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by Naomi Klein Globe and Mail

My city feels like a crime scene and the criminals are all melting into the night, fleeing the scene. No, I’m not talking about the kids in black who smashed windows and burned cop cars on Saturday.

I’m talking about the heads of state who, on Sunday night, smashed social safety nets and burned good jobs in the middle of a recession. Faced with the effects of a crisis created by the world’s wealthiest and most privileged strata, they decided to stick the poorest and most vulnerable people in their countries with the bill. ► More

The G20’s emphasis on dealing with budget deficits through austerity measures rather than bringing in a financial transaction tax means the global financial sector will not have to contribute to a global recovery effort.

By urging cutbacks to government services, the G20’s actions could further harm the poor in their own countries and the poorest and most vulnerable people in the developing world, who have already suffered most from a financial and economic crisis that they did nothing to cause. ► More

The G8 leaders meeting in Toronto managed to live down to my worst expectations.

I arrived at the G8 by a roundabout route. Just a day earlier, I was standing in Dandora, a toxic tip on the edge of Nairobi where little girls as young as five live on a mound composed of toxic and human waste. They survive by competing with wild pigs for scraps of rubbish, forced to sell their bodies to get access to the richest pickings. ► More

The national coordinator for the group 'Make Poverty History' says he is disappointed in Canada's pledge for maternal health and says the country has fallen short of the funding needed to reduce maternal mortality. He says Harper failed at getting other political leaders to deliver on maternal health. ► More