The Shortwave Report 02/24/17 Listen Globally! (tags)
A weekly 30 minute review of international news and opinion, recorded from a shortwave radio and the internet. With times, frequencies, and websites for listening at home. 3 files- Highest quality broadcast, regular broadcast, and slow-modem streaming. Sputnik Radio, Radio Havana Cuba, Spanish National Radio, and NHK World Radio Japan.
38 Arguments Against TTIP (tags)
TTIP (Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership) agreement continues an old thinking instead of everyone sharing int he profits of a few. The private arbitration courts enable corporations to sue states and could have a chilling effect on labor and environmental protection.
Economist: "TTIP is Doomed" (tags)
Resistance rages across the two parties. Two hegemons negotiate who are not accustomed to making compromises. The US and the EU are like two proud gorillas. The lawyer branch will put up a fierce resistance to losing that niche.
Cochabamba: Water as a Human Right (tags)
The economy should be part of life, not a steamroller crushing self-determination and creativity. The TTIP, TPP and TISA trade agreements create a parallel private arbitration system that gives corporations special rights to sue states. Labor and environmental arein danger.
TPP designed to make medicine more expensive (tags)
The TPP is the latest and most important new trade agreement that seeks to create new standards for intellectual property that are more friendly to pharmaceutical companies and publishers. The TPP chapter on intellectual property expands and extends drug monopolies.
The TPP is being hailed as the strongest free trade agreement yet. But this is not the first time this claim has been made. Proponents of previous trade agreements have made similar claims about every free trade agreement signed in the last 20 years,
A Partial Privatization of Justice (tags)
On www.socialeurope.eu, Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO warns that the TTIP is a secret tribunal where only foreign investors can sue. The TTIP brings a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state by creating a parallel private arbitration system with irrevocable decisions.
Fast Track, TPP and TTIP Should Be Scrapped! (tags)
How scandalous that communities and states should lose sovereignty to corporations! In the TTIP, corporations can sue states for lost profits. Public interest legislation can be called a trade barrier or indirect expropriation.
Democracy for Sale: Stop Fast Track and TTIP! (tags)
The investment protection clause of the TTIP grants investors special protection regarding their so-called :"legitimate expectation." Businesses can sue when they feel restricted in their business activity by new laws in the public interest. Financial services are an important sector for US investors.
The European Commission suspended the secret TTIP negotiations for four months to get citizen consultation on the Investor-State-Dispute SettlementThis proposed parallel system with 3-person courts of arbitration allows corporations to sue for lost profits. Decisions are irrevocable.
Making Sense of the CETA, 128 pp (tags)
An analysis of the final text of the Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement
TISA: Everything Will Be Marketed (tags)
A new agreement (TISA, Trade in Services Agreement) could privatize drinking water and health care through the back door. The resistance by many non-governmental organizations to the free trade agreement TTIP seems to pick up speed
TTIP: Threat to Democracy and the Constitutional State (tags)
The TTIP, the largest free trade zone comprising 800 million of the EU and the US is being secretly negotiated. Democracy and the constitutional state are threatened by 3-person arbitration courts where corporations can sue states and decisions are irreversible.
TTIP Undermines the Constitutional State (tags)
TTIP, Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, is a deregulation agreement, a great redistribution project benefiting mammoth corporations at the expense of women and the 99%. Loud protest caused the EU commission to suspend negotiation on the investor right to sue.
Free Trade Agreement: Special Rights for Corporations (tags)
The TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) gives corporations the right to sue sovereign states for lost profits and endangers public sector jobs and social and environmental protections
Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact more draconian than NAFTA (tags)
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is intended to be a new floor in the ongoing effort to lock in the domination of industrialists and financiers through the multi-national corporations that they control.
