Human Rights : Opinion

My case is just one of many where Chevron has responded with violence when Nigerian villagers have protested, demanding that Chevron clean up its environmental and economic damage.

Food riots are erupting all over the world. To prevent them and to help people afford the most basic of goods, we need to understand the causes of skyrocketing food prices and correct the policies that have fueled them.

By Jane Slaughter, cofounder of Labor Notes, a nonprofit that works on behalf of union activists

By Lucinda Marshall, a feminist artist, writer, activist, and founder of the Feminist Peace Network.

No actually we don't think targeting women with their legs spread wide on a bullseye, even if it happens to be your corporate symbol is a good marketing strategy. But to add insult to injury, when another blogger wrote to protest the ad, she got an insulting reply.

Many human-rights activists believe that it was their protests at the annual meeting of Berkshire Hathaway, a financial company controlled by Warren Buffett, that prompted the sale of its 11% shareholding in PetroChina. After all, why else would the investment genius have taken such a bad financial decision? Although he made a profit of $3.5 billion when he sold the shares in the Chinese oil company, which activists accuse of indirectly funding the genocide in Darfur, PetroChina's share price has since continued to soar.

It is customary to describe human economies as “mechanisms” but “plumbing” would be more apt. The economy, as economists define it, really is just the realm of money; so those who get to design the pipes and valves can determine in large measure where that money flows.