A selection of links to June 18 related news stories. Alternative Media |Alternative Media - Video/Audio |Mainstream Media |Articles about J18 Top Stories While two decades ago members of Argentina's wealthiest stratum earned eight times more than their poorest compatriots, today the ratio is 25 to one according to new figures. Worldwide 27 million people - 90 per cent of them women - now work in the export processing zones (EPZs) set up to take advantage of globalisation. Yet although they are responsible for 70 per cent of world trade and 80 per cent of foreign investment, TNCs directly employ only three per cent of the world's labour force. Email Reports from the recent visit of the Caravan to the UK. The Caravan is made up of farmers and grass roots activists from the Southern Hemisphere, who are on a month long tour in the run up to June18th. They are protesting against globalisation, free trade and corporate rule. Women workers across the world have forced globalisation into the dock at the seventh conference of women trade unionists in Brazil. The conference heard that globalisation has resulted in the erosion of workers rights, plummeting wages and a rise in temporary contracts - hitting women hardest. For just US$50,000, corporations with tarnished human rights and environmental records can sign up as 'sponsors' of a poverty alleviation scheme run by the United Nations Development Program. Is this flirtation with corporations in the interest of the world's poor, or just another opportunity for companies to 'greenwash' their image? Low-paid workers - mostly women - are trapped in conditions close to slavery in the 'maquiladoras' of Central America and the Caribbean.
Free trade and capitalism are often touted as the only answer to all the world's ills. But could they be causing the problems of poverty and hunger in the first place? Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics a the University of Ottawa, is convinced that humanity is now undergoing an economic crisis of unprecedented scale. Forget debt. Forget aid. Far and away the most important issue in global relations is international trade. The transnational corporations (TNCs) that control two thirds of the world's trade also have a big say in global politics - and their key demand is for unlimited, unregulated access to all world markets. Working on 3 continents to to challenge the view that the global economy is universally beneficial. Details of actions being taken by Jubilee 2000 supporters: The Debt March; the cyclists and the Richshaw Freedom Riders on issues including: Arms Trade; ChildLabour; Climate Change; Debt; EthicalConsumers; Genetic Engineering; Globalisation; Immigration; Human Rights; Landmines; Land Rights; MediaDemocracy; MultilateralAgreement on Investment (MAI); Population; Poverty; StructuralAdjustment Programmes (SAPs); The City; Trade; TransnationalCorporations (TNCs); UnitedNations; Women'sRights; World Bankand the IMF; World Trade Activists are using the internet to fight large companies over ethical issues. Yet many major brand-owners lack a clear counter-strategy.Marketing Magazine Reed reports (World news stories from UK media on issues related to June 18)
Articles about J18 |