By Marcela Valente, IPS. Export of fair-trade goods, including honey, from Argentina is growing steadily despite the global recession. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. “These Southerners have found Haiti to be the veritable promised land of ‘jobs for deserving democrats’…. In Port-au-Prince many of them live in fine villas. Many of them who could not keep a hired girl in the United States have a half-dozen servants. All of the civilian heads of departments have automobiles furnished at the expense of the Haitian Government… It is interesting to see with what disdain, as they ride around, they look down upon the people who pay for the cars.” – James Weldom Johnson
Continue reading →By Antoine Roger Lokongo, Pambazuka News. Francophone Africans from 14 countries deposit 65 percent of their hard currencies yearly into the French Treasury, without French nationality or access to the public goods and services available to French taxpayers. Close to 1,500 billion CFA (Communauté Financière d’Afrique common currency) francs generated from the surplus of West African states’ foreign reserves are placed on the foreign stock markets and out of the reach of the Africans who own the money. In addition the French force money payments, like an Ivory Coast compensation for the recent war.
Continue reading →By Richard Raznikov, The Rag Blog | Democracy Center | Haiti Chery. About 20 years ago, it dawned on the bankers and some major corporations that if oil was a lucrative commodity, water would be even more so…. The trick was how to take it away from the people and sell it back to them.
Continue reading →By Staff, Xinhua. In an election with 81% voter turnout, the villagers of Wukan elected former protest leaders Lin Zulian village chief and secretary to the Communist Party of China (CPC), and Yang Semao village deputy chief. Back in December, the residents of this fishing village lost one of their leaders in police custody while they were protesting illegal land grabs and abuse of power.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Representatives of Haiti and the international community participated in a one-hour meeting in the National Palace on Thursday, March 1 on the urgent need to establish a Permanent Electoral Council and schedule new elections, as prescribed by the Haitian Constitution. In another meeting between the representatives of Haiti and Venezuela on March 2-3, Venezuela announced $369 million of projects including a gift of financial and technical support for a National Identification system.
Continue reading →By Staff Writers, SPX via Terra Daily. Stockholm, Sweden — The extraordinarily elusive bird, Blackthroat Luscinia obscura, was recently found to be breeding in the Qinling mountains, Shaanxi province, north central China. Fourteen were sighted: a number almost equal to all the individuals ever observed since they were first discovered in the late 19th century.
Continue reading →By John Kennedy, Silicon Republic | Sharon Polsky, Interweb Freedom | YouTube (courtesy of Defend Your Freedom) | Why You Should Care About ACTA (booklet, in multiple languages), European Digital Rights | Assembled by Haiti Chery. European countries, including Ireland, might later this week join the US, Australia, Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Canada in supporting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTA. This bill would deputize Internet Service Providers to spy on their customers, among other things. Includes PDF with text of ACTA. UPDATED Jan 26th.
Continue reading →By David Malone, Golem XIV | Staff, IRIB News. Once it becomes more profitable for countries to use a basket of currencies tied to the yuan, then the yuan will effectively become the world’s reserve currency.
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. All around us empires are tearing a trail of destruction. This is not a sign of strength but one of weakness, because the aim of empire is not to destroy but to conquer.
Continue reading →By Nnimmo Bassey and staff, Friends of the Earth International via Common Dreams. The UN climate talks in Durban take the world a step back by undermining an already inadequate system. The developing countries’ promised reductions are greater than those of the industrialized world, which is responsible for 75 percent of the total human emissions in the atmosphere. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Staff, Haiti Grassroots Watch. Part 3 of 7. Haiti is the only country that guarantees the U.S. market duty-free and quota-free access. With every free-trade zone that gets built on prime agricultural land, more farmers are put out of work. Thus Haitians import more food as real wages drop to rock bottom in the sweatshops, where there are now plans to legalize 3 x 8 hours work shifts. In Haiti, we sometimes talk figuratively about being eaten up. This comes pretty close to the real thing. DC (English | French)
Continue reading →By Staff, BBC News | Commentary by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. In China, Beijing offers the best hourly rate of 13 yuan ($2), and Shenzhen guarantees the highest monthly minimum wage of 1,320 yuan ($207). As surplus capacity from the U.S.-Europe recession causes China to turn to its domestic market, the cost of Chinese-made goods will increase abroad.
Continue reading →By Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.
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