There’s a global housing crisis and politicians must do more to tackle it

Access to safe and affordable housing is vital in both the north and south. But how much will it cost and do politicians care enough about the urban poor? The official figure for the number of people who live in slums is 863 million people, but that number is more likely to be 1.3 billion…

The slum dwellers’ Nobel Peace Prize nominee

He missed out to Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, but Jockin Arputham’s nomination is a landmark for the grassroots. In nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize, grassroots activists usually compete with politicians. Few of the latter, however, have spent their adult lives searching for peaceful solutions to conflict. Among nominees for this year’s prize, one…

Brazil ♥ India

Britain may have invented the soap opera but nowhere has the format been promoted more vigorously than in Latin America. For decades, telenovelas have been produced in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and elsewhere, and viewed by hundreds of millions daily from Mexico City to Buenos Aires. Their reach extends to the US and (on a more…