Economic Justice : Globalization & corporate dominance |
The rise of a global economy geared to capitalist exploitation of the earth’s natural and human resources; the infrastructure of this system, WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA etc., effects on environmental degradation and workers’ rights and benefits as a consequence of world “free trade”
12/19/08 NAFTA's future in the Obama administration is left uncertain with two of Obama's latest staffing picks, for Secretary of Labor and Trade Representative. Congresswoman Hilda Solis, strong "skeptic" of NAFTA, is chosen for Labor while Ron Kirk, former Mayor of Dallas and strong supporter of free trade agreements, is chosen for TR: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/us/politics/19obama.html?_r=1
INTERNATIONAL
Websites: Economic Policy Institute, Trade and Globalization: http://www.epinet.org/subjectpages/trade.cfm?CFID=1624952&CFTOKEN=17228196 Global Exchange (action and information focussed on human rights issues): http://www.globalexchange.org/ Global Policy Forum (links many other websites) http://www.globalpolicy.org/visitctr/about.htm Global Research: Centre for Research on Globalization (division by world regions): http://www.globalresearch.ca/ Yale Global Online (links many other websites) http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/about/websites.jsp
Analysis & views: 11/30/08 "Senseless Seattle": Why did so few people pay attention to the events of 1999? Seattle Intelligencer columnist Janet Thomas ponders this question. She notes the impressive assemblage of social reformers from around the globe protesting corporate globalism during the meeting of the World Trade Organization. NY Times "globalization" guru Thomas Friedmann set the tone for media coverage of the event with a column called "Senseless Seattle," coverage that paid little attention to the issues raised by the reformers and much more to acts of "violence" like the burning of a garbage can. Had more attention been paid to these issues, the crisis of globalism capitalism that greets the world in 2009 might well have been averted. (Interesting comments on Common Dreams reprint of article). http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/29-0 11/30/08 As world conferences on third world development convene this weekend in Qatar and Poland, the world confronts the reality that the $4.1 trillion that is spent around the globe on financial bailouts is 400 times the expenditures for fighting climate change and poverty in underdeveloped countries. http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5694 11/19/08 The real pirates of Somalia are the operators of some 700 vessels associated with international commercial fishing operations who plunder the waters off the Somali coast, depriving indigenous fishing people of their living. The U.S. military is too busy bombing Somali to rid the country of its "terrorists" and propping up the Ethiopian occupation to provide any deterrence to this international piracy. http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=894&Itemid=1 11/14/08 Will Group of 20 economic summit become a babel of discordant voices?: This is the fear of some observers, as representatives of 20 of the world's "leading economies" meet in D.C. to consider the world monetary crisis. With much of the rest of the world wanting more regulation of securities trading markets and Bush opposing it; with third world countries demanding less dominance of the world market by the "leading" economies, the conference may be headed toward a failure that will negatively affect world stock markets. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/55859.html 11/13/08 Is "corporate social responsibility" being exercised by a French firm that manufactures goods in an illegal Jewish West Bank settlement?: The firm says no, because it "respects the environment" in its household cleaning products manufacture. Palestinian activists and watchdogs of the "UN Global Compact" for corporate responsibility say it violates the Compact's prohibition against operation in places where it is illegal to operate. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44678 11/8/08 The world food crisis ad South Africa: Who suffers, who benefits? Inter Press Service interviews a South African development specialist and elicits the opinion that escalating world food prices and "liberalized" trade policies benefit the South African farmers who profit from these prices, but do little if anything to alleviate the poverty of the country's urban dwellers who must as well pay these prices. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44623 10/10/08 "There is no domestic solution to a crisis like this one." So intones the head of the International Monetary Fund, reacting (finally) to the international monetary crisis that has sent stock markets in the U.S., Europe and Asia into a week-long free fall. The "no domestic solution" refers to actions of several European countries to protect their own financial systems in isolation from those of other countries. The IMF head envisions a rescue effort of his agency similar to the one credited with stemming the tide of the Asian bank crisis of 1997. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7661956.stm 9/26/08 As attempts are made with Wall Street bailout to rescue international financial markets from world melt-down, other voices from the global South at the UN are touting a new multi-polar world economic order. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JI26Ak02.html 9/26/08 With U.S. Congress offering incentives to domestic auto-makers, Ontario premier says Canada must step up its efforts to compete with American manufacturers in this industry. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=838597 9/25/08 Beware the military/Big Oil complex. This is the message of human rights activists from Burma and Nigeria, testifying to U.S. congressional committee. They say that the program of "voluntary compliance" of U.S. oil companies operating in their countries with standards that require them to advocate for worker rights and environmental safeguards has been totally ignored, as these companies enter into symbiotic relations with local militaries which force people to work for them under company-imposed conditions and suppress any protests against environmental destruction http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43990 9/22/08 Ffrom Wall Street to Fleet Street: What happens to a bankrupt U.S. investment bank? International rivals Barclays in London and Nomura from the Tokyo Stock Exchange vie for purchasing the remaining assets of the Lehman Brothers, now gone into bankruptcy because of its poor investments in the U.S. housing market. 8/22/08 Race riots in South Africa? What went wrong with the "post-racial society there? Johann Rossouw believes that it was the failure of post-apartheid African Nationalist governments to grasp the moment for breaking the hold of the colonial world economic order on the indigenous people of the country. South Africa embraced the full neo-liberal agenda that based the "reconstruction" of the country on the suppression of economic and cultural needs of those people. Anti-immgrant riots are the current seeds of that failure. http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/18514 8/15/08 Enjoying the Olympics? You may start getting your share of the bill for it next month.... China's (futile) effort to eliminate smog in Beijing for the Olympics led to a policy of shutting down factories and heavy truck traffic in the area. The result is likely to be shortages and price increases for electronic products like cell phones that are very popular in the U.S. market. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/267/story/48135.html 8/12/08 Wall Street and London banks are increasingly out-sourcing their high-end executive jobs to off-shore "bulge-bracket banks" in India and eastern Europe; institutions styled as "research" companies that prepare the various "presentations" on which financial institutions are dependent. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/business/worldbusiness/12indiawall.html?th&emc=th 8/12/08 Free trade in action in west Africa:. Legal and illegal over-fishing in waters off coast of countries like Senegal is producing woe to West African fishing economies and a huge impetus to migration, much of it undocumented and unwanted, into European countries. (Europe, like the U.S., has apparently yet to "catch on" to the reality that the neo-liberal destruction of local economies creates much of the impetus toward immigration from the people of those countries.) http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43514 8/8/08 U.S. embassy in Copenhagen condemns decision of its "ally" Denmark to participate in a Trade Fair in Havana, Cuba. http://www.cphpost.dk/get/108653.html 7/7/08 Mexican corn farmers:'We protested NAFTA, that didn't work. Now let's try forming cooperatives based on Fair Trade principle': . With the last protections of Mexican agricultural industry disappearing as all import restrictions from U.S. take effect as required by NAFTA, the full devastation of that industry impends, as massive farmer protests earlier this year have had no effect. Now they are taking the situation in their own hands and farming cooperatives in the hopes of creating a local consumer culture to support a local agriculture. http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2696 7/1/08 Polish prime minister says he will not sign Lisbon Treaty for EU reform, though ratified by Polish parliament, after its referendum defeat last month in Ireland. