Day: April 20, 2011

The right to choose trade policies Poor people have the right to benefit from trade. Poor countries must be able to choose economic policies, including trade policies that work to reduce poverty. They need the freedom to help support and protect their vulnerable enterprises and traders in the most appropriate way. These policies should not be based on the `advice' of the rich. They should be...

We live in a world of outrageous inequality, with millions of people trapped in poverty. More than anything else it is the institutions, conditions, rules and practices of international trade that keep poor people poor. It is now more important than ever that this situation be transformed. The facts and arguments below will show you the ill effects of trade to those in the developing countries....

According to a briefing paper by a UK advocacy group, nearly 50 million people in India and China died at the end of the 19th century as a result of these countries being forcibly incorporated into the economic and political structures of the modern world system of that era. By Chakravarthi Raghavan GENEVA: The famines and deaths of 50 million people in India and China at the end of the 19th...

The recent disclosures made by Dr. Selva Vathany Pillai concerning malpractice and the misappropriation of resources by hospital authorities at the Gombak Hospital, brings into stark focus, the social and health status of this community. The Orang Asli, (aboriginal peoples), who are the most marginalised community in the country continue to suffer the loss of their lands through resettlement,...

Conventional development, under which the rich take from Third World people most of the value produced by their labour, land and capital, is a subtle and little-recognised form of theft. By Ted Trainer There are two quite different ways of conceiving development. The conventional approach tells poor Third World people to increase their exports, because then they will earn more money and be able...

While the anti-democratic nature of the centralised nation state is undesirable, the emergence of corporate protectionism under globalisation is the real threat to democratic rights and economic livelihoods, says the writer. Countering this recolonisation requires the reinvention of national sovereignty by democratic processes, to create national systems which act in partnership with local...

A life with zero income does not have to be degrading, if people can provide all their own needs for themselves. On the other hand, an income of $25,000 may be called poverty when all needs must be bought in, and such a sum is insufficient for the purpose. By Jeremy Seabrook There is a problem with most definitions of poverty, in that they do not do what they claim to. Thus, it is common for...

CAP draws attention to a report in a local English daily in August 2008 that the current chemical fertiliser import bill amounts to RM5 billion for the oil palm industry alone. The bill was estimated “to increase two fold due to higher petroleum and other commodity prices”. This is a frightening scenario. As stated by the honourable Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk...

In his valedictory address on his graduation from university, the author asks why, despite all the reports of impressive economic growth and trade figures, high corporate profits and stock market activity, the world today is in such a bad shape, with high unemployment, widespread starvation, and environmental degradation. His conclusion — GDP and other conventional yardsticks of global economic...

We must learn to look at nature as something sacred ... or we will have no future By José Lutzenberger TODAY we find ourselves in an absurd situation. Twenty per cent of us, mostly in the so-called First World but also the rich elsewhere, live a suicidal lifestyle that is simply not sustainable. There is hardly a patch on this Earth that we are not yet in some way exploiting or getting ready to...