6.30-8pm Hong Kong Theatre, Clement House, London School of Economics. More info here.
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Credit has crunched, debt has turned toxic, the gears of the world economy have ground to a halt. It’s now clear that the market doesn’t only get it wrong about sub-prime mortgages; it gets it wrong about everything. We need to ask again one of the most fundamental questions a society ever addresses: why do things cost what they do?
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In another piece of New York Times-related news, I’ll be on the BBC World Service in an hour or so (12.30pm Pacific time, Nov 1) talking with Nicolette Hahn Niman, about her Times oped on meat and climate change. Tune in here.
Last week, I chipped in a contribution (below) to a New York Times discussion on biotech. The debate garnered about a quarter as many reader responses as a previous one about the future of laundry in the 21st century. I’m not sure how to interpret that other than, simply, more people have opinions about laundry than about food. But don’t let that put you off visiting the site. There are some very fine (and sometimes very obtuse) comments beneath our interventions. More here.
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A mere two weeks late, published on World Food Day, here’s something I wrote for Reuters/Alertnet about what to expect from our leaders in the upcoming World Food Summit and Climate Change summits…
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A bit of follow-up on the post I made on shackdwellers attacked by a mob in South Africa. Many are still in hiding, and the vibrant movement that was built by South Africa’s poorest people has been damaged. But they’re still organising, democratically, for change. If you’d like to support them, the South Africa Development Fund is collecting checks. Please mark them ‘for Abahlali’, and send em to
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The ever-excellent InterPress Service reports on a new UN report on whether it’s a good idea to privatise seeds. The answer: not if you want poor farmers to benefit. The report, written by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Food, is available here. Full disclosure: I advise the Rapporteur, but didn’t advise on this report. More below the fold.
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Any Neruda fan will tell you that poetry can be political. But how about the other way around?
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Pambazuka News has a fine article on how land-grabs in Africa are being driven by the biofuels bonanza in which the man who I idolised in the early 1980s, Bob Geldof, falls even further from his pedestal. More below the fold.
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Meanwhile, in Argentina, Marie Trigona writes about Kraft’s union busting tactics. The moment you make use of your right to organise is the moment it’s taken away. Marie writes: Keep Reading »
