Search

The article reports that although raising the minimum wage in the U. S. makes political sense, it will likely do little to help the poor. Economists and politicians cite conflicting studies saying that minimum wage increases impact employment numbers, high-school dropout rates and wages later in life. Teenagers are the main beneficiaries of a higher minimum wage.

This article discusses the plight of some of Indonesia's poorest people. The article suggests that the number of poor people in Indonesia has reportedly increased from previous years. The Urban Poor Consortium believes that the number of people falling into poverty in Jakarta, Indonesia, has risen by almost twice as much as reported in government statements. A report on the subject, being prepared by the World Bank, argues that artificially high rice prices are much more to blame than the effects of the fuel price increase.

The article reports that disgruntled people in Hong Kong have taken to throwing trash out their windows to relieve their emotions. A number of people have been taken to emergency rooms with scissors lodged in their skulls. Everything from cigarette butts to matresses have been seen flying from the windows of housing estates. The windows themselves are also falling, as the post-SARS economic recovery has failed to improve the lot of the poor.

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "The mountain man and the surgeon," found in the December 24, 2005 issue of "The Economist."

The article looks at the alpaca industry in Peru. The alpaca holds the key to helping the poorest Peruvian families. Peru has some 3.5 million alpacas--80% of the world's total and, you might think, a dominant market position. Yet the country's Association of Exporters, a business lobby, wants to ban export of live alpacas. The National Council of South American Cameloids, a government body, claims that a herd of around 300 is needed to cover a family's basic needs. But the average herd numbers just 21 animals.

Presents a letter to the editor of "The Economist" regarding the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the poor of New Orleans, Louisiana. Response to the article "The Shaming of America," found in the September 10, 2005 issue.

The article discusses poverty in Latin America. All but a wretched pair (Haiti and Nicaragua) of Latin American countries are officially classed as "middle-income" and all (except Cuba) are democracies. Yet Latin America has another trait: a hugely unequal distribution of income and wealth. A disproportionately large number of Latin Americans are poor. The region's democratic governments have started to make innovative efforts to tackle poverty. These center on programs that offer poor families cash payments on condition, for example, that they keep their children in school and take them for regular health check-ups. In Mexico, 5 million families now get such payments, and 7.5 million in Brazil.

The article notes that a semblance of normality has returned to Bolivia after a month of protests and road blocks by miners, peasants and workers. They achieved one of their objectives: 19 months after similar protests had toppled the elected president, his ineffectual successor, Carlos Mesa, resigned. Bolivia's Congress swore in as a caretaker Eduardo Rodrí guez, the head of the Supreme Court, who will probably hold an early general election. The protest leaders also want to nationalise Bolivia's oil and gas industry and convene a constituent assembly. But the events of the past month are far from having been a democratic rebellion. The poorest have suffered most from the blockades, and would suffer again from nationalisation. Most Bolivians, fed up with the blockades, are likely to support moderate figures. The new government should uphold the law and keep the roads open.

The article observes that, three years on, the G8's nuclear clean-up is still falling short. Alarmed by what groups like al-Qaeda might try next, G8 leaders used their first annual summit after the September 11th terrorist attacks on America to put more money and determination into a long-running American-led effort to dismantle weapons and secure poorly protected nuclear, chemical and biological materials in Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. Collectively, they pledged $20 billion over ten years. When the G8 summiteers next meet in July, the promised fund will be about three billion dollars short of its target. Money isn't the only problem. There is plenty more to be done, including recovering poorly-guarded nuclear materials from research reactors around the world. The shortfall in pledges is symptomatic of other difficulties that have beset the clean-up effort. The stakes could not be higher. G8 leaders need to focus on ways to speed the nuclear clean-up. For among those likely to suffer from the fallout if a new terrorist-inspired catastrophe rocks the rich world's economies are precisely the poorer countries, in Africa as elsewhere, that this year's summiteers are keenest to help.

