Our case study in Europe is the town of Luton, near London: population approx 185,000. Job losses here are connected to the faltering car industry. A downturn in international travel could also affect business at Luton Airport, a key UK international gateway. The equivalent of the whole of one of the city’s districts is now unemployed and claiming benefit. Figures show that unemployment has increased by 37 per cent in the last year.
Many governments around the world have turned to infrastructure as a means of coping with the global economic crisis.
A part of the US stimulus plan calls for massive amounts of money to be spent on roads, railways and broadband Internet access.
In Japan, infrastructure spending is also being used to assist in current crisis.
Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng reports on one such project.
The number of unemployed Americans continues to rise and some are now struggling to put food on the table, becoming increasingly dependent on food stamps to help them get by.
Food stamps are a state-subsidised programme that helps people with a low income buy food at lower prices. But for many US citizens it may not be enough to help them weather the economic crisis, as Al Jazeera’s Lucy Keating discovers in the US town of Knoxville in Tennessee.
Parts of northern and central China have been hit by one of the worst droughts in 50 years, and the government has moved quickly to irrigate fields and revive crops.
Al Jazeera’s Melissa Chan reports from one of the hardest-hit areas in Henan province.