Economics

The economy in the euro zone, formed by the 17 countries linked to the euro, registered a unemployment level of 11 percent of the active population according tolocal sources today.
The Statistics office Eurostat, said that the level is similar to the one reported last month, although it represents 1.1 percent more than the one in the same period of 2011.

Editor’s Note: This story was written for New America Media as the first in a series of columns by Dr. Sanjay Basu called A Doctor’s Word, exploring the impact of the recession on health care for poor people. It appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Insight and on SFGate.com, media from where Pressenza obtained it.

Goldman Sachs’s executive director’s resignation made big headlines. Accusations of corrupt and immoral practices appeared to suggest that this was a particular, perhaps isolated, case. Grateful as we are to Greg Smith for highlighting the shortcomings of the financial giant we should not be distracted from the fact that this is how the present system works.

A groundbreaking report released today by ICAN identifies more than 300 banks, pension funds, insurance companies and asset managers in 30 countries with substantial investments in nuclear arms producers. We print here ICAN’s letter to World Without Wars(1) and a link to this very important report that shows the banking system’s support to the biggest danger facing humanity.

New York – A lack of job opportunities, inadequate education, vulnerable working conditions and insufficient government investment are some of the main concerns of young people around the world, according to a United Nations report on youth published yesterday.

Banks are lending very little to help the real economy – businesses and mortgages – but there are no shortages of bonuses for top executives. Huge payments to lobbying firms at home and in the US (whose activities are not covered by the Freedom of Information Act) have been used to influence policies that may curtail the financial sector’s licence to cream.

For innovative young folks, angels are by no means mythical beings or messengers of God as depicted in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles and the Quran. They are flesh-and-blood source of equity capital at the seed and early stage of company formation, particularly when banks are reluctant to lend.

Article by Ramesh Jaura

When an international commission headed by Willy Brandt drew attention to global economic interdependence in its report in 1980, the world was divided between rich North and poor South. More than 3 decades later, the IMF is asking what were until recently developing countries to help stave off the European financial crisis resulting in the global economy sinking like Titanic

“Countries throughout the world will experience an economic slowdown this year as the sovereign debt crisis in Europe continues to unfold,” says a UN report.

Montevideo – The World Trade Organization (WTO) has failed. In December, the Doha Round is turning ten years old, with nothing to celebrate[i]. Formal negotiations of the Round expired in 2005, without any agreement, and informal negotiations stalled in 2008. Indications in December too were that an agreement to liberalize trade among its 153 member countries was eluding.