This article looks at banking in South Africa and the effort to incorporate more South Africans into the country's banking system. According to the FinMark Trust, an independent body promoting broader access to financial services, over half of South Africans over the age of sixteen, close to 16 million people, do not have a bank account. The main reason is the lack of regular income, a common affliction in a country where over 40% of people are unemployed. Without a salary slip, it is difficult to gain access to banking services, and fees are hard to bear. Without much money, many see no point in having an account anyway. And it is little help that banks and automatic teller machines (ATMs) are rare in poor areas. South African banks, however, have signed a charter committing themselves to do their bit to redress the inequalities inherited from apartheid.

The article questions why poor democracies are not better at ending poverty. India, unlike China, is a vibrant democracy with a proudly robust habit of turfing lousy governments out of office. Yet, in poverty reduction, at least, China's unelected leaders have done better. A book by Bimal Jalan, a leading Indian economist and former governor of the central bank, lists some of the woes afflicting Indian politics, such as the rise of small parties, the dwindling of inner-party democracy and the shrinking role of Parliament in ensuring accountability. In poverty-reduction, as in growth, India is typical of other developing-country democracies, having achieved steady but not spectacular success. The relationship between caste and class helps explain the wide regional discrepancies in India.

The article discusses the failure of United States citizens to save. The personal saving rate, currently running at around 0.5% of post-tax disposable income, is at a record low. Poorer people, in particular, have too few financial assets. Politicians' main method for boosting thrift is a swathe of tax-advantaged retirement accounts. These accounts will cost some $150 billion in foregone tax revenue. Most of this subsidy goes to richer Americans, who have higher marginal tax rates and who are more likely to save anyway. Economists at the Retirement Security Project, a research group set up by Georgetown University and the Brookings Institution, studied the impact of offering poorer households saving accounts with various levels of matching contribution. Unlike tax credits, matching contributions give poor people an incentive to save. The incentives seem to have worked. The higher the match, the more people saved.

The article looks at the ancient practice of individually petitioning the government in China. To bring their cases before the relevant ministry, many journey to Beijing, where they may spend several months camping out near the city's southern bus station. In 2004, the government reported a 60% rise in the number of petitioners seeking to circumvent the courts. And yet, according to a survey by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, only two out of every thousand petitioners are successful. In an effort to prune back the petitions system and prevent local officials from retaliating against those who use it, the government is due to introduce reforms on May 1st. While free speech remains suppressed in China, the petitioners offer the government in Beijing a rare opportunity to gauge the mood of the provinces.

The article discusses whether United States President George W. Bush means what he says about being a compassionate conservative. Back in 2000, Bush defined himself as a compassionate conservative. This was partly a matter of branding: he softened the image of his party by talking about spending more money on education and health. But compassionate conservatism was also presented as a new way to help the poor: its aim was to use public money and private donations to involve churches, temples and mosques in America's social policy. Yet compassionate conservatism has been inadequately financed, not supported by any real political commitment and representative of a huge gap between the president's rhetoric and practice. David Kuo, the former deputy director of the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, argued in Beliefnet.com, a religious website, that Bush's "promises remain unfulfilled in spirit and in fact."

The article discusses a new attempt in Europe to improve the social and economic conditions of the Roma, or gypsies. Eight central European states and many international institutions launched a "Decade of Roma Inclusion." Europe's seven to nine million Roma are its biggest and poorest ethnic minority. Their social and economic indicators veer from the bad to the catastrophic, especially along the European Union's (EU) eastern borders. Poverty rates everywhere are high. The organisations supporting the decade will help governments to carry out ten-year plans focusing on education, employment, health and housing. In December a donors' conference pledged money for a Roma Education Fund. But the main aim is to get governments to give more help to the Roma from existing budgets, and to make better use of the funds already available from international institutions. Central European governments have often dealt brusquely with Roma problems in the years since communism collapsed. But with membership in the EU mostly achieved or assured, and incomes rising, they now have less excuse for looking the other way.

The article focuses on conditions in Madagascar. A couple of years ago, Madagascar was close to civil war. With calm restored, this large island state in the Indian Ocean is recovering. But the urban poor who once marched for democracy are now back on the streets: this time, queuing for rice. President Marc Ravalomanana has pushed through painful but necessary changes, for example by ending price controls on petrol and rice, even if that means hurting his own supporters. His predecessor used to fix the price of rice at a below-market rate, fleecing the rural poor (who are 70% of the population) to keep urban consumers happy. Ravalomanana has freed prices, thereby boosting rural incomes and making life tougher for the urban poor. Ravalomanana appears to have made big strides in fighting corruption. The president thinks he can count on the urban, ethnic Asian vote, and would like some rural black votes as well.

