One week before the official Asia-Europe government meeting (ASEM) gathers in Milan, over 400 people from 42 countries in Europe and Asia gathered at the 10th Asia-Europe Peoples forum (AEPF) to present their demands and recommendations.
The Alternative Trade Mandate pledge campaign was launched on 2 April in Brussels, calling on European Parliament election candidates to make EU trade and investment policy serve people and the planet, not just the profit of a few large corporations.
Activists from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe argue that regional integration is the only viable response to the convergence of economic, climate, food and energy crises.
Review of 15 years of Asia European Peoples' Forum reveals its crucial role as the only permanent network and forum linking Asian and European movements and organisations, but also calls for reform to strengthen its work in the future.
Dr. Pedro Paez talks about the creation of a new financial architecture in Latin America, based on principles of redistribution, environmental sustainability and social cohesion rather than market principles that dominated the old architecture.
Behind the currency wars and the worsening global economic crisis lies a largely unquestioned free trade model that both contributed to the crisis and, without radical reform, is a major obstacle to overcoming it.
After a brief period of destabilisation, self-justification and the occasional mea culpa, the very people and institutions that plunged the world into crisis have re-emerged unscathed, as the fount of truth and all reasonable policy.
Alternative ‘regional’ South-South alliances and strategies hold out the most promising possibilities for shifting the global balance of power and creating living non-capitalist alternatives
Amongst many other analyses and debates, the more extensive awareness of the active role of the state and of states in the purportedly highly successful 'market economies' in East Asia and South East Asia is bringing discussion of the role of state back into quite mainstream development discourse.
Alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation are needed that not only change people-to-people and South-South relations and situations, but also South-North relations and inter-actions to the benefit of all of humanity and our common planetary home.
The massive concentration and growth of corporate power poses a major threat to what remains of public services, highlighting the ever-deepening crisis of democracy, and the urgent need for people to reclaim the state.
There are many important factors to consider when speaking broadly of China's role in Africa, and one should avoid falling into the trap of simplistic comparisons with historic African-European relations.
Why the EU's so-called "Economic Partnership Agreements" and free trade policies will have exactly the opposite effect of development on Least Developed Countries' economies.
As the Asia-Europe Summit gets ready to meet in early October, what are the implications of the rising power of Asia for progress on tackling poverty, inequality and climate change?
The challenges facing policy makers, analysts and activists dedicated to formulating environmentally sound, social and economically sound trade policies demand that we redefine the role and purpose of trade altogether.
"The banks are ours!" Public money was used to bail out the banks, and now they are lending back to the public at interest, while governments ignore the social and environmental crises that confront society. It is time to demand real solutions that will work not only for the sake of the economy but for the lives and conditions of people on whom it depends.
Programme and background to Peoples' Tribunal on "Neoliberal Policies and European Transnational Corporations (TNCs) in Latin America and the Caribbean”.
This year's Madrid summit marks a key milestone in the ongoing development of the Enlazando Alternativas network for both highlighting EU complicity with human rights and environmental abuses and highlighting the real alternatives offered by social movements of integration and development that respect the rights of people, communities, and protect the environment.
The term crisis implies a short lived period of uncertainty - suggesting there is something temporary or anomalous about the current state of the global economy. On the contrary, our global economy, from the financial clouds (or bubbles) to the real roots - where men and women work, live and survive - is suffering from systemic flaws based on an ever expanding void between rich and poor.
