News stories by Roberto Savio, page 10

SAN SALVADOR, Sep 04 (IPS) - Few people today know that when the first news agencies were created in the 19th century, the French Havas and the British Reuters divided the world between themselves.

ROME, Jul 08 (IPS) - At the last summit of European heads of state held in Brussels at the end of June, the main theme was youth unemployment, which has now reached 23 percent of European youth (although it stands at 41 percent in Spain).

ROME, May 06 (IPS) - The European Union (EU) has asked its citizens to brace for further economic misery. In a report on European economic prospects released on May 3, the European Commission said that further deterioration is expected to last at least until 2015. But, as every such report says, things will then get better.

ROME, Apr 24 (IPS) - For a long time it was a given that while Europe was based on defending a more just society, with social values and solidarity, the United States was based on the glory of individualism and competition, and anything public was considered "socialist".

ROME, Apr 12 (IPS) - The flood of elegiac articles on former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is in itself a good measure of how we have all become Thatcherites without realising it. Only those who are not graced by a young age can see how the world and politics have changed so deeply since her days that it is correct to call her a "great revolutionary".

ROME, Mar 19 (IPS) - What is Hugo Chávez's legacy to Latin America? The best way to evaluate a head of state is to examine what is left behind after his or her death. In the case of Chávez, his image is obscured by a series of ideological and cultural prejudices that hide a clear perception of who he was.

ROME, Mar 11 (IPS) - For those who think that Occupy Wall Street, the Indignados in Spain, the World Social Forum and the numerous manifestations of protest worldwide are expressions without concrete outcomes, the result of the Swiss referendum on Mar. 3 on capping the salaries and bonuses of banks executives should make them think twice.

SAN SALVADOR, BAHAMAS, Dic 18 (IPS) - The victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the recent Japanese elections, with Shinzo Abe coming back as prime minister after five years, will probably mean an escalation of tensions with China. Both countries are embarking on a fresh burst of nationalism, but for different reasons.

A recurrent prediction of western politicians says that China, with its economic development, will inevitably transform itself into a democracy. Nonetheless, after five weeks traveling around the country, I have no doubt that if there were elections today, the Communist Party (CCP) would win elections with a wide majority, writes Roberto Savio, founder and President Emeritus of the news agency Inter Press Service (IPS).

The Maoist revolutionary generation that I met in the World Conference of Students in 1957 was of an impressive austerity. The generation after that was the protagonist of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. During the revolution, it was the students that were the most fanatical destroyers of the old monuments and everything related with the culture of the past. Only with political reform after Mao’s death in 1976 was the celebration of the market and wealth consecrated, writes Roberto Savio, founder and President Emeritus of the news agency Inter Press Service (IPS).