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7482660.stm 6/29/08 Mexican delegation is "roughed up" by police in Toronto as they protest a Canadian silver and mine company in San Luis Potosi which they say is illegal and an environmental hazard. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43004 6/24/08 Negotiations in current round of WTO trade talks are being held in secret among a few selected nations, with no transparency for bulk of countries that are WTO members. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42926 6/22/08 Verdict of Permanent People's Tribunal in Lima, Peru condemns a pattern of human rights violations perpetrated by European trans-national companies throughout Latin America. http://www.latinamericapress.org/article.asp?IssCode=&lanCode=1&artCode=5638 6/19/08 Peruvian troops fighting Maoist guerillas in a jungle area find they are being fed MREs from U.S. military food suppliers, although the food is more expensive to buy and not consistent with their accustomed diets. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42870 6/17/08 European economy absorbing the blow of Irish rejection of Lisbon Treaty as euro rises in currency markets on first trading day after the Irish action. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/business/worldbusiness/17euro.html?th&emc=th 6/16/08 Irish defeat of Lisbon treaty is being hailed as a victory for the people over the corporate elite: By joining France and Netherlands in rejecting the agreement, the Irish have asserted popular opposition to a neo-liberal arrangement that would apply shock doctrine economics throughout the continent. While some are asserting that "Lisbon is dead," the proponents of a "Euro utopia" in London and elsewhere vow to press on. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20094.htm 6/16/08 European foreign ministers meeting in Brussels to discuss the "crisis" created by Ireland's failure to ratify the Lisbon treaty. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7455955.stm 6/15/08 Fallout for new U.S./Peru trade agreement is that indigenous people will be required to sell more of their lands for commercial development. http://www.latinamericapress.org/Article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5633 6/14/08 Plans of Finnish-Swedish forestry giant to grow eucalyptus in Brazil meet opposition from displaced Finnish forestry workers and from Brazilian peasants who complain of a monoculture displacement of their farming likelihoods. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42794 6/12/08 European Union is making it tougher for U.S. manufacturers to sell their products in Europe:. As if the U.S. trade deficit were not bad enough, EU is moving to establish new regulations for safety of products from chemical contamination which U.S. manufacturers complain that, if implemented, will significantly raise their costs and make it harder for them to compete in European consumer markets. (The EU seems to operate with the "quaint" idea that government regulation should actually protect the consumer; wait til EPA and OSHA hear about this.) 6/10/08 Demonstrators in Seoul, South Korea are protesting the opening of the country's market to (allegedly) contaminated U.S. beef. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/JF11Dg01.html 6/7/08 Reverse of neo-liberalism's privatization continues in Venezuela as Chavez moves to nationalize the diary industry. 6/4/08 Irish referendum looms on the country's ratifying an EU trade treaty as PM promises to veto any agreement that would harm Irish farmers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7435221.stm 5/31/08 United States and China being urged to cooperate on African development rather than try to out-do each other for economic and political influence. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42603 5/4/08 Rebel attacks on Shell Oil infrastructure in Nigeria to protest alienation of the country's oil resources are continuing as severe prosecution of attackers is threatened. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=491136 5/2/08 Argentinian farmers, in recognition of food shortages, take a 1-month break in their protest against government imposition of export taxes on their farm products. http://www.latinamericapress.org/Article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5585 5/2/08 Chevron is charged with complicity in human rights abuses in Myanmar: The U.S. corporation whose PR touts its "green" commitment is seeing another color (red), in local outrage in Burma against the company's involvement in the Yadana gas pipe line project. An international human rights agency cites abuses by the Burmese military which, in exchange for the huge profits from a contract with Chevron, is said to practice rape, torture and pillage against the local population to elicit their cooperation with "security" for the pipeline project. While this IPS article notes the likelihood of Chevron being sued for their complicity in these practices, the comments section of the Common Dreams reprint elicits comments along the line of: given the difficulty of holding U.S. corporations liable for their damaging practices, "well, good luck!" http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/30/8613/ 4/30/08 Let them eat potatoes! As grain prices escalate on the world-wide commodities market and starvation grows in the world, a thriving campesino farmer industry in Peru is maintaining and expanding a native potato agriculture that feeds much of the Peruvian population, free of world price market swings...though not immune to world trends like global warming. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42161 4/23/08 Why are Haitians starving? Many in the country think it's the result of "Miami rice." : The country was a victim of "shock therapy" administered by the U.S.-controlled International Monetary Fund when, in exchange for an IMF loan, it had to remove tariffs against foreign rice, allowing the heavily-subsidized U.S. rice industry to flood the country with their product, driving local farmers producing affordable rice out of business. Now the $1.25 daily income for a family of 4 is described as barely enough to buy a plate of rice for one child. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/the-us-role-in-haitis-hunger-riots/ 4/22/08 World Development Movement issues report charging that European Union trade policy is designed to insure dominance of western companies over the economies of impoverished countries. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42072 4/16/08 "Strip-mined for profits and its people neoliberally crushed " Stephen Lendman's summary of the description in a new book by Peter Hallward of what happened in Haiti to bring the country to its present desperate strait of mass starvation. IMF "shock therapy" and U.S. corporate profit-taking are just the latest chapter in the long history of colonialist exploitation of the island. http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17163 4/15/08 Talk in France about boycotting Beijing Olympic Games because of human rights issues with China leads to talk in China about boycotting purchase of French goods. http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=445325 4/15/08 "Bolivian Alternative" (ALBA) to U.S. domination of trade in Latin America is moving forward http://www.latinamericapress.org/Article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5556 4/15/08 s the "powerful" International Monetary Fund losing its power to dictate world economic policies?: Robert Weissman thinks so, based on analysis of some "baby step" changes in IMF's market fundamentalism that demands privatization, budget cuts and deregulation as conditions that countries must meet in order to obtain IMF loans. The IMF has, for example, committed the heresy of suggesting that some more stringent regulation of financial markets is needed for the present economic crisis. The IMF is still applying shock therapy remedies for economic woes in developing countries, but is facing increasing revolt in the more developed ones, including the U.S. Congress http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/14/8289/ 4/10/08 Porcelain outsourcing: Royal Copenhagen will move nearly its all production operations to Thailand. http://www.cphpost.dk/get/106606.html 4/8/08 Made in China, sold in Wal-Mart. American consumers have become accustomed to "cheap" manufactured goods from low-wage Asian countries, but this pattern is now in jeopardy as rampant inflation in Asian countries is producing escalating prices of their exported commodities. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/business/worldbusiness/08inflate.html?th&emc=th 4/5/08 Fifty years is enough: Sub-title of a play which appeared briefly in an off-Broadway puppet theatre in 1996, with the main title: "Mr. Budhoo's Letter of Resignation to the IMF" based on the actual resignation of a whistle-blower for the International Monetary Fund. IMF, along with the World Bank, was established after World War II to aid in the alleviation of poverty in countries around the world, but became caught up in the school of laissez faire economics promoted by the "Chicago school" of economists led by Milton Friedman as well as a later "Harvard boy," Jeffrey Sachs. The calling card of this movement was the imposition of "shock therapy" on the economies of countries requiring international assistance, a "therapy" requiring disastrous devaluations of currency, privatization of public services and severe cuts in government services. Naomi Klein's mind-bending book, The Shock Doctrine, summarized here, shows the sweep of Friedman-influenced neo-liberal practices, from Pinochet's Chili, through the "fall" of the Soviet Union, and to Paul Bremer's decrees in Iraq. http://www.mutanteggplant.com/agog/2008/01/07/ 4/5/08 Israel's privatization of its oil companies is described as an effort to appease "neo-liberal economists" while maintaining revenue for a welfare state for Jewish settlers (not Palestinians); an Electronic Intifada perspective. http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9438.shtml 4/1/08 Did the world "call for Philip Morris?" Not really, but it's getting Philip Morris International anyway, a break-away corporation from the American company which sees itself unfettered by any U.S. regulations concerning the toxicity of its products: no nasty "Surgeon-General" notices here. Johnny (from the old commercial) might put away his cute little bell-boy outfit in favor of a costume of Death, as this would represent the likely result for people of the world. http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17024 3/29/08 THhe 7-day "Andean Crisis" between Colomiba and Ecuador blows over...Or does it?: Laura Carlsen's analysis suggests that there may be continuing repercussions of Colombia's incursion into Ecuador, with controversial degree of U.S. involvement, to kill a leader of the FARC insurgency. The Bush administration seems to be using the incident as a weapon in U.S. trade policy, to persuade reluctant Democrats in Congress and perhaps both leading Democratic presidential contenders to support a free trade agreement for Colombia that will not contain the labor and human rights clauses that Democrats are demanding. http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5101 3/22/08 Studies show how U.S./Peru FTA will have negative effects on the health and economic levels of Peruvian workers. http://www.latinamericapress.org/Article.asp?lanCode=1&artCode=5028 3/17/08 Turkisk residents in Bulgaria are victims of the "war on terror" and Bulgaria's entrance into the European Union: A "model" of ethnic peacefulness during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, Bulgaria has fallen into decline with the economic effects of its EU entry, and convenient scapegoats are found among suspected "terrorists" in the country's Turkish (Muslim) population, as a bomb threat disturbs the peace of a mosque. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41607 3/4/08 Ethiopian advocate for biodiversity says efforts by a few countries and trans-national companies to control the world's supply of seeds are "doomed to failure." http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41435 3/3/08 "Today's advocates of multinational power would have us all as banana republics: Statement by author of a new book on the banana industry which treats the story of United Fruit as a cautionary tale of what globalized industry may be in process of becoming. Slashing and burning rainforests, "enslaving" native people as cheap workers: these may be related to wider patterns of environmental destruction and anti-union policies that effect many other industries. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080317/biuso 3/1/08 Boeing loses to consortium including European Airbus a $40 billion U.S. military contract for in-flight re-fuelling system, raising the ire of many in Congress http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7272272.stm 2/29/08 s the world heads toward multiple disasters, are presidential candidates showing any signs of leadership in finding solutions? Dave Lindorff says no, as he surveys a range of situations including global warming, world hunger, financial bankruptcy and the rise of resource wars. The presidential contenders are just not addressing these issues. http://www.countercurrents.org/lindorff280208.htm 2/26/08 Diminishment of world wheat supplies leads to escalation of prices on world market. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7264239.stm 2/24/08 Getting real about North American migrations. Volunteer worker from Pennsylvania who helps people in El Salvador to improve their living conditions and the education of their children, reports on the looming "social conflagration" in draconian U.S. immigration policy. NAFTA and CAFTA have deprived farmers of their livelihoods with local employment available only in labor-exploitative maquila, making U.S. immigraton imperative for survival. You can't bottle up that kind of pressure by border walls and illegal immigrants raids and deportations and expect anything but an explosion to occur. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/the-reality-of-migration-a-view-from-el-salvador/ 2/21/08 Arrest of "Doctor Kidney" in Mumbai for racketeering in body parts sales highlights an international system of "medical tourism" in which many people from wealthier countries come to Asian countries looking for organs available from desperately poor http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41263 2/16/08 "Hey ma, how we gonna' build our prayer house with no bamboo or satintail left?" "Sjust up and eat your soy beans." This exchange might be heard in the Dourados Indigenous Territory in the Matto Grosso do Sul province of Brazil. The traditional Gurana culture is gravely threatened by the deforestation of the area (and with it the disappearance of bamboo and satintail, ingredients of prayer house construction) for soybean and cattle production. The Dourados are left with an increasing dependence on employment in nearby fields of sugar cane grown for ethanol production, despite heroic efforts of Gurana leaders to revive a more sustainable traditional economy. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41210 2/15/08 Sharp increase noted in China's trade surplus even as the country tries to "cool" its booming economy http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7246256.stm 2/13/08 Ronnie Cummins: At the end of the road of globalization,we have nothing left but grassroots protest: Reflecting his recent participation in Mexico City in the protests of farmers as NAFTA's mandated allowing of dumping of U.S. agricultural products in the country begins full implementation, Cummins notes that neither U.S. political party includes the dismantlement of NAFTA and other neo-liberal entities in their political agendas, and that it is in the hands of such protesters (who scored a near electoral victory in Mexico) to carry the torch of economic democracy and sustainable agriculture. Few protesters are burning their bras or draft cards any more, but some are still burning their tractors http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/12/6994/ 2/12/08 Ukraine is facing gas supply cut-off unless it pays its disputed bill with a Russian supplier. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7240191.stm 2/11/08 German officials investigating allegations of international price-fixing by chocolate firms. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7238498.stm 2/2/08 Immanuel Wallerstein: The demise of neo-liberal globalization. The celebrated economist takes a long view of the current malaise in U.S. and world capitalist economies by noting the pendulum swing from the era of privatization and free trade, based on the solidity of the U.S. dollar, to a trend starting in the 1990s of movements back toward welfare statism. The Bush administration greatly facilitated this swing by its disastrous military adventures and by promoting de-regulation that led neo-liberalism to the point of its dialectic self-destruction. http://fbc.binghamton.edu/commentr.htm 1/13/08 "Marriage" of African and European Union economies is being resisted by one of the proposed partners: As EU relentlessly pursues its effort to consummate Economic Partnership Agreements with African countries, progressive leaders in Africa and most of their governments have resisted the suitor's blandishments by characterizing EPAs as an extension of European colonialism and paternalism and a "partnership" in which the economic advantages go mostly to one partner: the EU. This is seen as an arranged marriage in which the bride is not thrilled by the bridegroom. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40765 1/9/08 World Bank says booming Chinese economy will "cushion" the worldwide economic slump. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7177397.stm 1/6/08 Free trade between the U.S. and China:. U.S. gets lots of lead painted hobby horses and contaminated food ingredients from China; some of the same boats carry back to China the 80% of U.S. toxic electronic wastes that are disposed of in that country. http://www.alternet.org/stories/72529/ 1/6/08 As sales lag, Intel drops its partnership with other technology firms in program to provide $100 lap-tops to children in underdeveloped countries. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7171201.stm 1/2/08 Challenging U.S. and EU economic imperialism in Latin America: It's not just about Venezuela and Cuba anymore...:; Honduras becomes the 17th nation to sign on to the principles of the Fourth Petrocaribe Summit, which aims to return the benefits of oil production in the area to the people of these countries, in fulfillment of a "Bolivarian alternative" (ALBA) to the traditional exploitation of these resources by foreign oil companies. The U.S., of course, continues its policy of attempting to "destabilize" the goverments of those countries embracing ALBA. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=14635 12/21/07 NAFTA has been a devastating poverty-enducing engine on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border:. The U.S. town of El Paso TX suffered huge losses of income opportunity as many businesses crossed the border and those remaining paid lower wages to meet the Mexican competition. The Mexican town of Nochixtlan in the state of Oaxaco suffered from another feature of NAFTA's operation: the dumping of U.S. agricultural products which deprives Mexican farmers of their livelihoods: a process about to be accelerated by implementation of NAFTA plans for further inundation of Mexican consumer market with U.S. agricultural products. http://www.counterpunch.org/carlsen12202007.html 12/20/07 After 14 years of supposed preparation of Mexico's agricultural economy to deal with the onslaught of imports from the U.S. under the provisions of NAFTA, the deadline of January 1, 2008 looms with no sign of such preparation having been accomplished. Mexican imports of maize, beans and other heavily-subsidized U.S. farm products are likely to devastate the already-troubled economic situation of Mexican farmers. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40542 12/9/07 A sea change is coming in the world oil market. Economically underdeveloped but "oil rich" nations in South America, Africa and elsewhere have been major energy suppliers for the thirsty engines of industry and transportation in the developed nations. Now, with rapid development now occurring in those countries, they will likely have to keep more of those resources for their domestic use, cutting the supply of their exports and, in some cases, even importing oil to satisfy their needs. 12/9/07 European Union concludes negotiations for free trade compacts with African nations, but EU leaders express concern of African influence of China and Mugabe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7134941.stm 12/7/07 Notice something different at your local supermarket? So do people around the world, as food prices have risen and will continue to rise with "no end in sight." This is the conclusion of a new report by an international food policy agency, which blames globalization, climate change and the diversion of agricultural production to biofuels as causes of the inflation of food prices. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=40359 12/3/07 China's announcement of liberalized trade policies with U.S.may be a mixed bag of advantages and problems for U.S. investors. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IL04Cb01.html 11/20/07 "Fighting poverty through trade": Madeleine Bunting observes that the actions of the European Union and the World Trade Organization hardly match their rhetoric when it comes to policies on trade with countires in the underdeveloped world. Under WTO pressure, the EU is demanding that its members negotiate new trade agreements that scuttle the long-standing practice of providing access to EU markets by making duty-free concessions to Third World products. If such agreements are made in Africa and in other underdeveloped countries, the result will be an escalation of poverty in these countries. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/19/5322/ 10/17/07 Is the European Union about to get its Jack Abramoff scandal?? Protesting activists note the rise of paid lobbyists operating at the EU parliament in Brussells, suggesting that, while the influence of money on EU decisions may not yet have risen to the level that is prevalent in Washington, EU's "Abramoff moment" may be just around the corner. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=74&ItemID=14062 10/17/07 UK is preparing a tepid claim for "sovereignty" in Antarctica in the face of aggressive development plans of Russia and other countries. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7048237.stm 10/8/07 Costa Rican voters have apparently approved U.S. "free trade" deal with U.S., but the margin is narrow and opposition is calling for recount. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2C970B65-2793-4A38-8C76-E66D57780AF9.htm 10/5/07 Leaked memo puts result in doubt as Costa Rica prepares to vote on CAFTA: Vice President of country resigns after it is revealed that he proposed a fear campaign designed to secure passage of the measure that would bring Costa Rica into the sphere of a neo-liberalist economy and, among other things, resulting in the dismantling of a successful program of social welfare promotion in the country. The finger of U.S. "democracy promotion" is in the proposals. Once passage was thought to be a foregone conclusion, but public revelations about the fear campaign has made the prospect that of a "technical tie." http://www.counterpunch.org/carlsen10042007.html 10/5/07 Ecuador's President says that the country's people should get 99% of the revenues from foreign oil company operations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7029244.stm 10/3/07 Price of oil on world market will heavily influence the size of the budget deficit in Nigeria, where revenues are based largely on taxes on oil exports. http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/news/article01 10/2/07 Dell computer company's operations in Brazil "sign on" to the U.S. foreign policy as computer purchasers are required to sign agreements not to use computer parts for weapons development or export any part of them to "axis of evil" countries. http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39480 9/29/07 What happens when the Washington consensus of trade liberalization as a panacea for world pverty doesn't pan out? Why, more of the same, of course, as IMF and World Bank find innovative ways to salvage the neo-liberal agenda. Walden Bello describes a number of these ways, including a "Washington Consensus Plus" in which these agencies insist not only in "structural adjustments" (privatization, reduction of social services, etc) but on "institutional" reforms like overcoming the governmental corruption that has plagued the world in, for example, the "Russian mafia" model. As Bello sees it, these are band-aid solutions that won't solve the contradictions at the heart of the Washington Consensus http://www.focusweb.org/focus-on-trade.html?Itemid=1 9/26/07 ILO report downplays effects of corporate globalization of world food production and distribution on the economic state of the world's workers: International Labor Organization notes with approval the rise of international foods conglomerates but fails to note that few of the world's farmers are reaping benefits from the process. For example, only 1.5% of Ecuadorian banana sales proceeds go to the banana plantation workers http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=39403 9/16/07Construction of Interoceanic Sur Highway in Peru. Its devastating effect on indigenous rights and the local environment is part of a much larger pattern of international development projects that are putting an "open for business" sign on the Amazon Basin. http://www.counterpunch.org/hurwitz09152007.html 8/29/07 As U.S.-based Mattel Toys realizes that toy manufacture out-sourced in China is resulting in lead paint contamination which is "systemic" in the process, the company hits the panic button as shipments of toys for Christmas season begins and the company expects it may have to issue further recalls. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/business/worldbusiness/29mattel.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&th&emc=th 8/28/07 Yahoo is sued by human rights group for its cooperation with Chinese government in releasing e-mails that have led to arrest of dissidents. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6966116.stm 8/25/07 Copenhagen joins 229 other world cities as a "Fair Trade City," committed to encouraging use of goods produced under conditions favorable to both local workers and the environment. http://www.cphpost.dk/get/103179.html 8/23/07 "Made in China" remains popular in global market despite recent negative publicity about Chinese consumer products. 8/22/07 Southeast Asian nations seek to "get connected" by a cross-national electricity grid. http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20070822153415&irec=0 8/17/07 As North American leaders meet in Ottawa next week, they will be able to monitor the actions of protesters outside their hotel by closed circuit television http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070817.wvideo17/BNStory/National/home 8/15/07 Official of Chinese toy industry association says that defects in magnets in toys imported to U.S. and now recalled by Mattel were known about as early as March. 