Focus on the Global South International Course 2008
“Globalization and Social Transformation”
November 3 - 21
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok, Thailand
Application Deadline: Sept. 15, 2008
Click here to read the Course Outline
Click here to download the Application Form
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Rock against the Round 2008
Musicians against the WTO
July 25, 2008; 8 pm
Mogwai, Cubao X
Metro Manila Philippines Click here to view the Press Release
“Globalization and Social Transformation”
November 3 - 21
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok, Thailand
Application Deadline: Sept. 15, 2008
Course Description
This cour...
The South Asian People’s Assembly(Colombo, 18-20 July) resolves to issue the Peoples SAARC Declaration at this gathering of representatives from SAARC countries.
We, members of social...
Rock Against the Round 2008
Musicians Against the WTO
Filipino musicians are Rocking Against the Round this Friday, July 25 at Mogwai in Cubao X, Metro Manila, PHILIPPINES, joining activists a...
WTO Deal:
Manmohan Singh Government Must Obtain Explicit Mandate of the Parliament for the Mini Ministerial
Statement from the Indian Peoples Campaign against the WTO (IPCAWTO) on upcoming WTO...
Jakarta, July, 21, 2008—Responding to the WTO mini-ministerial meeting, we are from Gerak Lawan, a broad coalition of Indonesian people's movement, felt it is pertinent to alert the Govern...
Like
the good Count of Transylvania, the so-called Doha Round of trade negotiations
of the World Trade Organization collapsed twice--the first time during the
Cancun Ministerial Meeting in September 2003, the second during the so-called
Group of Four meeting in Potsdam in June 2007--only to come back from the
dead.But has the silver stake
that will render Doha truly and really dead finally been driven through its
heart by the unraveling of the most recent “mini-ministerial” gathering in
Geneva?
DEVELOPMENT BRIEF:Let them Eat 'Spin': National Social Welfare Program, Noah's Ark, and so-called Strategic Responses to the National Crisis by Aya Fabros
SOCIO ECONOMIC MONITOR: Research Shows Arroyo Administration Failing to Meet Own Targets
by Julie de los Reyes
POLITICAL ROUND UP: Politicizing the Bureaucracy, Recycling Political Allies
by Mary Ann Manahan
POLITICAL ROUND UP:Gloria's 8th SONA and the ghosts of past controversies
by Joseph Purugganan
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Stop the New Round Coalition calls the collapse of Doha trade talks a welcome respite for poor countries
The collapse of the Doha Trade talks in Geneva yesterday over disagreements on agriculture subsidies is a welcome respite for poor countries like the Philippines.
In the end, the ambition that has been driving these talks since the Doha round was launched in 2001, became too much and the aggressive push by the rich countries led by the US and the EU for more trade liberalization at a time of global crises of food and fuel too blatant for developing countries to stomach.
There is something surreal about the ongoing World Trade Organization
talks in Geneva , which aim at coming up with a new agreement to bring
down tariffs in order to expand world trade and resuscitate global
growth. In the face of the looming specter of climate change, these
negotiations amount to arguing over the arrangement of the deck chairs
while the Titanic is sinking.
Indeed, one of the most important steps in the struggle to come up with
a viable strategy to deal with climate change would be the derailment
of the so-called “Doha Round.”
Global trade is carried out with transportation that is heavily
dependent on fossil fuels. It is estimated that about 60 per cent of
the world’s use of oil goes to transportation activities which are more
than 95 per cent dependent on fossil fuels. An OECD study estimated
that the global transport sector accounts for 20-25 per cent of carbon
emissions, with some 66 per cent of this figure accounted for by
emissions in the industrialized countries.
We, representatives of peasant organizations, women, migrants, workers, urban and rural poor, fisherfolks, social movements and civil society organizations from East and Southeast Asia call for the rejection of the Doha Round.
We condemn and urgently call the attention of others to the attempts to conclude the Doha “Development” Round through a Mini-Ministerial in Geneva this July 21-26, 2008. This informal meeting to be convened by WTO Director General Pascal Lamy will begin July 21 and last for up to one week. Only around 30 trade ministers were invited to take part in this informal and exclusive phase of negotiations with unfair and imbalanced texts as the basis for the talks.
THE G8 COMMUNIQUE ON CLIMATE: REGRESSION, NOT A FORWARD MOVEMENT
Statement of organizations affiliated with the G8 Action Network
WALDEN BELLO IN SAPPORO:
Civil society’s choice at the G8 summit: the road of Genoa or the road of Gleneagles?
Japan follows Singapore in dealing with foreign activists
CLIMATE CULPRITS – TRADING AWAY THE PLANET FOR PROFITS
Joseph Zacune
CHALLENGE TO THE G8 GOVERNMENTS
A statement to the G8 signed by more than 150 movements, networks and organisations
THE PERILS OF A DOHA DEAL ON SERVICES
Walden Bello
(Statement of organizations affiliated with the G8 Action Network, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, July 9, 2006)
The G 8’s communiqué regarding their action on climate is actually inaction being masked as movement. It is a great fraud being perpetrated on the global community that would significantly reduce its capacity to contain climate change. We fully agree with the statement of the Government of South Africa that “[W]hile the Statement may appear as a movement forward, we are concerned that it may, in effect, be a regression from what is required to make a meaningful contribution to meeting the challenges of climate change.”
By Saturnino Borras Jr., Mary Ann Manahan, Eduardo C. Tadem
First published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer 6 July 2008
OPPONENTS OF EXTENDING THE COMPREHENSIVE Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) insist that we suspend land redistribution and focus assistance on the farmer households that have received land under the program. We argue that it is not a question of land redistribution versus support. The challenge is how to effectively assist land reform beneficiaries while completing land redistribution.
Of neoconservatives and neoliberals: U.S. foreign policy in post-Bush America
Posted by: Alecks P. Pabico on the PCIJ website | July 6, 2008 at 11:21 a.m.
THAT the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush is finally coming to
an end may be comforting a thought to many in light of elections in the
United States to choose a new president this coming November. But the
choices of American voters, having since been narrowed down to John
McCain, the Republican Party nominee, and Barack Obama, the Democratic
Party nominee, are hardly offering the rest of the world much hope in
terms of any fundamental change in U.S. foreign policy.
Visiting academic Dr. Jim Glassman makes such an assessment in a series
of lectures last week before political science students at the
University of the Philippines and civil-society groups at the Focus for
the Global South office. Even Obama's campaign promise of a "Change You
Can Believe In" does not evoke much optimism in the associate professor
of geography at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
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
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