2006/07/14
Minimum wage hike in New Brunswick is still not enough professor says
On July 1, the minimum wage in New Brunswick increased 20 cents to $6.70 per hour, an adjustment UNB professor Thom Workman calls "political tokenism." "It isn't at all significant, 20 cents doesn't go far enough to turn the minimum wage into a living wage," said Dr. Workman, a political science professor who specializes in Atlantic Canadian wage policy. He thinks living standards for the lower echelons of New Brunswick society have stagnated or even decreased over the past 30 years.

2006/07/13
Canada: Minimum wage is still not enough
A full-time person working for the new minimum wage in New Brunswick earns roughly $13,400 per year before deductions, barely enough to support a single person, let alone a family. On July 1, the minimum wage in New Brunswick increased 20 cents to $6.70 per hour, an adjustment that UNB professor Thom Workman calls "political tokenism.”

2006/06/27
RP debt service totals P721.7 B, study shows
The Philippines is allocating P721.7 billion in debt service, with P340 billion going to the interest and P381 billion meant to pay for the principal amortization. This means an allocation of P1.98 billion per day which is equivalent to the building of 7,920 classrooms or 250 kilometers of roads per day.

2006/06/07
Declaration Lacks the Teeth to Take a Stronger Bite Out of HIV/AIDS
Coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the first diagnosed AIDS case in North America, the UN General Assembly assessed progress against the pandemic since the 2001 Special Session on HIV/AIDS in a three-day session May 31-June 1, and issued a political declaration. Negotiations were complex and long-drawn, concluding only on the eve of the final day with the arrival of ministers.

2006/02/28
India's war on poverty: Easy victory unlikely
NEW DELHI - The fanfare surrounding the start of the latest poverty reduction program in India was exultant. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India described the initiative as "historic," the president of the governing Congress party, Sonia Gandhi, said it was "revolutionary," and the minister responsible for it declared that this was the "perfect" system for reducing hunger.

2006/02/16
RP on ‘poverty red alert’
Poverty should be treated as an emergency that needs immediate action, an alliance of anti-poverty organization said yesterday, reminding the government of an alarming poverty incidence of about 3.97 million Filipino families.

2006/02/16
SW convenor participates in Switzerland tax debate
A co-convenor of the Social Watch from Oriental Negros presented the concerns of the Philippine civil society amid the global tax phenomenon at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, recently.

2006/02/16
Report exposes ugly underbelly of Gujarat
AHMEDABAD: In Gujarat, over 50 per cent of the children that start schooling drop out by the time they reach class 8! Corporate health sector may be booming but 96 per cent of the Community Health Centres (CHCs) in the state do not have an operation theatre and over 50 per cent of the CHCs do not even have a separate delivery room for pregnant women to deliver children in privacy.

2006/02/08
Social Watch Coordinator at the Commission on Social Development
Mr. Roberto Bissio, Social Watch Coordinator (Uruguay); Ms. Nancy Barry, President of Women's World Banking (New York); and Professor Sanjay Reddy of Barnard College, Columbia University, participated in a press conference on poverty eradication, marking the opening of the session of the Commission on Social Development (8-17 February).
8 February 2006, Room S-226

2006/01/19
Citizen's Report on Governance and Development 2006
The Citizen’s Report on Governance and Development 2006 was launched on January 19th, 2006 at the India International Centre, New Delhi.