Hostage takings, vandalism and attempted assault sound like charges on a rap sheet for a hardened criminal. But they're the collective crimes of people who've been laid off recently.

Workers in the French factories for 3M and Sony — enraged about the size of severance packages for laid-off workers — held their bosses captive last month. The captured CEOs actually ended up bargaining with the kidnappers, while the police — not wanting to incense the workers even more — promptly responded by doing ...nothing.

Just last week, workers at a Caterpillar plant in France held their bosses captive as well. They, too, were looking for better treatment for laid-off coworkers. In another incident, workers at the French luxury retail company PPR surrounded their CEO's car and blocked roads so he couldn't escape. This time police did intervene and escorted François-Henri Pinault to safety.

Across the Channel in the United Kingdom, people are outraged with the multimillion dollar pension package given to former Royal Bank of Scotland CEO Fred Goodwin. One group was so upset that it vandalized Sir Goodwin's house and car.

An ominous e-mail from the vandals threatened more attacks:

We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money, and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. This is a crime. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning.

Joining in the spirit of protest, as many as 5,000 protesters gathering in London's financial district on the first day of the G-20 summit, expressing discontent over the financial crisis, climate change and war. Several demonstrators threw projectiles and forced their way into an RBS branch through broken windows.

Bert Klandermans, a professor of applied social psychology at Amsterdam's Free University, offers a psychological explanation for why some people are expressing their frustration in this way.

Anger is an emotion that spurs collective action ... [It's] an emotion that results from feeling that somebody is responsible for something, and could have acted differently ... [For many] the bankers did it wrong, and they did it wrong because they were greedy. That's what makes people angry.

Frustrated by executive compensation and the economy, protesters broke windows of an RBS branch in London. Photo: Camus Live Art (flickr)

A rice farmer in Indonesia. Photo: David Snyder for Mercy Corps

While we all hoped that the worst of the food crisis was over, it looks like food prices are again on the rise — imperiling the health of maybe a billion people.

The credit freeze has left many of the world's farmers unable to secure loans for seeds, fertilizer and equipment. Some farmers are simply not planting crops or resorting to private creditors charging usurious rates of interest.

Even though food prices have declined since their peak in 2008, world grain prices are still 27 percent higher than in 2005, according to the director general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, and are likely to climb.

“It's possible the tally of undernourished people in the world will surpass one billion, from 963 million in 2007, as the full brunt of higher food prices filters through,” the director general, Jacques Diouf, told reporters at a biennial UN food-policy conference in Bangkok.

While some countries are setting aside funds for agricultural investment, many food-policy specialists worry that the money isn't enough to make up for the loss of private-sector credit.

This is why the UN World Food Program is calling on G-20 leaders to commit funding to fight hunger at their meeting in London this week.

These fruit sellers are just one example of the numerous jobs in the informal sector, or "off the books." Photo: S.Raj (flickr)

In developing economies, the "informal sector" is full of babysitters, maids, gypsy cab drivers and gardeners. These workers do everything from selling food to stitching pants to making bracelets to selling wine from roadside stands. They're paid in cash so their income is not reported to the government, and no taxes are paid.

The Wall Street Journal explains that contrary to conventional wisdom, the informal economy could be what's saving developing countries from financial ruin.

Traditionally, the informal sector "is not something to be cheerful about," as Nancy Birdsall of the Center for Global Development puts it. The Journal explains:

Economists have stressed the negative aspects of informal trade for decades. Informal businesses often don't pay taxes, and they routinely lack the capital and expertise to be as productive as big enterprises, leading to less innovation and lower standards of living. Since informal workers lack health benefits and other safeguards, they have to save more for emergencies, resulting in less casual spending that further drags down growth.

In the current financial crisis, the Journal notes, the informal sector may actually be the saving grace of developing economies. With demand for export goods falling, many workers are being laid off from their formal sector jobs in factories and are turning to creative alternatives for income. Without these informal opportunities to make and sell products — at the market, on the roadside, or as street vendors — many would be destitute.

The WSJ article, "The Rise of the Underground," highlights several of these informal workers, including a laid-off factory worker who built her own roadside stand to sell homemade medicinal wine to truckers. She now makes $3 more per day than she did at the factory.

A man cooks over a wood-burning fire in Kibera. Over 1 million working poor live in Kibera, with few opportunities to make a comfortable living. Photo: Crissy Olson (flickr)

Even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was surprised by the large number of people who greeted him in Kibera, the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. But his surprise quickly became concern when he was told so many young people came to see him because they couldn't find work.

