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Month: December 2016

It’s Not Just About Building and Providing Houses: Building Resilient and Secure Communities in Resettlement Areas

It’s Not Just About Building and Providing Houses: Building Resilient and Secure Communities in Resettlement Areas

Published by Editor on December 21, 2016

Written by Maria Ela L. Atienza.

Over three years ago super typhoon Haiyan (local name Yolanda) devastated Visayan provinces in the Philippines. The provision of permanent housing and resettlement for victims who lost their homes in the so-called “no build zones” or risky coastal areas remains a problem. In early November this year, Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros sought a legislative inquiry into governmental action regarding health and sanitation issues in resettlement areas. On the third anniversary of Yolanda last November 8, 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte promised Tacloban that the backlog will be met and gave a deadline to the National Housing Authority (NHA) to finish all housing projects this December. Early this December, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said that the administration has successfully relocated 827 of 911 Yolanda families to their new homes.   

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“Mosaic” versus “Melting Pot”: Passing the Mantle of “A Nation of Immigrants”

“Mosaic” versus “Melting Pot”: Passing the Mantle of “A Nation of Immigrants”

Published by Editor on December 20, 2016

Written by Francesca Speed.

On November 8th, the United States elected Donald Trump as its forty-fifth president. Just six days earlier, the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series, ending a record-setting 108-year drought. The last time the Cubs won the World Series, Israel Zangwill’s The Melting Pot had just made its theatre debut, and with the election of Trump, one must ask whether the era of using “the melting pot” as a metaphor for the multiculturalism of American society has come to an unceremonious end.

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Anthony Crosland: the future of social democracy?

Anthony Crosland: the future of social democracy?

Published by Editor on December 15, 2016

Written by Steven Fielding. 

Jeremy Corbyn has made Labour’s social democrats strangers in their own party. Instead of pulling the levers of power, Tony Blair’s children have been reduced to watching one of their own dancing on TV. Those who voted for Corbyn, not once but twice, clearly believed they might as well have a leader with socialist principles because to them Labour’s defeats in 2010 and 2015 suggested that centrist pragmatism was a busted flush. It’s not as if there were any social democrats in Westminster able to convince the majority of Labour members that they were wrong.

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Italy says “No” to Renzi and she says it loudly

Italy says “No” to Renzi and she says it loudly

Published by Editor on December 6, 2016

Written by Annalisa Cappellini

The Italian Constitution seems to be the biggest winner of the referendum on constitutional reforms that took place yesterday in Italy: in an era of political disengagement and low electoral participation 70% of Italian voters went to the polling station to have their say on its proposed modifications; over 19 million people (60%) said “no” to such changes. They said “no” to a reform the seemed to be both too rushed and badly written.

Matteo Renzi, on the contrary, appears to be biggest loser of this referendum, that he himself decided to turn into a vote on his government. He took a gamble, like Cameron did with the Brexit vote; Renzi took this gamble when all the political circumstances were in his favour but then the wind changed and he got wiped out, like many others political leaders.

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