The article focuses on the growth of homelessness in Vancouver, British Columbia. Most Vancouverites love it when, as frequently happens, their city gets rated as one of the nicest places in the world in which to live. But to its poorer residents such seals of approval can seem like a sick joke. The Downtown Eastside, a scene of battered and boarded-up buildings, is the most concentrated pocket of poverty and crime in Canada. Vancouver's homelessness rate, though lower per person than in some of British Columbia's other cities, has doubled in the past three years: in summer up to 1,800 people are sleeping rough or in shelters, according to a plan presented by the city council's homelessness coordinator. Most critics blame British Columbia's Liberal government for social-service cuts in its three-year drive to eliminate its deficit.

The article comments on the views of Jeffrey Sachs, head of the United Nations "Millennium Project". Mr Sachs admits that foreign aid has not achieved much in the past. Development aid has failed to stimulate much development. Lavishly aided countries have grown no faster than those that have been neglected. This is one reason why rich countries refuse to give much. Though most have promised to donate 0.7% of gross national income, the average for the richest 22 countries is 0.25%. David Dollar and Lant Pritchett, among others, have dug up solid evidence that aid, when directed towards poor countries with sound economic policies and competent institutions, tends to accelerate growth and lift people out of poverty. In a study published earlier this year, Mr Sachs looks at tropical sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty seems most intractable, and challenges the popular idea that this is mostly down to poor governance. He cites other obstacles to Africa's growth, such as its extraordinary disease burden, the lack of deep ports and navigable rivers, the infertility of much of its soil and the colonial legacy of borders that slice the continent into lots of tiny nations with negligible markets and too little sense of nationhood to remain stable. Mr Sachs envisages funnelling most of the money through national governments, who would have to train many more teachers, engineers, nurses and other professionals, and then persuade the best of them not to emigrate to rich countries. Mr Sachs's grand plan depends on there being plenty of governments in poor countries that are clean and competent enough to be entrusted with a sudden infusion of free money.

The article focuses on Azim Premji, the head of Wipro, an Indian technology company, and India's richest man. Wipro is one of the country's biggest, fastest-growing and most valuable information technology firms. Since 2000, Premji has tripled his firm's profits. Modest and quietly spoken, he seems vaguely embarrassed by his status as India's richest man. Indian politicians seek Premji's counsel. The local press celebrates him as a symbol of India's emerging global competitiveness. But to Indian businessmen, Premji belongs to a pampered and resented elite. Such is the gap between rich and poor in India, and the proximity in which they live, that the information technology (IT) industry's sudden fortunes could be explosive. None of this is lost on the leaders of India's IT boom. Their problem is how to build community relations and spread the wealth created by an industry which is likely to employ no more than four million of the country's one billion inhabitants.

The article focuses on the negligence of police in bringing to justice Muhammad Bijeh, a man who raped and killed at least 20 rural migrants and Afghan refugees in Iran. A young man develops a taste for raping and killing people, mostly small boys, and hiding their corpses in the wasteland of the open-air brick factories that he inhabits. The police are indifferent to the pleas of distraught parents, who are mostly rural migrants and Afghan refugees. Embarrassed by the media's attention, the authorities are trying to make amends. Negligent policemen have been referred to the courts. Iran's top policeman, Muhammad Baqer Ghalibaf, pledges to absorb the appropriate lessons. Ghalibaf gave warning against "imagining that there can be security in a society that does not possess the minimum needed for living." Bijeh's charge sheet records the human consequences of Iran's two-decade-long wave of rural-urban migration. His accomplice, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison, is a drug addict, as was one of the adult victims. The only woman killed by Bijeh seems to have been a prostitute. Another victim was a child laborer. Child or adult, Iranian or Afghan, all were poor.