Inspired to act, Ban donated $100,000 of his own money to a UN-sponsored program that helps unemployed youth acquire vocational skills like carpentry, masonry, electrical wiring, plumbing and management. It's called the Youth Empowerment Program (YEP).

Students learn their trade through hands-on activities as they build a training facility that will allow YEP to expand its participant ranks. After graduation, many of the youth are placed in jobs or apprenticeships with private companies or UN-sponsored construction projects in Kibera.

The training program is part of a greater state- and UN-sponsored initiative to upgrade services and infrastructure in Nairobi's slums. Youth skills training also complements another UN-funded effort, the Urban Entrepreneurship Program, that helps to establish construction collectives and aid them in bidding on contracts.

Linus Sijenji, a youth coordinator in Kibera, notes that the combined efforts of the two programs are inspiring the youth and have opened up opportunities for them.

Our aim is to form our own companies that could competitively bid for such contracts on equal level with big companies. Much as this might seem far fetched, the idea is viable, especially with more training opportunities and resources like bank loans.

If these programs work as advertised, Ban will get an even bigger reception next time he comes to Kibera.

Photo: CARF Brazil (flickr)

War. Famine. Persecution. These are some of the ways thousands of families flee their countries each year and get separated in the process. So how do they reconnect?

Until now, their best bet was to seek help from the the Red Cross. Refugees submit an application to their local Red Cross office, which is disseminated to field workers from the charity's Geneva headquarters. Field workers attempt to find the missing family members using the information provided. A lot of people have been reunited this way, but the process can be lengthy.

Danish brothers Christopher and David Mikkelsen thought there had to be a better way, one that cut out the middleman. Inspired by social-networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, they came up with the idea for Refugees United. To get started, users just register and start searching in one of more than 20 languages.

One of the biggest hurdles Refugees United must overcome is the limited Internet access in rural areas and refugee camps. The Mikkelsens hope to solicit donations of computers for refugee camps and build a website that can be viewed on basic mobile phone platforms.

Hundreds of refugees have signed up so far, a number that would be hardly noticeable to social networking giants. But to the Mikkelsens, the number is encouraging. "If we can just unite that number of people," Christopher says, "we would be a great success."

This Sri Lankan woman was able to start a broom-making business with help from microfinance. Will the economic crisis limit these opportunities? Photo: Michael Foley: flickr

Microfinance institutions (MFIs) are going to be badly hurt by the global financial crisis. Or will they? Reports and opinions differ widely.

Some argue that the financial crisis has hampered small-scale lending.

One reason is that the value of local currencies are fluctuating too much, relative to more stable currencies like the U.S. dollar or Euro. Because of this, many MFIs are having to either seek new loans or convert existing loans into these "hard currencies." Over the course of these loans, many local currencies continue to devalue — leaving MFIs on the hook to make up the difference.

On top of this, interest rates on loans that MFIs need to fund their operations have increased. Survey findings reveal that 41 percent of MFIs are now taking loans at higher interest rates than before the economic crisis. Financial columnist Sarah Bauerle cites this as one of the crisis' "deleterious effects" on the microfinance industry.

Then there's the issue of available funds.

Roy Jacobowitz, managing director at the microfinance nonprofit ACCION International, says "a liquidity crisis is the very worst-case scenario for microfinance institutions."

Others say the credit crunch could actually be a good thing for MFIs, while some add that the funding spigot is still on.

"There is evidence that microfinance is resilient to global market movements, compared to traditional lending, as it falls outside of the mainstream economy. And there does still seem to be equity available for microfinance," says Mary Ellen Iskenderian, CEO of Women's World Banking.

Iskenderian cites India as an example, though it's worth noting that India is weathering the economic crisis incredibly well.

Investors are still banking on microfinance. The privately owned Oikocredit increased microfinance investment by 32 percent in 2008.

Muhammad Yunus, who pioneered microfinance in Bangladesh and won a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, remains optimistic. He said in October that he sees "good news in the middle of all these bad news: microfinance still works."

The Nano. Photo: Rajesh Babu (flickr)

If you have $1,979 dollars and live in India, Tata Motors has a car for you.

After a lot of hype, Tata Motors finally released their revolutionary Nano, a tiny, light-bodied vehicle designed and produced in India.

