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Labor Trafficking as the Modern-day Slave Trade: the Philippine Case

The Philippines is one of the great labor exporters of the world.  Some 10 per cent of its total population and 22 per cent its working age population are now migrant workers in other countries.  With remittances totaling some $20 billion a year, the Philippines places fourth as a recipient of remittances, after China, India, and Mexico.

Labor Export and Structural Adjustment

The country’s role as a labor exporter cannot be divorced from the dynamics of neoliberal capitalism.  The labor export program began in the mid-seventies as a temporary program under the Marcos dictatorship, with a relatively small number of workers involved–some 50,000.  The ballooning of the program to encompass some 9 million workers owes much to the devastation of the economy and jobs by the structural adjustment policies imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund beginning in 1980, trade liberalization under the World Trade Organization, and the...
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Global Governance of the Internet must be Democratised!

A joint statement by civil society organisations for the UN CSTD meeting on 'Enhanced Cooperation on Public Policy Issues Pertaining to the Internet' to take place in Geneva on May 18th, 2012

 proposed byFocus on the Global South (Thailand), Instituto Nupef (Brazil), IT for Change (India), Knowledge Commons (India), Other News (Italy), Third World Network (Malaysia)

The Internet is a major force today, restructuring our economic, social, political and cultural systems. Most people implicitly assume that it is basically a beneficent force, needing, if at all, some caution only at the user-end. This may have been true in the early stages when the Internet was created and  sustained by benevolent actors, including academics, technologists, and start-up...
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Why the Green Economy is a wrong path to restore the equilibrium with nature and what alternatives do we have?

Twenty years after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992, the environmental crisis continues to worsen. The unsustainable development model that gained dominance in the world resulted to grave loss of biodiversity, melting of polar ice caps and mountain glaciers, alarming increase in deforestation and desertification and the looming danger of an at least 4ºC increase in temperature, which will threaten life as we know it.
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Focus on the Global South Statement on the Denial of Entry to Belgium of Mr. Walden Bello

We strongly protest the  refusal of the Belgian Ministry of Interior to allow Dr. Walden Bello entry into Belgium on May 4th. Dr Bello is a co-founder and Board Member of  Focus on the Global South, a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, and an internationally respected academic and activist for social, economic and environmental justice.  His shabby treatment has shocked and raised the indignation of civil society, academics and policy makers in numerous countries. 

After several hours and multiple requests from the Philippine Embassy in Belgium,  the Protocol Office of the Belgian Ministry of External Affairs and officers of the Belgian Border Police to grant Mr. Bello entry on legitimate grounds,  he was denied a border visa and sent on a plane back to the US, to a different city than the one he flew from.  This treatment of an elected Parliamentarian, with a busy international schedule of work commitments , is utterly disrespectful....
Latest Video:

Video Documentary “Global Crises, Regional Solutions”

Can regional integration offer a way out of the current economic, climate, food and energy crises? In this video documentary, activists from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe* argue that regional integration is the only viable response to these crises.

WATCH ONLINE AT: http://www.alternative-regionalisms.org/?p=4208SHARE THROUGH FACEBOOK

Video Documentary | 26 minutes | April 2012
Latest Press Release:

As Mekong Leaders Gather, Public Awaits Answers on Xayaburi Dam

1 May 2012

Phuket, Thailand –As the Mekong River Commission (MRC) member countries gather today for the MRC’s Mekong 2 Rio International Conference on Transboundary River Basin Management,  the Save the Mekong coalition has called upon regional governments to immediately address the ambiguities that have been left unanswered with respect to the future of the Xayaburi Dam and other mainstream dams.  

On April 20th, the Save the Mekong coalition sent letters to the MRC’s respective Council members and CEO Mr. Hans Guttman asking for clarification on whether the prior consultation process for the Xayaburi Dam remains open and whether approval has been granted to build the Xayaburi Dam.  These concerns follow the April 17th announcement by Xayaburi Dam developer Ch. Karnchang that it had signed a $711 million construction contract with the Xayaburi Power Company, and that construction on the dam commenced on March 15, 2012. 
Latest Event:

Launch of the New Focus on the Global South Programme- Whose New Asia led by Pablo Solon, Focus' New Executive Director

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Latest Announcement:

Join the 9th Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF9):

A call to social movements, frontline communities and campaigning networks, and progressive NGOs, academics and parliamentarians across Asia and Europe: 

“People’s Solidarity against Poverty and for Sustainable Development: Challenging Unjust and Unequal Development, Building States of Citizens for Citizens”

Vientiane, Laos, 16-19 October 2012
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Hacienda Luisita Farmworkers-Beneficiaries Vow to Make their Land Productive; Urge government to review other SDOs and distribute other landholdings under CARPER

PRESS RELEASE

April 25, 2012

The Farmworkers Agrarian Reform Movement in Hacienda Luisita (FARM-Luisita) and Save Agrarian Reform Alliance (SARA) today claim victory in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision to distribute Hacienda Luisita, and for the lands to be valued at 1989 prices. The decision validates the decade long struggle of farm workers in Hacienda Luisita and re-affirms that land distribution should be at the heart of government’s agrarian reform program.
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Farmers demand the World Bank and Wall Street stop grabbing their lands at opening of the Bank’s annual conference in Washington, DC.

The World Bank is playing a leading role in a global land grab, says farmers' movement and its international allies.(1) The World Bank’s policies for land privatisation and concentration, have paved the way for corporations from Wall Street to Singapore to take upwards of 80 million hectares of land from rural communities across the world in the past few years, they say in a collective statement released today at the opening of the World Bank’s Conference on Land and Poverty in Washington DC.