Focus on the Global South Site Sydication http://focusweb.org 2009-01-05T21:13:28+01:00 http://focusweb.org http://focusweb.org/images/M_images/logo1-transparent.jpg text/html 2009-01-04T08:58:04+01:00 http://focusweb.org http://focusweb.org/global-trends-driving-land-grab-in-poor-nations-activists.html?Itemid=153 Sunday, January 04, 2009 KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Resource-hungry nations are snapping up huge tracts of agricultural land in poor Asian nations, in what activists say is a land grab that will worsen poverty and malnutrition. Global trends including high prices for oil and commodities, the biofuels boom, and now the sweeping downturn, are spurring import-reliant countries to take action to protect their sources of food. China and South Korea, which are both short on arable land, and Middle Eastern nations flush with petrodollars, are driving the trend to sign up rights to swathes of territory in Asia and Africa. text/html 2009-01-02T01:57:50+01:00 http://focusweb.org http://focusweb.org/silence-is-not-an-option.html?Itemid=93 Statement by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights for the Palestininan Territories, on Israel’s Agression in Gaza. In an unprecedented move, Israel expelled Falk from Israel on Dec. 17, 2008. In recent days the desperate plight of the civilian population of Gaza has been acknowledged by such respected international figures as the Secretary General of the United Nations, the President of the General Assembly, and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Such a flurry of denunciations has not occurred on a global level since the heyday of South African apartheid. And still Israel maintains its Gaza siege in its full fury, allowing only enough food and fuel to enter to stave off mass famine and disease. Such a policy of collective punishment, initiated by Israel to punish the 1.5 million Gazans for political developments within the strip, constitutes a continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as set forth in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. text/html 2008-12-25T00:52:36+01:00 http://focusweb.org http://focusweb.org/the-coming-capitalist-consensus.html by Walden Bello* Published on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 by Foreign Policy in Focus Not surprisingly, the swift unraveling of the global economy combined with the ascent to the U.S. presidency of an African-American liberal has left millions anticipating that the world is on the threshold of a new era. Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s new appointees – in particular ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers to lead the National Economic Council, New York Federal Reserve Board chief Tim Geithner to head Treasury, and former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk to serve as trade representative – have certainly elicited some skepticism. But the sense that the old neoliberal formulas are thoroughly discredited have convinced many that the new Democratic leadership in the world’s biggest economy will break with the market fundamentalist policies that have reigned since the early 1980s. One important question, of course, is how decisive and definitive the break with neoliberalism will be. Other questions, however, go to the heart of capitalism itself. Will government ownership, intervention, and control be exercised simply to stabilize capitalism, after which control will be given back to the corporate elites? Are we going to see a second round of Keynesian capitalism, where the state and corporate elites along with labor work out a partnership based on industrial policy, growth, and high wages – though with a green dimension this time around? Or will we witness the beginnings of fundamental shifts in the ownership and control of the economy in a more popular direction? There are limits to reform in the system of global capitalism, but at no other time in the last half century have those limits seemed more fluid. text/html 2008-12-22T04:37:50+01:00 http://focusweb.org http://focusweb.org/focus-on-the-philippines-december-2008.html FOP December 2008 Focus on the Philippines this month releases a very timely issue on agrarian reform and rural development. On December 17, the last session of Congress for 2008, Legislators will vote on House Bill 4077, seeking to extend and reform the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. This vote will decide the fate of the unfinished business of agrarian reform in the Philippines, with funding for CARP, land acquisition and distribution as well as the provision of support services to beneficiaries, ending this year. This month's issue includes analyses on CARP performance and the need for meaningful reforms as well as a summary of an alternative agricultural roadmap. Perspective: (http://www.focusweb.org/philippines/content/view/229/52/)Standing on Tenuous Grounds by Mary Ann Manahan SocioEcon Monitor: (http://www.focusweb.org/philippines/content/view/232/52/) CARP and the Unfinished Business of Agrarian Reform Development Brief: (http://www.focusweb.org/philippines/content/view/230/52/) Subverting Reform By Raising Wrong Development Policy Choices by Rene E. Ofreneo, Ph.D. Alternative Agricultural Road Map (AARM) (http://www.focusweb.org/philippines/content/view/231/52/): A Summary by Center for Research and Special Studies text/html 2008-12-17T22:10:24+01:00 http://focusweb.org http://focusweb.org/there-is-no-alternative-to-socialism.html?Itemid=147 by SMITU KOTHARI BENNY KURUVILLA Interview with Egyptian economist Samir Amin. SMITU KOTHARI Samir Amin: “It was the financial corporations that asked the governments to step in and ‘nationalise’ them. The rescue package was drafted by them, and they are in control of most of the bailout money.” THE financial crisis continues to spread rapidly across the world, crippling banks, stock markets and manufacturing industries and leaving hundreds of thousands jobless in its wake. Two days after the much hyped meeting of the Group of 20 in Washington, D.C., economist Samir Amin shared his insights into and analysis of the arduous road ahead for economic globalisation and the urgent need for a course change from capitalism and the possibilities of a new internationalism in the form of a Bandung II initiative.