Tata is expecting millions of orders, so they're planning to raffle off the first 100,000 vehicles.

Many are concerned about the safety and environmental implications of a surge in car ownership in India, and whether the country's road system can handle increased traffic.

Speaking about the impact on air pollution, Vivek Chattopadhyaya of the Centre for Science and Environment in Delhi says,“Even if they claim it will be fuel efficient, the sheer numbers will undermine this." (Tata retorts that the typical Indian scooter has higher emissions.)

But of course there are throngs of Indians, such as chauffeur Gopal Pandurag, looking forward to the arrival of a car they can afford.

"My wife is getting old, and she can't do the things she used to when she was younger like sit on a bike or a crowded bus. I just want to be able to take her out for a drive in a car. My own car."

Dr. Muhammad Yunus. Photo: U2005.com (flickr)

Can a lotus bloom out of this recent economic mud? Dr. Muhammad Yunus seems to think so. In a recent interview with CriEnglish, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner says that the world should see the economic crisis as an incredible opportunity.

We shouldn't just look at it [the economic crisis] as a crisis only. It is the greatest of our opportunity to rebuild the economy, rebuild our concept, rebuild our way of doing things so that we move to the right direction with the right structure, because this [current] structure will create problems of the type that it already created...We just kind of put it — patched it — together to move again. Patchwork shouldn't be done this time. This is the real world we're overhauling. Take it apart. Take piece by piece and rebuild, redesign so that we can go on. I think that is the most important part.

Istanbul, Turkey. Photo: shioshvilli

Officials attending the World Water Forum in Turkey this week issued a statement that essentially said there's not enough water to waste.

That much was clear to one Canadian reporter attending the conference, who found that her press pass wasn’t enough to get her access to bathrooms with running water — reserved only for VIPs.

But it was less clear to two protesters from a California group, who were hosed by local police with water cannons — presumably the most “cost effective” way to respond.

But the water in those cannons is especially precious to Turkish residents, who are running out of water, according to Al Jazeera.

Turkey has experienced periods of extreme drought in recent years, and multinational companies have a stronghold on increasingly scarce water resources. Most locals drink bottled water, but that’s not a luxury everyone in Turkey can afford.

During the conference, Turkish engineers demonstrated against large firms that they say benefit cities by exploiting rural resources. Their view is that water talks need to focus on conservation, not privatization.

"We believe our drinking water should be managed so we don't need to buy it in bottles and it's freely available," lawmaker Ufuk Aras told Al Jazeera. "We were not born on this earth to help companies add to their profits."

Cynthia Changyit Levin's comment about how the Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire has sparked conversation and shined a light on poverty in India caught our eye. That's why Cynthia is this week's winner of the comment of the week contest. Her comment:

No matter what people may think about how poverty was portrayed in Slumdog Millionaire, it has definitely sparked a discussion. I have seen poverty-focused editorials, op-eds, and news articles inspired by this film printed in local papers, Newsweek and even the current Entertainment Weekly. But my favorite place to hear it discussed was at a party attended by upper middle class suburban moms. When I heard a woman say "I had no idea that level of poverty existed in India or anywhere!" I was satisfied to think that the film had broken through to her so that she would open the dialogue about global poverty in as unlikely a place as a birthday celebration.

It's great to hear that the film is making an impact among people that weren't previously aware of issues of extreme poverty. Thanks for the great comment!

A call center in India. New U.S. policies against outsourcing jobs overseas will hurt India's IT sector the most. Photo: David Robinson (flickr)

In spite of the global recession's painful effects on most of the world's economies, India has managed to stay stable. The country even expects its economy to grow by 5 percent this year. However, this prediction came before President Obama announced that his administration would be cutting tax breaks and refusing bailout money for companies outsourcing jobs overseas.

Rising unemployment in the U.S. has renewed the political and economic debate over shipping jobs abroad. More than 1,000 U.S. firms that have outsourced jobs abroad are being criticized for taking jobs away from Americans. Countries like India — which gets more than 60 percent of its outsourcing work from U.S. businesses — will likely be hit the hardest by the Obama administration’s protectionist approach to reviving the U.S. economy.

President Obama also announced a hiring ban on foreign workers for companies receiving federal bailout money. Of the 65,000 H1-B work visas that the U.S. issues annually, 21,667 have been for Indian citizens who mostly join the information technology industry. These non-immigrant visas are granted to educated and skilled foreign workers.