8/15/07 Indian farmer suicides, like that of a Korean farmer at the 2003 Mexico WTO meeting, provide one of the few avenues for a world proletariat to bring its message of protest against corporate globalization to a public whose information is controlled by a corporate media. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/08/indias-agrarian-martyrs-are-you-listening/ 7/29/07 China announces plans to burnish its international image by exerting control over the quality and safety of the goods it exports. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/world/asia/29safety.html?th&emc=th 7/29/07 Shopping malls in Bellingham WA and Buffalo NY are among beneficiaries of Canadian shoppers crossing U.S. border to flex the "buying power" of their newly enhanced currency. 7/24/07 New Financial Times/Harris poll in U.S. and western European countries shows people believe overwhelmingly that globalization has a "negative" effect on their country and that corporate heads should have caps on their income. At the same time, those in the European Union express their approval of "free competition" of economies within the EU, and that all people have equal opportunity regardless of social background. Lesson for polling may be: where public opinion is concerned, it may not be just who you ask but what you ask. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2a735dd0-3873-11dc-bca9-0000779fd2ac.html 7/24/07 Protests against operations of international mining companies in Honduras result in closing of Pan-American highway. http://www.marrder.com/htw/national.htm 7/23/07 As a voice from Delhi, India "talks you through" your computer problems his American computer whiz counterpart may be getting re-training and lay-off compensation for the loss of his outsourced job. Democratic Congress is preparing legislation to extend opportunities to high-tech workers now "enjoyed" by workers in industrial operations who lose their jobs with companies which out-source production in response to foreign competition. Only 1 in 4 of the workers eligible to receive this assistance are actually receiving it, but the thinking seems to be that you can extend a program inadequately serving one category of workers to cover another category. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/22/AR2007072201214.html?referrer=email 7/15/07 Starbucks closes coffee shop in Beijing China after massive protests that it tramples on "Chinese culture." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6898629.stm 7/14/07 Leaders of U.S., Mexico and Canda plannig an August meeting to promote the neo-liberal agenda of "integrated" economies to benefit of corporate leites...and a local activist group is planning a Seattle-WTO or Miami-NAFTA style "welcoming committee" for the meeting which will be held behind barbed wire fences. 7/13/07 Asia Times writer says that many Asians will see their savings implode from the practice of central banks in investing heavily in the troubled U.S. sub-prime mortgage lending industry. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IG14Dj01.html 7/10/07 Trade rules enforced by WTO will soon force countries like Brazil and India that do not recognize patents on medicines to suspend their sale of generics to countries like Uganda, who will find medicines priced beyond their means. http://www.nationaudio.com/News/EastAfrican/current/Regional/Regional100520046.html 6/23/07 The hidden price of cheap goods Recent revelations of contamination in food products and dangerous toys imported to U.S.A. from China (including the story of "herbal teas" being dried by having lead gasoline-powered trucks drive over them) and of working conditions that amount to slave labor are leading to questions about the actual human advantages of a globalized market. http://www.progressive.org/mag_rcb062107 6/8/07 George Monbiot: World's superpowers at G8 summit will wring their hands about the plight of the world's poor, then go about making that plight as diffult as possible. Case in point. Philippine government recognizes the risk to infant health from very low rate of breast-feeding of babies and tries to put a rein on multi-national corporations pushing milk substitute sales in the country. U.S. employs its arsensal of international economic powers to subvert this effort on grounds that it interferes with international trade. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=13003 6/3/07 Free trade and corporate agriculture are killing village-based farming in Thailand. A University of Michigan student gives a poignant first-hand account of the destruction of traditional Thai rural culture, as FTA-based competition has damaged the rice industry in Thailand, just as the same forces have led to the Thai rice industry damaging the Korean one. http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_glimpse2_06-02-07_B05MFCN.1cc4a54.html 6/2/07 Anti-globalisation demonstrators gather in Rostock Germany ahead of next week's G8 summit meeting. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6714429.stm 5/30/07 Echoes of farmer suicides in India. Widow of one of those suicides in India's neo-liberal economy of depression of agricultural wages is forced to work for pay that doesn't allow her a diet as good as that of the average prisoner. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=66&ItemID=12941 5/29/07 German Finance Minister warns against Chinese lending practices in Africa, which he says goes against G-8 efforts to reduce the burden of debt in developing countries. http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3016&art_id=nw20070519161238186C811688 5/26/07 Free trade supports only one freedom: The freedom of unrestricted pursuit of corporate profit. Michael Parenti shows how trans-national corporations, with support of World Trade Organization, have been able to assert their authority above that of any nation-states to make decisions about what kind of living conditions they want for their people. These governments can even be sued by corporations for "lost market opportunities" when their efforts to provide for the welfare of their own citizens get in the way of the chance of profit for some trans-national. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/25/1439/ 5/24/07 Excluded by U.S. by participation in an elite world "space club," China moves to set up a club of its own by deals with countries like Nigeria to assist in space launch and other space enterprises. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/world/asia/24satellite.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 5/23/07 France returns the "favor" of U.S. franco-phobia: radio broadcasters are denied license to broadcast in English on FM channel in Paris, making this the only major city in the world without English language radio broadcasting. http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=25&story_id=40067 5/22/07 Hey, who broke my model? The neo-liberal "model" in Chili which calls for the privatization of many sectors of public life (transportation, schools, etc.) is suffering from severe "fatigue" as mass protests send the authoritarian regime scampering after band-aid solutions to a failed system. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=12869 5/19/07 From corn in Mexico to cassava in Sub-Saharan Africa: Corporate hunger for profits in the biofuel industry is eating away at peoples' food supplies creating starvation and escalating food supplies. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051707D.shtml 5/13/07 The Wolfowitz "scandal" in context. Naomi Klein notes that his impending downfall over his intervention for a job for his girlfriend masks the much larger immorality of the World Bank itself. In pursuing its supposed mandate of "eliminating world poverty," it in fact has acted to destroy local economies in the interest of corporate globalization. Rather than follow the usual scandal routine of throwing the captain off the sinking ship, she advocates letting the ship (World Bank) go down with the captain (Wolfowitz). http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070514/klein 5/10/07 While China hopes to use its hosting of 2008 Olympic Games to bolster its international image, some Canadian leaders want to use the Games as an opportunity to "pressure" China to improve its human rights practices. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070510.wrights10/BNStory/National/home 5/7/07 Hugo Chavez ultimatum to Argentine steel company in Venezuela: start allocating more of your products to domestic markets, or have your company seized. http://www.buenosairesherald.com/argentina/note.jsp?idContent=381161&hideIntro=true# 5/7/07 Scottish, English and U.S. banks are in fight for hostile take-over of a Dutch bank. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6631415.stm 5/4/07 "We have enough investment at stake here that we can usually get someone to listen to us if we are passionate about an issue “ An official of Microsoft Corporation in China so expresses the power of U.S. corporations and the Chamber of Commerce in controlling the "gulag" type conditions of industrial labor in China. The issue about which these corporations are "passionate" is the effort to unionize Chinese labor, and they are "listened to" by the policy-makers in both the U.S. and China. