State of Power

In this episode, Hamza Hamouchene discusses his report titled: Extractivism and Resistance in North Africa, which documents several cases of natural resource extraction which take the form of brutal "accumulation by dispossession," degrading environments and ecosystems through the privatisation and commodification of land and water. The report shows that these extractive activities have also been...

If we’re going to stop the climate catastrophe that is unfolding, we will need a radical overhaul of how many things work. Our financial system has played a big role in leading us to the brink of collapse, and must be completely overhauled if we are to stand a chance. What does a fair and responsible financial system look like?  How can we shift power to democratically accountable public enterpris...

The far right is on the rise. The rhetoric of anger and resentment is emanating from personalities like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Rodrigo Duterte and Viktor Orban and is captivating and mobilizing large numbers of people. In an increasing number of countries, the extreme right has already captured the government or is on the threshold of power. While this swift turn of events has shocked or sur...

COVID-19 has become another touchstone for today’s deeply entrenched politics of militarised borders and anti-migrant racism. This webinar explored the trajectory and globalization of border militarization and anti-migrant racism across the world, the history, ideologies and actors that have shaped it, the pillars and policies that underpin the border industrial complex, the resistance of migrants...

A great global panel of activists, social movement leaders and thinkers discuss how to make this pandemic a turning point towards system change that we need not just to deliver social justice but increasingly to defend our very survival. The very insightful conversation examined what can we learn from previous major global mobilisations, how can we build cross-sectoral and intersectional movements...

Prior to the pandemic, popular opposition to the power of Big Tech was growing. Yet, in the COVID-19 moment, Big Tech has emerged stronger than ever. Dependence on digital platforms has delivered record profits for the likes of Amazon (and Zoom on which this webinar relies), while states are rolling out new apps with corporate partners in the name of a health emergency with almost no consideration...

Ten years ago, the Arab uprisings were celebrated as world changing events. The emancipatory experience was so contagious that people were inspired all over the world. Occupiers from London to Wall Street and the Indignados were proud to “Walk like an Egyptian”. The revolutionary process that has swept North Africa and West Asia, driven by demands for bread, freedom, dignity and social justice, ha...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led governments to release an unprecedented number of people from prison and curb new admissions to prevent deadly outbreaks in prisons and other detention centres. The pandemic has exposed the societal costs of mass incarceration, while the quick actions taken by governments casts doubt on the necessity of imprisonment for those released. This webinar  looks at the drive...

An inspiring global panel of feminist thinkers and activists discuss how we can collectively reorganise, shift power and pivot towards building transformative feminist realities that can get us out of the worsening health, climate and capitalist crises. This webinar  explores feminist analyses of the crisis and the way the pandemic intersects with patriarchy, corporate power and a global division...

Support for public services and limits on private profit is at an all-time high in the wake of the pandemic. How do we ensure this prioritisation of public needs and goods becomes permanent? What are the best models of democratic and participatory public services? This webinar  shares some of the most visionary ideas and campaigns emerging across the world at local, state and national levels advan...

As governments take action to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent economic collapse, big law firms are watching the virus too. Yet, their concern is not to save lives or the economy. Instead, the lawyers are urging big business to challenge the social and economic emergency measures that governments around the world have taken to deal with the COVID-19 crisis. 2600 investment protection agreem...

How do we ensure that the economic response to COVID-19 also addresses existing crises, most of all the unfolding climate crisis? How do we build a truly Global Green New Deal that delivers transformation and justice especially in the Global South? This webinar  features leading international activists and thinkers, bringing fresh new perspectives on how to embed just transition into our response...

With Sonia Shah, author of Pandemic: Tracking contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (2017) as well as experts on public health systems and activists on the frontlines responding to the crisis in the Global South. Images from Italy of the army unloading coffins, exhausted doctors and fearful citizens in ever more countries shocked the world and pushed even recalcitrant politicians into action...

What are the likely global impacts of the economic fallout from the Coronavirus pandemic? What would a peoples' agenda look like? How might we be better prepared than in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis to put forward progressive solutions that address the immediate crisis as well as existing crises of poverty, inequality and environmental destruction? Panellists: - Professor Jayati Ghosh...

A conversation between Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and agrarian justice activists from Myanmar, Palestine, Indonesia and Europe. This episode explores how globalised industrial food systems set the scene for the emergence of COVID-19 and the structural connections between industrial agriculture, pathogens and precarious working conditions. It also explores the different realities...

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed like never before the perils of governments handing over our right to health and life to corporations. The privatisation of our health has made millions of people vulnerable to infectious diseases and undermined the integrated public systems needed to coordinate an effective response. This webinar brings healthcare experts together with activists at the forefront...

This episode examines authoritarian and repressive state responses to the Coronavirus pandemic, featuring the UN Special Rapporteur on Protecting Human Rights and other global experts and activists. In response to an unprecedented global health emergency, many states are rolling out measures from deploying armies and drones to control public space, to expanding digital control through facial recog...

This episode is an extract from the first in our series of webinars focused on Covid-19, which featured a presentation by Sonia Shah, author of Pandemic: Tracking contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond (2017), as well as contributions from experts on public health systems and activists on the frontlines responding to the crisis in the Global South. Images from Italy of the army unloading coff...

This episode is an extract from the third edition in our weekly webinar series, which  featured a dialogue between Rob Wallace, author of Big Farms Make Big Flu and agrarian justice activists from Myanmar, Palestine, Indonesia and Europe. The webinar  explored how globalised industrial food systems set the scene for the emergence of COVID-19, and examined the structural connections between industr...

Two decades ago, and without significant public debate, an obscure international investment agreement entered into force. The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) gives foreign investors in the energy sector sweeping powers to sue states for millions of dollars over government actions that have supposedly ‘damaged’ their investments.  In recent years, the ECT has become increasingly controversial – because...

This is episode two of a series on Border Wars: placing the ‘migration crisis” in perspective. In episode one, we looked at some of the reasons for the building of militarized borders,  and examined the systemic causes of migration, showing how people are displaced as a result of corporate crimes, conflict, poverty, climate change. We showed that migration cannot be divorced from the legacy of col...

This is episode one of a series on Border Wars: Placing the ‘migration crisis” in perspective. It explores the rise of border walls particularly in the last three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and analyses some of the systemic reasons behind what has been termed the “migrant crisis”. Follow-up episodes will focus on the corporate interests that stand to gain the most from existing mig...

Walden Bello is a TNI associate, a human rights and peace campaigner, academic, environmentalist and journalist who has made a major contribution to the international case against corporate-driven globalization. He is currently a senior analyst at Focus on the Global South, as well as an adjunct professor of sociology at the State University of New York, Binghamton. In our latest podcast he shares...

Instead of stemming the flow of narcotics, the global “war on drugs” has only managed to cause untold suffering to millions of people across the world. The voice of communities involved in illicit cultivation have long been excluded from national and international policymaking platforms.  What alternative approaches are there to current regime? Is it possible to put human rights first?  Guests:  M...

There is a crisis in Venezuela. The country teeters on the brink of total economic and social collapse. There is civil unrest, hospitals and supermarkets are empty, and there is a very real possibility of an invasion led by the United States of America. The Bolivarian revolution, which is the political process initiated by the late president Hugo Chavez, has not borne its promised fruits.   What h...