It has been a big week for US co-operatives. Co-operators from across the US descended on the White House for a variety of events dedicated to the co-operative movement organised by the National Cooperative Business Association.

On the anniversary of the greatest natural disaster in Japan’s modern history, Dame Pauline Green, president of the International Co-operative Alliance, paid tribute to the stoicism and resilience of the Japanese people in the face of the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged the country’s north-east a year ago. “On the occasion of one year passing since Japan’s earthquake, in this, the International Year of Co-operatives, I ask co-operative businesses to remember those co-operators ...