But the U.S. is not alone in adopting policies against outsourcing jobs and limiting foreign workers. In Persian Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates, millions of Indians who are employed in the construction and banking industries have been laid off and forced to return home. In the United Kingdom — where Indians are one of the most prevalent immigrant groups — the government has announced plans to potentially limit foreign workers to sectors of the economy that have documented labor shortages.

New policies against hiring foreign workers in the U.S. may have a long-term impact that policymakers are not anticipating, according to a study by Duke and Harvard researchers. With increased job opportunities in places like India and China, more than 100,000 foreign workers could leave the U.S. for jobs in their home countries. The study found that many Indian professionals in Silicon Valley have already left, and predicts many more will leave to start businesses in India.

This is bad news for the long-term economic recovery of the U.S. because nearly half of Silicon Valley start-ups, including Google, were started by immigrants, the lead Harvard researcher tells BusinessWeek. This long-term “brain drain” will mean that “when we start recovering ... the people we need are going to be in India and China,” according to the researcher, Vivek Wadhwa.

The U.S. has historically welcomed immigrants and their innovative ideas. A reversal of policy could prove to be very harmful — hurting economic growth and limiting the expansion of key industries.

Photo: BBC World Service (flickr)

Recently, decades of climate change warnings seem to have gained traction in political circles. Long-overdue conversation about the environment is finally underway; but is political will enough to enact environmental legislation in the face of a full-fledged economic crisis?

California is seen as one of the U.S.’s environmental leaders, having been one of the first states to pass a cap-and-trade model requiring businesses to cut carbon dioxide emissions to a certain level or pay fees if they generate more than the limit. But resistance to these efforts has increased as the economy declines, with some of California’s businesses and manufacturers saying that they are unable to afford the costs of the new legislation. According to state budget analysts, the up-front costs of this legislation are more than $30 billion, which outpace any initial savings generated from the law. These same state officials claim that, by 2020, a yearly savings of $40 billion will more than make up for this initial cost. Other analysts have openly derided these figures, however, calling them “unrealistic,” and maintaining that costs will be far higher than the forecasted estimates.

The U.S. isn’t the only country that is wrestling with this problem. Low-income countries are also wondering if their environmental efforts will be cut short due to global economic woes. In Bangladesh, a country vulnerable to global warming-induced natural disasters, the government is developing an ambitious plan to protect the country from rising sea levels, cyclones, and droughts. Estimated costs for this plan are $5 billion for the first five years, with a good chunk of the funding coming from international donors. Now, faced with economic uncertainty in their own countries, it’s not clear that donors will come through with funds to support these efforts.

Stopping or undoing environmental damage is an expensive prospect, with large upfront costs and no definitive reassurance that initial investments will pay off quickly. With daily reminders of the global economic slowdown, nearly every country is exercising more caution in choosing their investments. As a result, it’s uncertain whether local, national and international communities will be able to keep in mind that the long-term benefits of prompt environmental action surely outweigh the short-term costs. With scientists issuing dire warnings about global warming-related “floods, drought, disease and extreme weather,” ignoring these predictions is too risky a gamble to make.

"Recesson commuter special." Photo: Ed Yourdon (flickr)

Despite the gloom-and-doom media coverage of the recession, certain industries are still doing well or even thriving. For example, discount retail stores like the Dollar Tree and Family Dollar have significantly benefited from the economic downturn, doing strong business with bargain-hunting shoppers feeling the pressure from these cash-strapped times. Dollar Tree has recently seen a 60-percent gain in its shares — an impressive 6.8 percent gain from last year’s — with its fourth quarter earnings reaching $1.39 billion.

Other lower-priced retailers are finding similar success: Wal-Mart is doing extraordinarily well, particularly with rising sales of frozen food and food storage items. In comparison, higher-end stores like Macy's, Abercrombie & Fitch and JC Penney continue to suffer big drops in retail spending by consumers. Wal-Mart's success is a good example of how people's lifestyle changes are influencing their purchases, as more people choose to stay at home rather than go out to eat at restaurants — with the notable exception of McDonald's — and limit their shopping to what they need rather than what they want.

Small-scale businesses and entrepreneurs are also doing well. The New York Times reports that certain niche manufacturers are still doing good business, as the demand for specialized products, such as body armor for soldiers in Iraq or high-end audio speakers, is still strong.

