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Sent today to the EU Ombudsman in Brussels:

On June 5th last year in Brussels an EU hosted meeting took place to discuss the risk of business in development and would introduce the concept of a people-centred model of business to those attending:

"While the vast majority of people in poverty suffer quietly and with little protest, it is not safe to assume that everyone will react the same way. When in defence of family and friends, it is completely predictable that it should be only a matter of time until uprisings become sufficient to imperil an entire nation or region of the world. People with nothing have nothing to lose. Poverty was therefore deemed not only a moral catastrophe but also a time bomb waiting to explode"

Now and again I've been asked whether our work was influenced by economist Hernado De Soto. It wasn't but we seem to be thinking along similar lines.

Wrting this month in WSJ De Soto describes The Capitalist Cure for Terrorism which reveals the truth behind the incident which sparked the Arab Spring in Tunisia. A man trying to do business and make a living aganst an overwhelming tide of corruption.

Being diagnosed with cancer is something that many will face alone whether or not that should be so. Being in remission and discovering that others don't consider your survival is something to celebrate. It offers a perspective of one's own value which few would want to contemplate.,

In my experience, however, there was a more extreme example, being hounded online when raising awaremess of a human rights issue. It was about children who were considered of lesser value, disposable. They were not held or hugged.

"Globally people are questioning the model of shareholder-driven capitalism and the short-termism it implies, from movements such as Occupy and academics such as John Kay, to corporate figures such as McKinsey’s Dominic Barton. "

Were he still with us, I suspect that my later colleague would disagree with this assertion in the Guardian. 

The Alternative Commission on Social Investment is an initiative set-up to investigate what’s wrong with the UK social investment market and to make practical suggestions for how the market can be made more accessible and relevant to a wider range of charities, social enterprises and citizens working to bring about positive social change.

In their introduction, they say: this about the current situation where social investment has so far been replication of expensive mainstream solutions:

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is an agreement between US government and the EU which is intended to remove barriers to transnational corporations through market deregulation. 

In our study guide for Economics in Transition which includes extracts from PBS Frontlline, you may read how market deregulation led to the economic crisis of 2008.   A story in which Harvard's Larry Summers has a prominent role.

In suggesting "Muslims all over the world are persecuted as a delberate act of Western policy."

This is what I''ve written and the Charter for Compassion has published. The words come from my late colleague in 2003, describing the urgent needs of Crimea's Tatars, a peaceful Muslim community who'd been persecuted by Stalin and were now just as disenfranchised is a post Soviet culture of greed.

The warning had first been made in 1996 to US President Bill Clinton and in 2003, the author reflected on this post 9/11

As one may read today in Civil Society

It was my late colleague back in February 2008, who asking the question - What is social enterprise, wrote