The article discusses a presidential election in Cameroon, 2004. Cameroon's president, Paul Biya, has a 22-year record of not delivering on campaign promises. The ballot boxes were transparent, and voters' rolls were posted outside polling stations. The country was plastered with posters of a besuited Biya walking at the head of a crowd of adoring followers, but it was an obvious sham. Biya presents himself as the only man capable of preventing anarchy. Cameroon has hundreds of languages and ethnic groups. Cameroon is stable under his autocratic rule, but poor, in debt and directionless. It has oil, so Biya can rely on a measure of western backing. A pipeline run by a consortium including ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco already brings about 200,000 barrels of oil a day from Chad to a port in southern Cameroon. Three days before the election, your correspondent went to the finance ministry to find someone to explain Cameroon's case for debt relief. It was almost deserted.

Presents a letter to the editor of "The Economist" relating to the claim that Haiti's natural disasters are both a cause and consequence of the misery of the country's poor.

The article looks at conditions in Haiti as of September 2004. Though tropical storm Jeanne was less fierce than the preceding Atlantic hurricanes, it killed far more people: in hapless Haiti, more than 1,000 died and another 1,000 were missing after heavy rains triggered mudslides and flash floods. In Haiti, natural disasters are both cause and consequence of the indescribable misery of the country's poor majority. On September 22, 2004, half the city of Gona&iuuml;ves was under fetid water and a thick layer of mud. The United Nations, which has a peacekeeping force in the country, began to deliver food and drinking water to Gona&iuuml;ves. The latest disaster adds to the difficulty of reconstructing Haiti's economy and government.

THIS year's report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the state of humanity's health concentrates on the" 3 by 5" anti-AIDS initiative that the agency, and several collaborators, announced last year. That might not sound much, given that at least 34 million people are now thought to be infected with HIV, the AIDS-causing virus, it would, in fact, be a huge leap forward. The plan is to create easy but efficient ways of delivering life-saving treatment. Obviously, pills would have to be provided in larger numbers. But drug regimens would also be simplified. Care and counselling would be delegated from doctors and nurses to paramedical" community health workers", to avoid wasting scarce skilled manpower. And there would, inevitably, be "mobilisation" of poor-country governments, charities, religious bodies, companies and United Nations agencies. Richard Feachem, the head of the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, another of the international bodies involved in combating the infection, reckons that " 3 by 5" on its own will cost $2 billion-3 billion a year.

HUNDREDS of millions of poor people around the world lack access to two services that people in rich countries take entirely for granted: clean water and basic sanitation. According to a study by Frank Rijsberman, director-general of the International Water Management Institute in Colombo, Sri Lanka, improving the delivery of clean water and sanitation to the poor would be a highly cost-effective way to use additional aid to developing countries. His paper," The Water Challenge", was commissioned as part of the Copenhagen Consensus project.. The global" water crisis" that development economists and environmentalists often refer to is really two distinct problems, says Mr Rijsberman. It has been estimated that at any given time, close to half the population in the developing world are suffering from one or more diseases associated with inadequate provision of water and sanitation services: diarrhoea, ascariasis, dracunculiasis (guinea worm), hookworm, schistosomiasis (snail fever) and trachoma. The United Nations' Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation is to halve the numbers lacking access to basic supplies by 2015.

This article focuses on the growth of the middle class in the suburbs of Lima, Peru. Mega Plaza looks pretty much like any shopping mall, with its smart boutiques, a big department store, a multiplex cinema and a huge gym. Next door stands a second mall, Royal Plaza. What makes these duelling malls unusual is where they are: on a congested and dusty stretch of the Panamerican Highway, in what were once shantytowns and today form part of Lima's northern suburbs. When it opened two years ago, Mega Plaza defied the notion that Lima's sprawling, largely self-built suburbs are uniformly poor. Between them, the two malls clocked up sales of $130m last year. Nearly two out of three of Lima's 8m people live in three suburban "cones" that stretch out into the barren sandhills of Peru's coastal desert. Some 2.3m live in the northern cone, the oldest-established and most prosperous. To those who claim that Peru's middle class is dying, Rolando Arellano, a market researcher for Mega Plaza, responds that it is being born anew in Lima North, largely overlooked by the city's business and political elites.