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/03/936/ 4/17/07 The newest crisin in world public health: Shopoholism: As capitalism pursues its relentless process of concentrating consumer goods in the hands of the wealthy, it must deal with a situation in which the well-to-do have too few needs to match their escalating resources, and the system depends on an "infantilist" expansion of peoples' consumer desires in order to sustain the system. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/15/536/ 4/6/07 India said to be "losing out" to China in the scramble for global investment opportunities as the U.S. NASDAQ established an "index" of Chinese companies trading on U.S. stock exchanges. http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=84345 4/6/07 A merger between Amicus, a large UK labor union, and the Steelworkers of America is being "mooted" as the need to establish international unions to match multi-national corporations is being noted. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6531749.stm 4/5/07 Pressures from US and WTO are likely to lead Uganda to enact a patent law that will help to give effective monopolies of drug manufacture to Western pharmaceutical companies and deprive poor Ugandans of access to drugs. http://www.nationaudio.com/News/EastAfrican/current/Regional/Regional100520046.html 4/3/07 Large protests are occurring in Honduras against open air mining and the perceived failure of the government to insure substantial benefit to Honduran people of operations of international mining companies. http://www.marrder.com/htw/national.htm 3/31/07 Escalated U.S. trade pressure on China is led by the implementation of a new tariff import on Chinese paper products. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/31/business/31trade.html?th&emc=th 3/30/07 Globalization and the rise of the predator billionaires:. As mass poverty in the world grows, so does the number of very wealthy individuals even and maybe especially in former communist countries like Russia in which new oligarchs muscled their way into an expropriation of the productive capacities created by the masses of people, used international global arrangements like the I.M.F. to institutionalize their dominance and a wave of mergers and acquisitions in corporations around the world. Thus does James Petras define a virtual "how to do it" manual for would-be billionaires in a poverty-stricken world. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PET20070323&articleId=5159 3/29/07 Attorneys for Mel Gibson pressure micro-brewery on Funen Island off Danish coast to drop the label "Brave Hart" for one of its beers. http://www.cphpost.dk/get/101061.html 3/26/07 Arundhati Roy lays it on the line about India: In a hard-hitting interview with Shoma Chaudhuri, Roy speaks of a secession of the Indian middle and upper classes from the rest of society as they must "colonise" their own people, in effect "eating their own limbs." The resistance movements through all the Indian provinces are not simply the "flip side" of the repressive State in their violence and authoritarianism but a legitimate expression of the frustration of an internally colonized people. http://www.countercurrents.org/roy260307.htm 3/26/07 China is said to have much to gain but also to risk much loss in international stature, depending on whether "disruptions" mar next year's Olympic Games in Beijing. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IC27Ad01.html 3/22/07 "Open skies" policy being considered by European Union would open up more European airport access to U.S. carriers, but wouldn't do much for European carriers' access to U.S. domestic air travel market. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6477969.stm 3/17/07 Colombia government is demanding extradition from U.S. of executives of Chiquita Banana company who have admitted paying "protection" money to paramilitary groups in the country. 3/15/07 Chiquita banana company admits having paid $25 million to Colombian paramilitaries for "protection." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6452455.stm 3/11/07 U.S. investors are bidding to buy a money-losing electronics firm (JVC) in Japan http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20070311a2.html 3/10/07 U.S. and Brazil make "deal" on encouraging ethanol production but U.S. won't lift until 2009 its 54 cent/gallon tariff on ethanol from Brazil, the world's largest producer. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6434889.stm 3/6/07 Attack on a French tourist in Durban, South Africa highlights a growing level of violence in the country against international visitors. http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20070306100649810C637046 2/28/07 What's the price of stocks in China? A sell-off wave in China's stock market generates repercussions throughout the world's globalized economy, producing a 416 point drop on NYSE http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/27/AR2007022702285.html?referrer=email 2/28/07 Visiting United Arab Emirates, Prince Charles questions the dietary quality of McDonald's and suggests trying to ban the popular food chain. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_re_eu/britain_charles;_ylt=Amh.yBkp.bhc11pFSfuM1zFw24cA 2/26/07 Japan's Nissan and France's Renault hook up to build an automaking plant in India that will serve the growing demand for cars among India's middle class. Some Indian farmers who have recently committed suicide over their economic conditions will not the attending the ceremony, 2/26/07 Ecuador complains that import duties on bananas imposed by European Union place the country at a competitive disadvantage to imports from Caribbean and Africa. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6396903.stm 2/23/07 A new commodities exchange in Ethiopia highlights the effort of leaders there to have the country join the world agricultural economy as a maize-raising "bread basket." http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0223/p01s04-woaf.html?page=1 2/20/07 African economic leaders complain that the globalization of the world maritime trade has largely excluded African shippers from participation in this trade. http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/news/article07 2/19/07 American sociologist in Ukraine: Popularity of PM Yanukovych among Washington Republicans may reflect their "shared values": in "greed and crony capitalism, arrogance of power and pervasive secrecy." http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/oped/26110/ 2/18/07 World wealth and world poverty; coroporate globalism 101: Michael Parenti gives a (very) short course in how a neo-liberal (free trade) economy generates wealth for multinational corporations by creating poverty among the people in both industrialized and Third World countries. This effect is epitomized by the "structural adjustments" imposed on underdeveloped countries which eliminate human services and by trade agreements that depress local productive economies in underdeveloped economies and the encourage out-sourcing of employment from industralized ones. http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0216-30.htm 2/1/07 Globalization at work: inflated prices for corn on world market fueled by increased ethanol production creates large rise of price of tortillas in Mexico and mass protests. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070201/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_tortilla_march;_ylt=AqH7szH 1/25/07 Bipartisan group of U.S. Senators introduce a bill that would permit firms to sue competitors whose profits are based on importation of products manufactured under sub-standard labor conditions throughout the world. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0124-05.htm 1/16/07 Cultural globalization illustrated by the opening in Paris of an exhibit devoted to celebrating the "genius" of Walt Disney. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0116/p01s04-woeu.html 12/27/06 Firestone Tire Company is under fire for exploitative labor practices at rubber plantations in Liberia, one of the world's poorest countries. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16322000.htm 12/23/06 Bratz dolls (rivals of Barbies) retail for $16 while workers in Szenzhen, China are paid 17 cents apiece for making them and work up to 94 hours a week. http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2006/dec/22/factory-violates-rights-group-says/ 12/23/06 "Sustainable" debt in a third world country: local representative says Honduras has a sustainable foreign debt if, as a result of "sound fiscal policy," it is able to keep debt under 40% of the country's GNP. This had been as high as 84% but was "only" 60.6% this year. 11/18/06 William Pfaff says that the "monetarism" represented by Milton Friedman has failed to deliver promised benefits of globalization to the world's workers, and U.S. election results are just one indication of a worldwide revolt against that economic philosophy in favor of a more "humanistic" Keynesian one. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1117-35.htm 11/18/06 As Bush goes to Vietnam, so does a senior U.S. military figure, Colonel Sanders: KFC opens a restaurant in Hanoi to bring the joys of finger lickin' to our former enemies. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16042777.htm 11/9/06 Renault will build automobiles in India; Nissan may follow suit. