PHILIPPINE WORKING GROUP ON GFMD and MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL
GLOBAL CALL TO ACTION
1 June 2008
Join the “Peoples’ Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rig...
EN
ESTA EDICIÓN: Walden Bello analiza el "tono apocalíptico" que
ha embargado a las más altas esferas del capital mundial, Alejandro
Bendaña argumenta contra...
PLANIFICACIÓN
CENTRAL Y LIBERTAD DE MERCADO: DOS
CARAS DE LA MISMA MENTALIDAD FUNDAMENTALISTA
por
Walden Bello*
Walden
Bello fue invitado a participar en la serie de d...
por
Daphne Wysham y Shakuntala Makhijani*
(Publicado
por primera vez en Foreign
Policy in Focus,
31 de marzo, 2008)
La
crisis de identidad que hace ya un buen tiempo...
The undersigned civil society movements and organisations from ASEAN wish to express their strong concerns about the proposed EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA) slated to be concluded within the next two years.
We are aware that the trade negotiations are already ongoing, and these are done without prior meaningful public consultation, either with elected representatives or civil society in any of the countries concerned. Any agreement as far-reaching in its consequences and as broad in scope as the proposed EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement should involve at the very least a wide-ranging and on-going consultation process, in addition to full disclosure of all texts being considered. We view access to information and process as vital components for the meaningful participation of civil society in all stages of the discussion.
ASEAN ACTIONS MUST
REFLECT URGENCY OF SITUATION IN BURMA
CALL FOR IMMEDIATE
ACTION TO ENSURE CYCLONE NARGIS SURVIVORS GET AID
SAPA STATEMENT: SOLIDARITY FOR ASIAN
PEOPLE'S ADVOCACIES (SAPA)
WORKING GROUP ON THE
ASEAN
The
members of SAPA demand that ASEAN immediately take a pro-active stand
to ensure that the Burmese authorities stop blocking delivery of
urgently needed international aid - both supplies and expertise -
to the 2.5 million survivors of Cyclone Nargis who are hanging onto
life by a thread. Otherwise, ASEAN risks being seen as callous,
irrelevant and hypocritical.
How
"free trade" is destroying Third World agriculture-and who's
fighting back
(This
article appears in the June 2, 2008, edition of The
Nation[New
York]. It is being reprinted with permission from The
Nation.)
by
Walden Bello*
When tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a sharp increase of over 60 per cent in the price of tortilla, the flat unleavened bread that is Mexico's staple, many analysts pointed to biofuels as the culprit. Owing to US government subsidies, turning corn into ethanol had become more profitable than growing it for food consumption, prompting American farmers to devote more and more of their acreage to it, in the process sparking off a steep rise in corn prices.
The diversion of corn from tortillas to biofuel was certainly one of the proximate causes of the skyrocketing prices, though speculation on likely trends in biofuel demand by transnational middlemen may have played a bigger role. (1) However, an intriguing question escaped many observers: How on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was first domesticated, become "dependent" on imports of US corn in the first place?
In the Shadow of Debt:The Sad but True Tale behind a Quarter Century of Stagnation in the Philippines
By Walden Bello*
Assaulted on all
sides owing to its entanglement in the ZTE-NBN corruption scandal,
the administration has confronted its critics with the image of an
economy that is purring along, that is doing just fine except for the
rise in the price of rice, for which it says it is blameless.
In this issue of Focus on Trade, Jayati
Ghosh and CP Chandrasekhar analyse the financial crisis sweeping the
US and Europe, and ask whether this will usher in a new era of market
regulation and state intervantion, and an opportunity for developing
countries to reasess their economic strategies.
PHILIPPINE WORKING GROUP ON GFMD and MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS INTERNATIONAL
1 June 2008
Join the “Peoples’ Global Action on Migration, Development and Human Rights”
22-30 October 2008, Manila, Philippines
Focus on the Global South
CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University, Wisit Prachuabmoh Building,
Bangkok-10330
Thailand
Ph: 66-2-2187363-65, Fax: 66-2-2559976, Email: admin@focusweb.org
; "fopjun")
; "anti-fta-campaign")
How
"free trade" is destroying Third World agriculture-and who's
fighting back
; "water-report")