Repeal NAFTA to Restore Mexico's Economic Stability (tags)
The economic crisis in Mexico was worsened by the passage of NAFTA free trade agreement. Currently the neoliberal and neoconservative status quo politicians have appeared unable to try to repeal NAFTA, as if the document were written in stone and handed to William "Moses" Clinton by none other than God. Reality is that NAFTA was crafted by some very deceptive human beings who placed the interest of profits for corporations above the well being of the people of the U.S. and Mexico.
Trans Pacific Free Trade Agreement Action Wed! (tags)
SOFITEL hotel in Beverly Hills, Wednesday. NOON to 2:30
Latin American Nations Pledge for Peace in Libya (tags)
"For its part, ALBA member states also articulated their unanimous opposition to intervention on the part of the United States in the Libyan conflict. According to its published statement, the regional alliance, “categorically rejects any intervention from NATO or any foreign power in Libya as well as any attempt to take advantage…of the tragic situation in order to justify a war of conquest of the energy and water resources which are the patrimony of the Libyan people.”
Obama's Decision to Push Bush's NAFTA-Style Korea Trade Deal Without Real Fixes Is Mistake (tags)
Press release by Public Citizen about the Korean trade agreement that's being pushed.
Obama Is Preparing for War in South America (tags)
"The first and foremost important achievement during the Chávez administration is the 1999 Constitution, which, although not written nor decreed by Chávez himself, was created through his vision of change for Venezuela. The 1999 Constitution was, in fact, drafted - written - by the people of Venezuela in one of the most participatory examples of nation building, and then was ratified through popular national referendum by 75% of Venezuelans. The 1999 Constitution is one of the most advanced in the world in the area of human rights. It guarantees the rights to housing, education, healthcare, food, indigenous lands, languages, women's rights, worker's rights, living wages and a whole host of other rights that few other countries recognize on a national level. My favorite right in the Venezuelan Constitution is the right to a dignified life. That pretty much sums up all the others. Laws to implement these rights began to surface in 2001, with land reform, oil industry redistribution, tax laws and the creation of more than a dozen social programs - called missions - dedicated to addressing the basic needs of Venezuela's poor majority. In 2003, the first missions were directed at education and healthcare. Within two years, illiteracy was eradicated in the country and Venezuela was certified by UNESCO as a nation free of illiteracy. This was done with the help of a successful Cuban literacy program called "Yo si puedo" (Yes I can). Further educational missions were created to provide free universal education from primary to doctoral levels throughout the country. Today, Venezuela's population is much more educated than before, and adults who previously had no high school education now are encouraged to not only go through a secondary school program, but also university and graduate school.??The healthcare program, called "Barrio Adentro", has not only provided preventive healthcare to all Venezuelans - many who never had access to a doctor before - but also has guaranteed universal, free access to medical attention at the most advanced levels. MRIs, heart surgery, lab work, cancer treatments, are all provided free of cost to anyone (including foreigners) in need. Some of the most modern clinics, diagnostic treatment centers and hospitals have been built in the past five years under this program, placing Venezuela at the forefront of medical technology.??Other programs providing subsidized food and consumer products (Mercal, Pdval), job training (Mission Vuelvan Caras), subsidies to poor, single mothers (Madres del Barrio), attention to indigents and drug addicts (Mission Negra Hipolita) have reduced extreme poverty by 50% and raised Venezuelans standard of living and quality of life. While nothing is perfect, these changes are extraordinary and have transformed Venezuela into a nation far different from what it looked like 10 years ago. In fact, the most important achievement that Hugo Chávez himself is directly responsible for is the level of participation in the political process. Today, millions of Venezuelans previously invisible and excluded are visible and included. Those who were always marginalized and ignored in Venezuela by prior governments today have a voice, are seen and heard, and are actively participating in the building of a new economic, political and social model in their country.??2 MW---On Monday, President Chavez threw a Venezuelan judge in jail on charges of abuse of power for freeing a high-profile banker. Do you think he overstepped his authority as executive or violated the principle of separation of powers? What does this say about Chavez's resolve to fight corruption?"