The New York Times also reports that some small-business entrepreneurs are going strong, particularly in the health care industry. MEDILINQ, a company that negotiates discounted medical care for its low-income clients, reports great business this year. As one staffer remarked: “We’re looking at having a big year this year. Economic hard times are good opportunities for us.”

Other seemingly recession-proof industries include video games and condoms, all inexpensive ways to stay entertained at home. And, despite a move away from pricier restaurants and high-dollar date nights, dive bars and movie theaters are still going strong.

As the recession continues and new unemployment claims continue to rise, it should be interesting to see which industries continue to thrive with a growing population of increasingly-selective consumers.

The U.S. Navy comes to the assistance of a Taiwanese-flagged fishing trawler been seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia. Photo: Open Democracy (flickr)

After 18 years of civil war, some good news is finally coming from Somalia. The recent election of Sharif Ahmed, a moderate Islamist, as Somalia’s new president brings the country a chance for peace and stability. But the country faces enormous problems and President Ahmed has a mammoth task on his hands — both domestically and internationally.

Perhaps the biggest challenges lay within Somalia’s own borders. Considered as a failed state since the early 1990s, Somalia has seen its worst spate of violence in decades over the past two years: Ethiopian troops invaded the country, at least 10,000 Somalis have been killed and more than one million displaced.

Much of this bloodshed and displacement comes from the poor security conditions and widespread lawlessness spawned by fighting between rival warlords, clans and other armed groups. This lack of national security poses a huge problem for Ahmed’s nascent presidency: Somalia’s two main insurgent groups, Hezbul Islam and Al-Shabaab, control “much of the south of the country” and refuse to recognize the election. Getting Somalia’s clans behind a centralized government is a task that previous Somali leaders have failed to meet.

In a country that has no almost running water or electricity, Ahmed also has numerous humanitarian challenges. The Red Cross considers Somalia's food crisis to be one of the worst in the world. And the country's infrastructure, already-limited agricultural systems and market linkages, has been severely damaged during the continuous internal conflict of past decades. As a result, more than a third of the population depends on food aid. Health care has also been decimated: Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital city of 3.6 million people has only two or three hospitals that barely operate at all.

Providing this critical food and health care will be very difficult, however, until some form of security is established. The government must find a way to ensure that youth have the education and economic opportunities they need so that they have less incentive to take a $15-a-day paycheck to join one of armed groups. But the already-precarious education gap is widening: at least 81 percent of Somalia's population is now illiterate — the highest such rate in Africa — and only 17 percent of Somali children go to school.

A moderate new government headed by an energetic and idealistic president has succeeded in giving Somalis hope — but delivering results is crucial to showing the country’s embattled population that their government is actually making a difference.

Schools are feeling the pressure to help the growing number of homeless students. Photo: oldohioschools (flickr)

As families across the U.S. face job losses and foreclosures, there's new pressure on schools to serve a rapidly-growing homeless student population.

Many of these recently-homeless students come from large families where both parents have lost their jobs — situations where unemployment income or minimum-wage options don't come close to providing enough cash to feed their children. Foreclosures and evictions have forced families to split up among relatives and friends.

For some families, this is the first time they've needed to rely on government assistance to get by. A bulk of this burden is falling on schools to provide relief to homeless students, including meals, transportation and immunizations. But tight budgets and scarce federal funding have school districts scrambling to meet the growing demand for support services.

In many cases, the stigma of homelessness keeps parents and kids from acknowledging their status, preventing access to the help that is available. Homeless youth often fall behind grade level and are 50 percent less likely to graduate from high school than their peers, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness. Ellen Bassuk, the Center's president, shared her concerns with MSNBC:

Homeless children are confronted daily by extremely stressful and traumatic experiences that have profound effects on their cognitive development and ability to learn. They tend to have high rates of developmental delays, learning difficulties and emotional problems as a product of precarious living situations and extreme poverty.

Unfortunately, the rise in homelessness is a national trend. California has seen some of the highest numbers: In the Vista school district north of San Diego, homeless students make up nine percent of the population — 10 times what it was in 2007. In Chicago’s suburbs, the homeless student population has jumped 67 percent over the last two years. A Dallas school district saw its homeless student numbers soar 185 percent this year.

Educators and homeless advocates are holding out hope for the new federal stimulus package, which has budgeted $70 million in grants for state services for homeless youth.

As homeless students scrape by, some may continue to dream of one day finishing high school and going on to college but for now, their more immediate goal is clear: to have a house and a room of their own.