and in conjunction with ASEM9, the Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF9) will hold its 9th biennial People’s Forum on 16-19...

Writing in Monday’s New York Times (and reprinted in yesterday’s Irish Times), Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman commented on the crisis in Spain in particular, and in the Eurozone in general, as follows:

“When the bubble burst, the Spanish economy was left high and dry; Spain’s fiscal problems are a consequence of its depression, not its cause. Nonetheless, the prescription coming from Berlin and Frankfurt is, you guessed it, even more fiscal austerity....

That was the uncompromising statement of Alex Kastrinakis, an independent Greek film maker who participated at the Alternative World Water Forum (www.fame2012.org) from March 14 to 17 in Marseilles, France. Together with Georgios Archontopoulos, the secretary general of the workers trade union of the Water Supply and Sewage Public Company of Thessaloniki (EYATH), the two shared the on-going Greek debacle and their urgent campaign to stop the...

Is everything under control? What about the population of Fukushima? How does the disaster influence the nuclear power debate in Japan? We asked Satoko Kishimoto, a Japanese climate activist who works for the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam: “People no longer believe what the government tells them. They now measure radiation levels themselves, search for alternative sources of information and take their own safety precautions. The government has abandoned people to their fate”. An...