A new report from Oxfam, a campaigning group for poor countries, highlights the absurdities of agricultural subsidies, by focusing on those for sugar, a product that developing countries are especially good at producing. In particular, the report explains exactly how the European Union's common agricultural policy enriches a few European farmers and sugar refiners at the expense of the world's poorest. Europe's subsidies cause so much sugar to be produced that it is exported to poor countries, hurting farmers who might otherwise earn a living by growing it themselves--and perhaps even exporting it to Europe. European subsidies mean that its excess sugar ends up in places such as Algeria, Ghana, Congo and Indonesia, displacing sugar produced in countries such as South Africa and India. Brazil and Thailand are the hardest hit, Oxfam reckons. The biggest winners, says Oxfam, are large European sugar refiners.

Technology firms have realised that fostering the adoption of information technology in the developing world would not just benefit locals, but is in vendors' best interests as well. Engineers and programmers at American computing giant Hewlett-Packard in India are working on low-cost devices for the three-quarters of Indians who still live in the countryside. Several centres--in India, South Africa, Ghana and Brazil--have already been established. These technologies are part of HP's plans to sell to the four billion poorest people at the bottom of the global economic pyramid. In addition, the company has invested resources in a project designed to set up "Digital Villages" and "i-communities" around the world--the former are philanthropic projects, the latter strategic market investments. Companies around the world are now busy developing low-cost devices and innovative business models to reach the world's poor.

On May 1, 2004 the European Union (EU) will formally admit ten new countries. Then 2007 is the target date for the EU to let in two more relatively poor countries: Bulgaria and Romania. The Swiss and Norwegians show no signs of wanting to join. All the would-be new members are poor or big, or both. Unless the Cyprus re-unification talks go badly awry, Turkey will secure its invitation to start negotiations. And that means that eventual Turkish membership will become almost inevitable--perhaps by around 2015. By then, the four remaining western Balkan countries--Albania, Bosnia, Macedonia and Serbia--might also be joining the EU. If you add in all the Balkan countries, Turkey and a further scattering from the former Soviet Union, you soon arrive at a European Union of almost 40 members. Some people in today's EU may believe that the borders of Europe are those of traditional Christendom, but this position has never been formally endorsed by EU leaders.

This article presents the opinion that deploring economic injustice is ineffective in bringing relief to the world's poor. Surely there is no more commanding moral imperative for people in the West than to urge each other, and their governments, to bring relief to the world's poorest. And what a tragedy it is, therefore, that many of the kind souls who respond most eagerly to this imperative bring to the issue an analytical mindset that is almost wholly counterproductive. They are quite right, these champions of the world's poor, that poverty in an age of plenty is shameful and disgusting. But they are quite wrong to suppose, as so many of them do, that the rich enjoy their privileges at the expense of the poor--that poverty, in other words, is inseparable from a system, capitalism, that thrives on injustice.

This article focuses on the potential political impact of an earthquake in Morocco. The Moroccan government must hope that the quake this week that killed at least 565 people near Al Hoceima, on the north side of the Rif mountains, will not make the survivors more disaffected than they are already. The history of the Riffains, as they call themselves, is as turbulent as the minor earth tremors that often jolt their land. They have twice been bombed into submission in living memory, first by Spanish colonial forces in the 1920s, then in 1958 by soldiers sent from Rabat, Morocco's capital, under the command of the then crown prince, who later became King Hassan. Many inhabitants are still wary of the central government. The quake will again cast light on what the central government can and should do to help so poor a region. In the Rif mountains and its western foothills, the area under cultivation with cannabis has probably doubled in the past decade, but very little of the euro10 billion ($ 12.5 billion) it may earn in Europe trickles back to Morocco's peasant farmers.

This section presents economic news and statistics, as well as statistics on health and life expectancy, for 25 emerging market countries. In China, consumer prices increased by 3.0% in the year to November, up from 1.8% the previous month. China ran a trade surplus of almost $5 billion in November, the second biggest this year. Industrial production in India rose by 5.4% in the year to October. The stock market rose by 2.5% over the week. In Mexico, industrial production fell by 0.8% in the year to October. Consumer prices rose by 4.0% in the 12 months to November. The gap in life expectancies between rich and poor countries is widening, according to the World Health Report 2003. A baby born today in Japan can expect to live for 82 years, with more than 90% of that in good health. In Sierra Leone, however, average life expectancy at birth is a mere 34 years, with more than five of those years spent in ill health. The WHO advocates international assistance to reform health-care systems in poor places.