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061109/UPDATE/611090439 10/17/06 Wal-Mart looks to cash in on the commodification of life in China, as it attempts to acquire a nationwide supermarket chain there. 10/16/06 Filipino sociologist writes on micro-credit and macro-problems: While Muhammad Yunu deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, the hyped-up claims of world leaders from Clinton to Wolfowitz that micro-credit is a panacea for world poverty ignore the limited impact of these loans and the continued poverty-producing effects of the "structural adjustments" associated with corporate globalization. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1015-23.htm 10/10/06 While Chinese President got a "cool reception" in Washington, Bill Gates and the other "lords" of neo-liberalism treated him like royalty...and why not? Writer says that U.S. and China are "joined at the hip" when it comes to our economic policies. http://counterpunch.org/kwong10072006.html 10/8/06 Made in China: shoe war erupts as European Union imposes 16.5% tariff on Chinese shoes that it says are being "dumped" on the European market. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5412338.stm 8/11/06 Coke and Pepsi bottlers in India continue to expose drinkers in India to higher levels of pesticide contamination than would be acceptable in U.S. or European markets. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0810-31.htm 8/5/06 A sports championship in the service of globalization: Gatorade and Miami Heat's Dwayne Wade go to China as U.S. national basketball team squares off against the Chinese one. Thirsty U.S. entrepreneurs salivate at a massive soft drink market as pictures of Wade in Heat uniform appear on millions of bottles of Gatorade. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15193753.htm 8/4/06 The struggle in Mexico to recount the vote is about more than just the outcome of an election; it is becoming a "critical moment" in Mexican history when corporate dominance of Mexican life is beginning to be challenged by a social movement http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0804-20.htm 7/25/06 WTO trade agreement talks collapse as they fail to reach agreement on whether wealthy nations should eliminate farm subsidies that disrupt agricultural markets for less developed ones. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/25/business/worldbusiness/25trade.html?th&emc=th 7/5/06 Leftward lurch of politics in Mexico and elsewhere reflects Third World disillusion with the capacity of a global economic order to deliver promised gains. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/04/AR2006070401109.html 5/23/06 Protests by prostitutes in Cambodia stop testing of anti-AIDS drug tenofovir; they claim Third World women are being used as guinea pigs for drug testing, without adequate protection of themselves from possible side-effects of the drug. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052201190.html?referrer=email 5/21/06 In the Indian state of Kerala, new resistance to "development" in the neo-liberal style of corporation domination is falsely being contrasted with the neighboring state of Karnataka, whose supposedly greater development is at the expense of worsened human conditions. http://counterpunch.org/sainath05202006.html 5/14/06 Globalized world markets devastate "little factories" of rural Italy as they compete unsuccessfully with "made in China" products: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/world/europe/14italy.html?th&emc=th 5/7/06 Bush spreading freedom around the world: freedom, that is, for multi-national corporations to make big profits http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506D.shtml 5/2/06 Bolivian President Evo Morales seizes control of country's natural gas industry, saying "looting by foreign companies is ended." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/01/AR2006050100583_pf.html 5/1/06 Those "other" May Day demonstrations: workers in Indonesia, Philippines and around the world protest working conditions in a world of corporate globalization: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060501/ts_nm/asia_mayday_dc 5/1/06 Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba form economic alliance and reject free trade agreements with U.S.: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050106D.shtml 4/30/06 McDonald's and frozen french fries invade El Salvador: a symbol of the devastation of the country's agriculture created by its embrace of CAFTA: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0429-25.htm 4/10/06 The poor and lower classes are overlooked in the rush to globalize India's ecenomy: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,410345,00.html 4/8/06 Immigration control policy debate rarely addresses the forced migrations created by corporate globalization: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0408-24.htm 3/25/06 Opinion: we need to pay more attention to working conditions around the world in which child laborers are subjected to dangerous and unhealthy working conditions to produce our inexpensive clothing: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/25/opinion/25weber.html?th&emc=th 3/19/06 French protests against youth labor laws may be leading the way to wider protests against globalization in France and throughout the world: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1734333,00.html 3/17/06 Philippine economy is ruined by neo-liberal globalization and dissent is repressed in a U.S-supported "death squad democracy." http://www.counterpunch.org/petras03172006.html 3/17/06 As Latin American countries pay off or are relieved of their IMF loans, U.S. domination of their economies may decline: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0317-26.htm 3/17/06 Neo-liberal free market economics is destroying working conditions in America and around the world: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=19&ItemID=9920 3/16/06 Neo-liberalism produces its globalization double-whammy again: displaced farmers from Mexico are denied food-growing opportunity in Los Angeles as a developer evicts them from the community garden space: http://counterpunch.org/philpott03162006.html 3/10/06 In West Papua, western powers carve up economic exploitation of the country while Indonesian government continues UN-cited atrocities against East Timorese people: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12268.htm 3/8/06 Protests in Central American countries and an unexpectedly close presidental vote in Costa Rica stalls implementation of CAFTA agreement: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=9865 2/27/06 Chinese cars are failing emissions and crash test in U.S. but they are expected to hit the U.S. market shortly: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2006-02-26-chinese-cars-usat_x.htm 2/26/06 Kuwaiti-based construction using globalized labor force to build Baghdad embassy with miserable working conditions: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13258 2/19/06 Globalization in action: suicide rates among Indian cotton farmers soar as Bombay stock market reaches record highs: http://counterpunch.org/sainath02182006.html 2/17/06 Globalization laying waste to indigenous cultures throughout Asia: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BAR20060216&articleId=1983 2/13/06 U.S. uses WTO ruling to help it pry open markets for GMOs, especially in developing countries: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0213-22.htm 2/8/06 World Bank: Wolfowitz appointing Bush administration "loyalists": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701911.html?referrer=email 2/8/06 WTO votes to overturn European ban on bio-tech production in international trading; U.S., Canadian and Argentine agri-business to gain: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/07/AR2006020701184.html?referrer=email 2/8/06 Indian water rights activists hit privatization and depletion of their water supplies: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0207-02.htm 2/5/06 Protests against CAFTA in El Salvador: http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0201-23.htm 2/2/06 World global economic order depends on economic and military power of the U.S., which is fading: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060213/
Books: Jeff Faux, The Global Class War (how NAFTA and other globalization schemes have allowed U.S. employers to find cheap labor abroad and abandon the "social contract" with American workers (new): http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/books_global_class_war
Video/Film: http://movies2.nytimes.com/2006/10/06/movies/06gold.html?th&emc=th
Other Media:
