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den 13 mars 2010 17:26 GMT

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A WIN-WIN PLAN FOR ICELAND, BRITAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS
Hazel Henderson

Icelanders, on March 6, 2010, rejected by 90% the referendum on paying $5.3 billion (45% of national output in 2009) of odious debt incurred by their privatized bank Icesave. This opens the way for a plan proposed by Dutch businessman/philanthropist Gijs Graafland's Planck Foundation. This ingenious, well-researched Energy for Debt plan invites private and public investors to develop Iceland's boundless geothermal energy and send its electricity to Britain and the Netherlands via a high-voltage DC transmission line, writes Hazel Henderson, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy and co-developer with the Calvert Group of the Calvert-Henderson Quality of Life Indicators.

MOSCOW AND HAVANA: FRIENDS FOREVER?
Leonardo Padura

In recent years, Moscow has initiated a rapprochement with Cuba, urged by Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, who has sought to revive Russian pride and greatness and its prominence on the political map. Cuba, crippled by a tightening US embargo and long in need of all the political, economic, and trade support it can get, responded enthusiastically, writes Leonardo Padura Fuentes, a Cuban writer and journalist whose most recent work is The Man Who Loved Dogs, featuring Leon Trotsky and his assassin Ramon Mercader as central characters.

THE DECLINE OF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
Ignacio Ramonet

Because of what it has abandoned, retracted, and renounced, European social democracy today finds itself dragged towards the grave, writes Ignacio Ramonet, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique in Spanish.

TURKEY: DEEPENING DEMOCRACY OR NEW AUTHORITARIANISM?
Ilter Turan

On February 25, Turkish president Abdullah Gul invited the prime minister and chief of general staff for talks to reduce political tensions sparked by judicial investigations into a number of alleged military plans to overthrow the elected government, writes Ilter Turan, professor of political science and former president of Istanbul Bilgi University.

CHINA'S NEOCOLONIALISM
Walden Bello

On January 1, 2010, the China-Asean Free Trade Area (Cafta) went into effect. Touted as the world’s biggest Free Trade Area, CAFTA is billed as having 1.7 billion consumers, with a combined gross domestic product of $ 5,93 trillion and total trade of $ 1.3 trillion, writes Walden Bello, member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, and senior analyst at Focus on the Global South.

THE EU MUST ACT NOW ON GLOBAL CRISIS
Mario Soares

If the EU continues to avoid formulating a coherent response to the global crisis, the coming decade will be very hard. The path to decline will lie open before us and our freedoms and social advances will be in jeopardy, writes Mario Soares, ex-president and ex-prime minister of Portugal.

PROGRESS SLOW ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS
Ines Alberdi

Today, 15 years after the Fourth UN World Conference on Women, women are still outnumbered four-to-one in legislatures around the world. The proportion of women in vulnerable sectors of employment is increasing in almost all parts of the developing world, reaching 85 percent in some regions. Women's wages still lag behind those of men. In addition, millions of women endure some form of gender-based violence, often on a daily basis, writes Ines Alberdi, Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

THE RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH
Leonardo Boff

For centuries we have lived under the jurisdiction of nation states and their forms of sovereignty and autonomy. But as problems are growing increasingly global, this political model is proving incapable of offering the solutions needed by humanity and the planet, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian theologian, member of the Earth Charter Initiative, and professor emeritus of ethics at the University of Rio de Janiero.

GLOBAL CRISIS: THE EU MUST ACT NOW
Mario Soares

If the EU continues to avoid formulating a coherent response to the global crisis, the coming decade will be very hard. The path to decline will lie open before us and our freedoms and social advances will be in jeopardy, writes Mario Soares, ex-president and ex-prime minister of Portugal.

GLOBAL RECESSION ACCELERATES MOVEMENT TO SLOW DOWN
Mark Sommer

In a global culture dominated by the impatience of youth, counted in nanoseconds and fueled by just-in-time supply chains, everything needs to be done yesterday since today is no longer soon enough. But just when it seems warp speed has altogether extinguished the present, movements to slow down and savor lifes pleasures are springing up in those very cultures most addicted to acceleration. Ancient Eastern cultures like China and India, long trapped in poverty and technological backwardness, now surge forward, sweeping away centuries of slow-moving village life and much rich culture with it in frenetic industrial development, says Mark Sommer, host of the award-winning, internationally syndicated radio program, A World of Possibilities.

TRADE GOES HAND IN HAND WITH HUMAN RIGHTS
Pascal Lamy

The history of the relationship between trade and human rights is a history of suspicion, and to some extent of deliberate reciprocal ignorance. Yet, trade goes hand in hand with human rights. Trade presupposes human interaction, respect and understanding. If conducted with respect, "trade polishes and softens the most barbarous mores", to quote Montesquieu and his theory of "sweet trade", writes Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the World Trade Organisation.

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