The author reports that, while Bosnia continues to face serious economic and political challenges, the country is beginning to emerge from the devastation caused by war. The people of Bosnia must be among the gloomiest in Europe. Polls show that two-thirds of the young want to emigrate; three-quarters think that the economy is going downhill; politicians are widely considered to be corrupt; and political apathy is at an all-time high. The official unemployment rate is running at almost 40%. And yet for all the surface gloom, the underlying picture is surprisingly good. Walk around Sarajevo, Bosnia's capital, or Banja Luka, capital of the Serb republic, and the streets are bustling. One reason, according to Dirk Reinermann, the World Bank's representative in Sarajevo, is that, by the Bank's reckoning, only 16% of Bosnians have no work at all. Mr Reinermann adds that he knows of no other post-war country where GDP has recovered to 80% of what it was before the war within eight years. Most infrastructure has been rebuilt. Naturally there is much left to do--not least the capture of such suspected war criminals as Radovan Karadzic, still believed to be at large in the Serb republic. But in November the European Commission accepted that the country had made significant progress towards European Union accession. In response to voters' gloom, politicians have come to realise that jobs and money matter more than flags. On this basis, the sooner they streamline the country's government, the faster they can move towards the EU and other western clubs that they want to join, such as NATO.

A new report gives governments some facts to ponder about economic development. For a better understanding of the plight of the world's poor, the protestors against capitalism who descended on the World Trade Organisation's meeting in Cancún last month ought perhaps to have gone to Haiti instead. In Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries, prospective business people have to wait an average of 203 days for permission to start trading. Then they have to pay registration costs and satisfy minimum capital requirements of around four times the average Haitian's annual income. The juxtaposition of stifling bureaucracy and abject poverty is no coincidence, argues a new report, "Doing Business in 2004", by the World Bank. It offers one of the first consistent, rigorous portraits of the costs of business regulations in poor countries. These often concern macroeconomic questions such as monetary policy and fiscal discipline, and the means of globalisation, such as free trade and foreign investment. Countries such as Haiti which, through colonialism, inherited laws from the French legal system are especially prone to red tape.

If you consider people, not countries, global inequality is falling rapidly. Stanley Fischer, formerly of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the IMF, now a senior executive with Citigroup, delivered the prestigious Richard Ely lecture at the annual meetings of the American Economic Association. Fischer delivered a tribute to his friend, Rudiger Dornbusch, who died in 2003, and then an overview and defence of globalisation. Fischer's essay deserves to be read carefully by globalists and anti-globalists alike. He also presented a pair of charts. The more closely one looks at these charts, the stronger the case for globalisation seems. The real question--at least so far as reducing global poverty is concerned--is not whether globalisation is a good thing, but why some countries (and in Africa's case an entire region) find it so difficult to participate. The answers, as Fischer relates, are complicated. Rich- and poor-country governments alike are partly to blame.

Judged by their rhetoric, rich countries are falling over themselves to help the world's poorest. The current multilateral round of trade negotiations is called the Doha Development Round, because it is meant specifically to help poor countries. France's to-do list includes a moratorium on subsidies on exports to Africa, trade concessions and new efforts to stabilise commodity prices. George Bush, who in 2002 proposed a 50% increase in America's aid budget over three years, this year offered to triple spending to combat AIDS in Africa. Promises aside, which rich countries actually have policies that help the poor? The traditional gauge of a country's commitment to development is foreign aid. Total aid flows rose in 2002, by 4.8% after inflation. America is the biggest donor in absolute terms, but the stingiest relative to the size of its economy, spending only 0.12% of its GDP. A new index drawn up by the Centre for Global Development (CGD), a Washington think-tank, with Foreign Policy magazine, attempts to rank 21 rich countries by averaging their scores in six development-related policies: aid, trade, the environment, migration, investment and peacekeeping. America scores well on trade but badly on everything else, and so is ranked second-bottom, above only Japan.

