People from all over Europe turned out in Berlin to hear Barack Obama. Thank you to the citizens of Berlin and to the people of Germany. Let me thank Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier for welcoming me earlier today. Thank you Mayor Wowereit, the Berlin Senate, the police, and most of all thank you [...]

While economic growth is expected to slow in the second half of 2008 due to rising inflation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts a reverse in trend in 2009. As part of its quarterly World Economic Outlook update, the IMF also reported there is a need to shift purchasing power from commodity users to producers. [...]

Mandela remembers the forgotten on his birthday. Nelson Mandela marked his 90th birthday Friday, July 18, and many paused to reflect on his legacy to the world: peace through equality, justice and temperance, and forgiveness. Even Mandela’s only apartheid rival, turned collaborator in South African racial renewal, F. W. De Clerk, took the time to [...]

Caribbean Community leaders have at last added their voices to the condemnation of the farcical elections held recently in Zimbabwe and the violence against the people of the country. “The Caribbean Community condemns this unacceptable trampling of the democratic and electoral processes in Zimbabwe,” CARICOM leaders said in a statement that was issued following their [...]

Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the IMF. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns rising oil and food prices are having a negative impact worldwide, especially in developing countries where extreme poverty is growing. While higher prices are reducing people’s living standards in advanced countries, an IMF study reports they are having a more extreme effect [...]

Emperor Mugabe, the naked king. Marcus Garvey influenced a generation of Caribbean and American people of African descent to strive to uplift themselves from the devastation of European colonialism on their ancestral continent. But he did not only influence the African Diaspora which was taken away by the system of slavery in English, Dutch, Spanish, [...]

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that the economic slowdown in the U.S. is “less than feared” and the recovery process should begin sometime in 2009. While the U.S. should be commended for its quick and “innovative responses to a complex crisis,” there are still significant challenges ahead, says IMF First Deputy Managing Director John [...]

Barack Obama is the most popular candidate in Asian countries including Indonesia and India, according to panelists at the Asia Society’s 36th Annual Williamsburg Conference. During the event, in Bali, Indonesia, panelists also remarked on the variety of traits they believe the next U.S. president should embody. Many say he should show humility, tout democracy, [...]

Send me your remittance work brigades… teachers, nurses… Last week US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice presented the seventh annual Trafficking In Person’s Report (TIP). It condemns and seeks to exterminate from the world, this explotative practice. “The Department of State is required by law to submit a Report each year to the U.S. Congress [...]

Harvesting rice in India. World Bank President Robert Zoellick announced Thursday in Japan, the bank is to support efforts to overcome the global food crisis through a $1.2 billion rapid financing facility program. The centerpiece of the World Bank’s strategy is a $1.2 billion rapid-response facility to avoid the months-long process of getting board-approved financing. [...]