Latin America: are we forever at the mercy of high oil prices?
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A few weeks ago a rare storm event known as "Derecho" ravaged the Washington, DC area, claiming many lives and leaving 1.3 million homes and business without electricity. My house was unfortunately among those hit hard by the power outage and in an attempt to cope with the 90F+ temperatures unleashed by the storm, we moved down to the basement -- generally, the coolest part of the house.
For the first few days the novelty was fun for the kids, but as the days wore on, frustration grew, in part because we had no idea when the power would come back on.
In 2001, trade representatives from around the world first arrived in Doha, the capital of tiny Qatar, for the latest round of World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations. The goal was ambitious: work to reduce trade barriers, while ensuring that developing countries secure their fair share of global trade growth.
As European leaders convened in Brussels to find solutions—yet again!—to the debt crisis in the 
Drug trafficking is nothing new. But with the current levels of violence we are seeing, its effects on society and economic activity are staggering. From the suffering of victims, to increasing levels of corruption and the weakening of institutions, drug trafficking is not only a criminal problem—it is an urgent development issue which needs to be tackled.
India has been a beacon to the world on how a thriving and vibrant democracy can transform itself into an economic powerhouse. The metamorphosis that took place in the Indian economy after the reforms of the early 1990s is nothing short of spectacular. The Indian economy was transformed into a dynamo of innovation and diversification. This fundamental transformation unlocked two decades of explosive growth in which poverty rates fell by nearly 20 percent, exports as a share of GDP increased nearly five-fold, and standards of living increased by a factor of almost four. This trajectory received but a glancing blow from the 2008 global financial crisis—this resilience was a testimonial to the benefits of the economic reforms of the previous 15 years.
After the elections that took place in Greece over the weekend, many European leaders breathed a sigh of relief…for a couple of hours. With the narrow defeat of the anti-austerity, anti-bailout opposition party, the results lessened the possibility that Greece would backtrack on commitments recently assumed as part of its second aid package, and decreased the chances of a chaotic exit from the Euro zone.
With the recent opening of a rural savings and credit cooperative, the people in Gebremichael’s Ethiopian village no longer have to save their money in pots or under the mattress at home. He and his neighbors are learning to use formal savings and credit systems.
Whenever we think of textile workers nowadays, we tend to think about cheap labor—particularly women sewing in overcrowded factories. In fact, the textile industry nurtures the narrative of how maquiladoras in the south have robbed manufacturing jobs from countries like the U.S., or how China has inundated the global market with cheap goods.