It was not a surprise, since the idea of children's trust funds, or "baby bonds," was included in Labour's manifesto. But British Finance Minister Gordon Brown's announcement in the budget that the government would put money into a savings account for children at birth is nonetheless a welcome and intriguing idea--and one that has support from both left and right. Most children will get £250 at birth, though poorer families (a third of the total, says the government) will receive £500 and their families will also qualify for full child tax credit. Like many original ideas in political economy, this one was born in America. The debate was started in 1999 by two American academics, Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott, in their book "The Stakeholder Society." Growing wealth inequality, they said, meant that few in America had a fair crack at life. In Britain the idea has been pushed hard by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a left-leaning think-tank.

Focuses on the popularity of President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Efforts of Chavez to promote social and economic justice in the country; Support for Chavez among the poor, whose numbers are increasing; Way that Chavez eliminated fees in public schools, which helped to increase enrollment; Health care reforms of Chavez; Idea that Chavez is venerated in a religious manner by the poor.

Discusses the life styles of poor people in Argentina, following an economic collapse. Way that the poor may scavenge in rubbish piles; Unemployment and poverty in the country; Use of bartering instead of money; Hyperinflation of the barter system; Increase in crimes such as theft.

Discusses the controversial practice in India of a bus picking up poor people and putting them in jail, as part of the 1959 Bombay Prevention of Begging Act. Criticism that the act criminalizes poor people; Question over where bail money paid by the poor people actually goes; Small percentage of convictions of the people who are picked up.

Focuses on the Fraser Institute's Economic Freedom of the World report, an annual publication that aims to measure economic freedoms in 123 countries. View that economic freedoms lead to greater wealth creation; Positions of Hong Kong, the United States and Myanmar on the list; How the report debunks the view that globalization leads to such vast economic inequality that the poor are excluded; Contention that economic freedoms make people richer and politically freer.

Focuses on the threat to the livelihood of stonebreakers in Uttar Pradesh, India from the Forest Department. Rights of the Kols tribe to mine stone into gravel in the area; Statement of forest officer Biswajit Banerjee that the soil in the area is not useful for planting trees; Way that the land used by the Kols has been cordoned by the Forest Department for forestry purposes; Problems of poverty and disease among the villagers.

Discusses economic conditions in Turkey. Widespread poverty in the nation, which has worsened due to the effects of an economic crisis; Attitudes of the Turkish people; Comment that apathy still outweighs anger about the situation; Social impacts of poverty, including increasing corruption and emigration.

Reports on the success of welfare reform in the United States as of summer 2001. Importance of the social policy change encompassed by reform which has rekindled the nuclear family; Data on the economic success of reform; Challenges for America and Europe in the treatment of the poor.

Discusses a report published on the world's poor by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). United Nation policy towards helping the poor; How IFAD would like to see an expansion of the use of genetic technology in farming to increase crop yields; Focus of IFAD on women.

Discusses flooding in Mexico as of 1999. Details of the flooding; Statistics on the death tolls and those displaced by the flooding; How the poor where the hardest hit by the flooding; Government preparation; Political aspects of the disaster.

Reports the results of a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities that examined the income disparities between the rich and the poor. Changes in the disparities, including a growth in the amount of wealth inherited by the top one percent of the population; Statistics from the study; Possible causes of the changes in disparities.

Reports the number of African parents stricken with AIDS who are dying from the disease and the impact on their children as of August, 1999. Statistics from Zambia; Prevalence and role of poverty; Estimated number of Zambia's population that will die from AIDS; Problems such as malnourishment among children, Inadequate welfare payments, and poor school attendance in Zambia; Limited adoption of orphans.

Reports on the research by Gary Burtless of the Brookings Institution showing that one of the bigger wage differentials in the United States is the changing pattern of marriage. Decline in marriage in the 20 years preceding 1999; Poor men affected most; The increase in the number of women with rich husbands going to work; Their wages versus women with poor husbands.

Examines key controversies surrounding the goals and performance of the Minister of State for Urban Affairs in Great Britain. Criticisms on the agencies' Vagrants Charter grants program designed to help the urban poor; Areas of failure by the agency; Indications of politics and governance and public administration.