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Analysis & views: 12/19/08 NAFTA's future in the Obama administration is left uncertain with two of Obama's latest staffing picks, for Secretary of Labor and Trade Representative. Congresswoman Hilda Solis, strong "skeptic" of NAFTA, is chosen for Labor while Ron Kirk, former Mayor of Dallas and strong supporter of free trade agreements, is chosen for TR: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/us/politics/19obama.html?_r=1 6/19/08 Goolsbee's whisper becomes Obama's Fortune Magazine interview:. A quiet "reassurance" by an Obama aide to Canadians that Obama's primary campaign against NAFTA was a matter of "rhetoric" not of "serious" opposition to free trade is now brought out of the closet by Obama himself as he tells the business community readers of Fortune, in response to a question about his more recent emphasis on free trade values, that "Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified." Indeed! http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/330911 6/13/08 Naomi Klein: Obama must deal with rhe "Chicago Boys" (and it has nothing to do with Tony Rezko) . Controversial appointment this week of Jason Furman, a close associate of Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a godfather of NAFTA, as an Obama economic adviser follows an earlier appointment of Alan Goolsbee, who notoriously was said to have whispered to Canadian diplomats that Obama was not "serious" about his opposition to NAFTA. Furman and Goolsbee are disciples a school of University of Chicago economists centered around Milton Friedman, whose neo-liberal "shock doctrine" is featured in Klein's book of that title. Klein fears that advisers like Furman and Goolsbee may engineer another "U-turn" on trade policy for Obama as Rubin claims to have done for Clinton between his election in 1992 and his inauguration in 1993. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/klein 6/7/08 Every "age" has its "icon" and Oprah Winfrey is described as the icon of the age of neo-liberalism: In a new book, Janice Peck finds in Winfrey's public persona a key to understanding of the dominant consumerism and privatization of policy that characterize the times in which the people of the world have come to live. Her Big Give program is taken as emblematic of the practice of elevating "personal responsibility" for social ills and relegating "charity" to the market-place of competitive and well-publicized "good deeds." (Of course there are other "tycoon-icons" like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.) http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=650&Itemid=1 4/25/08 Is the political pendulum swinging against neo-liberal trade policies and toward "Fair Trade" ones?: Mark Engler, who "wrote the book" on the subject, examines this subject with inconclusive results. A positive answer is suggested in such realities as the narrowest of congressional approvals of CAFTA, the defeat of many "pro-free trade" members of Congress in 06, and current opposition to the Colombia Free Trade agreement. On the other side of the continuing struggle for the "soul" of the Democratic Party are the actions of such leaders as Max Baucus and Nancy Pelosi who seem more accommodating to the neo-liberal agenda of powerful corporate forces. http://www.counterpunch.org/engler04242008.html 4/16/08 Price of rice in Hawaii is expected to escalate, as devaluation of U.S. dollar against the Japanese yen will result in more dollars required to buy Japanese rice. http://starbulletin.com/2008/04/15/news/story03.html 4/9/08 Obama and Clinton: How to deal with their "trade" advisors:. As both Democratic candidates campaign in the labor-rich state of Pennsylvania to burnish their murky credentials as opponents of "free trade" agreements, both have advisors who embarrass their positions. Austan Goolsbee told a Canadian diplomatic not to take Obama's opposition to NAFTA seriously, while Mark Penn, a top Clinton advisor, was working to facilitate the Colombia Free Trade Agreement that she opposes. Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa, an Obama supporter, urges the candidate to clarify further his relation to Goolsbee's behavior, and tries to draw a distinction to Obama's advantage between the two situations...an apparent effort to explain why Penn has been fired and Goolsbee hasn't http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/04/08/politics/fromtheroad/entry4001517.shtml 4/7/08 Electrolux is compared to Katrina in a Michigan town devastated by the movement of the factory to Mexico. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/business/07sale.html?th&emc=th 4/5/08 On trade policies, Hillary Clinton has been "remarkably audacious," Barack Obama has been "troublingly tentative.": , Neither candidate gets a very good grade from John Nichols in "Trade 101." Clinton "audaciously" claims a career of NAFTA opposition that the record does not seem to sustain. The contested "whisper" to a Canadian official not to take Obama's anti-NAFTA "rhetoric" too seriously represents the "tentative" feel of his trade policy pronouncements. Neither candidate addresses the larger issue of neo-liberal inspired trade agreements; neither bothers to explain his/her support of the Peru agreement. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080421/nichols 3/28/08 Who will be the next president of the United States? Milton Friedman, and he's dead: Charles Sullivan notes the influence of the Chicago economist who enshrined unfettered capitalist exploitation into an iconic belief that totally dominates the current Administration and which allows a tiny "ruling clique" to operate to the profound disadvantage of the great majority of Americans. In the current election, Sullivan asserts: "Every contending presidential candidate is a Friedman disciple." The author does not provide evidence for that assertion but it may be there, if one looks closely both at the identity of all candidates' campaign contributors and the views of their closest advisers. http://www.countercurrents.org/sullivan270308.htm 3/4/08 Obama and Clinton campaigns in dispute over whether an Obama aide told a Canadian official not to take too seriously Obama's campaign assaults on NAFTA. 3/3/08 Airbus says the U.S. military contract it took instead of Boeing will mean more jobs for U.S. workers. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/business/worldbusiness/03airbus.html?ref=world 3/2/08 Boeing loses to consortium including European Airbus a $40 billion U.S. military contract for in-flight re-fuelling system, raising the ire of many in Congress http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7272272.stm 12/21/07 NAFTA has been a devastating poverty-enducing engine on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border:. The U.S. town of El Paso TX suffered huge losses of income opportunity as many businesses crossed the border and those remaining paid lower wages to meet the Mexican competition. The Mexican town of Nochixtlan in the state of Oaxaco suffered from another feature of NAFTA's operation: the dumping of U.S. agricultural products which deprives Mexican farmers of their livelihoods: a process about to be accelerated by implementation of NAFTA plans for further inundation of Mexican consumer market with U.S. agricultural products. http://www.counterpunch.org/carlsen12202007.html 12/21/07 "The eschange rate is like a gift from god for Europeans" ...says a New York realtor, referring to an onslaught of Europeans shoppers who are taking advantage of the strength of their euros and pounds against the weak U.S. dollar, providing bargains not only in Christmas gifts but in condominiums that are attractive to foreigners while prohibitively expensive to Americans. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/realestate/21condo.html?th&emc=th 10/5/07 Wall Street is said to be "insulated" from stock market effects of economic conditions in the country by those companies whose profits are tied to international markets. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1005/p01s08-usec.html 8/31/07 Labor Day weekend on the Mexican border:. Despite protest from Teamsters Union (over loss of U.S. jobs) and Sierra Club (over environmental impact), 100 Mexican cargo trucks will cross U.S. border Saturday to deliver their cargoes to American destinations, a trial program to begin to implement a 1994 agreement as part of NAFTA. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/politics/14003768/detail.html 8/6/07 VIietnamese food in a Chinese restaurant? It's happening in Boston as Chinatown restaurants try to keep up with changed consumer taste which includes other Asian cuisines which are faster to prepare and more low-fat than traditional Chinese ones. http://www.boston.com/ae/food/restaurants/articles/2007/08/06/a_fare_change_in_chinatown/ 7/14/07 After Mike Gravel, a "long-shot" Democratic candidate for President "gives it to" the "leading" candidates at a presidential forum about their support of NAFTA and the Iraqi War, two of the "leaders", H. Clinton and J. Edwards, are "caught on tape" agreeing that Gravel as well as Dennis Kunich are "trivializing" the campaign and are not "serious" and "our guys should talk" about an existing plan to eliminate the "un-serious" candidates Gravel and Kucinich from future debates. Kucinich responds to Democracy Now! that, however much these "leading" candidates fantasize their "imperial" status, the public is entitled to hear the views of these "long shot" candidates. ABC News report: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/07/caught-on-tape-.html 6/1/07 Robert Zoellick, Bush's choice for new head of World Bank, is a free trade hardballer. Zoellick, who was U.S. Trade Representative in 2001, used 9/11 as a pretext to kick start free trade fast-tracking by linking opposition to trade agreements with support for terrorism. If th |