Photo Gallery Can Our World Be Fixed?
Consumption in the U.S. and Europe depends on cheap labor in the places where products are produced. In Burma, for example, seamstresses work 14 hours a day an more, yet are paid no more than $4 per day. This image shows a protest of garment factory workers in Burma on June 24, 2017.
Protesters are gathering in Hamburg this week from across Germany and around the world to demonstrate against the G-20 leaders who are arriving in the city for their annual summit. "The global system is in trouble everywhere," says Werner Rätz, who is organizing Hamburg protests.
Every 10 seconds, a child dies of starvation somewhere in the world, despite there being enough food on the planet to feed between 10 and 12 billion people. This image shows a malnourished child in Somaliland, where a famine is currently taking hold.
Werner Rätz is the founder of the German chapter of the network Attac, an organization critical of globalization. He has been instrumental in organizing many of the protests scheduled for this week in Hamburg. He views the current problems facing the world as "an opportunity for the alternative movement."
Winnie Byanyima is the executive director of Oxfam. She recently appeared on stage at the Civil20 Summit (C-20) with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In the panel discussion, Byanyima highlighted the problems faced by garment factory workers in Burma and said that much of the responsibility is born by the West.
Christian Felber is the co-founder of Attac in Austria. His fundamental idea is attractive: He's pleading for a new economic order that he calls the economy for the common good, the goal of which being that all can have a good life rather than just increasing profits.
Anti-globalization activists have identified high finance as one of the main culprits for the inequalities facing our world today. There have been, however, some modest signs of improvement. The so-called "divestment movement" is gaining steam as investment funds and pension funds have begun divesting themselves of holdings in companies that earn their money from fossil fuels.
Hamburg has been preparing for months for the G-20, hoping to showcase itself as a global city -- particularly since the completion of its glitzy new concert hall, seen here. But the city is also bracing itself for large protests and has called in police from around the country to help out.
The city of Hamburg has already begun cracking down on protesters, clearing a camp on Sunday night after a court ruled that protesters were not allowed to spend the night there.