Two Anniversaries: Berlin and Seattle (tags)
November 2009 was not only the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall — an historical milestone reported to death by the corporate media — it was also the anniversary of an event the corporate media chose to ignore: the 10th anniversary of the mass protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle in November and December 1999. The challenge for radicals and progressives today is not only to revitalize the spirit of Seattle but to take back the initiative in an era in which the biggest and most confrontational mass actions are being staged by the "teabag" Right.
Zenger's Endorses Obama for President (tags)
With the strongest progressive choices for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Dennis Kucinich and John Edwards, out of the race, Barack Obama is the only candidate left who offers a fresh vision instead of either a continuation of the Bush administration or a return to the trivial, gridlocked politics of the 1990's. On international affairs and the so-called "war on terror," Bill Clinton's policies were little better than Bush's.
Photos / Seoul - Stop FTA. 10,000 South Korean protesters stage an anti-FTA (tags)
Wednesday, December 6, 2006 (Seoul): Thousands of farmers and factory workers took to the streets of Seoul on Wednesday to protest against a free trade agreement (FTA) between South Korea and the US. Holding anti-FTA banners and chanting slogans, the protesters gathered as a fifth round of talks continued at the Big Sky Resort in the US state of Montana to discuss removing tariffs and other trade barriers.
ALTERNATIVES TO THE COLLAPSED WTO DOHA ROUND TALKS (tags)
ALTERNATIVES TO THE FAILED WTO WORLD TRADE MODEL.
Colombia: How Not to Negotiate a Trade Agreement (tags)
Article by Andres Mejia-Vergnaud, Executive Director of the Instituto Progreso ILP, Bogota, Colombia.
Hundreds of thousands of families are at risk with CAFTA, The import duties will be dompletely removed. Guatemala's small farmers will not be able to compete with the heavily subsidized products of the US agricultural industry.
BTL:Opponents of US Ratification of Central American Free Trade Agreement Say.. (tags)
...Victory is Within Reach~ Interview with Shane Stevens, of CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, conducted by Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus
CKUT Radio: The Battle of Guadalajara Mexico - A Radio Documentary (tags)
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Who Will Stop CAFTA Contest (tags)
Quest for Peace of the Quixote Center will run a full-page, New York Times signature ad in opposition to CAFTA- the Central American Free Trade Agreement. The 44,000 dollars and 2,500 signatures it takes is being raised from engaged citizens like you, who wish to proudly and publicly say "No" to CAFTA. The state with the highest number of signers (as a percentage of the state's total population) will be specifically acknowledged in the New York Times Ad. Show the country and Mr. Bush that your state will not tolerate CAFTA! See ad text below.
Because it is such a broad issue, free trade is a difficult topic to convey to the public. In it's struggle to oppose CAFTA- the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Quest for Peace has created a short flash film which it hopes will highlight some of those problems found in free trade agreements.
BTL:Costa Rica Walks Out of Talks for Central American Free Trade Agreement... (tags)
...Signaling Growing Opposition to Pact. Interview with Karen Hansen-Kuhn, coordinator of the Alliance for Responsible Trade, conducted by Between the Lines' Melinda Tuhus
Building Bridges Radio- Central Amer Free Trade Agreement & Taxi Workers Demand a Raise (tags)
Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Reports presents this 27.5 min radio program. TO LISTEN CLICK ON INDYMEDIA LINK.
The Central American Free Trade Agreement will do to Central America what NAFTA did to Mexico. The ministers are meeting in Houston from October 20 through the 24.
Salvadorans Dispatch Leader To Los Angeles (tags)
PRESIDENT BUSH PUSHES FREE TRADE IN EL SALVADOR; WORKER DEFENSE MOVEMENT OF THE CENTRAL AMERICAN COUNTRY DISPATCHES LEADER TO LOS ANGELES TO RESPOND
Shutdown the Summit of the Americas (tags)
Shutdown the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, Canada