From www.alainet.org, May 3 - The World Bank is going through the worst period of its history. Its situation has never been so precarious. Rejected by a growing number of social movements, its credibility has been further undermined by revelations of nepotism on the part of its president, Paul Wolfowitz. At the same time, it is coming under fire from several Latin American governments that are setting up a Southern Bank with radically different perspectives. Could the deathblow be on the way ?

The fiasco of its actions over the last 60 years is clearly what has done the World …

As part of some recent WTO trade talks, Pakistan is endeavouring to open it’s waters to international trawlers — Can you guess the result? Coastal Communities are reporting dramatically reduced catches of local species, and are facing widespread hunger and debt.

ActionAid has just released a report called “Taking the Fish” (link below) which focuses in on this issue.

From the ActionAid Press Release: Rogue trawlers are accused of using damaging nets and of indiscriminately catching and dumping huge quantities of young, unwanted, or dead fish at sea - leaving less for locals to catch.

“The trawlers have nets one …

By Mohammed Mesbahi and Dr Angela Paine
www.stwr.net

In 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human rights. All the world’s nations agreed that every human being in the world had the right to adequate food, water, housing, healthcare, education, political participation and employment. Almost sixty years later, a global economic system based on competition and profit has failed to provide these essentials for the majority of the world. 800 million people are still starving to death in a world of plenty and the gap between the rich minority and the poor majority has increased and continues …

This sounds like something the YesMen would do. Fact is though, this is just business as usual - Ahni

At a Wharton Business School conference on business in Africa that took place on Saturday, November 11, the WTO announced the creation of a new, much-improved form of slavery for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500-year history of free trade there.

From the Article:

The initiative will require Western companies doing business in some parts of Africa to own their workers outright. Schmidt recounted how private stewardship has been successfully applied to transport, power, water, traditional …

In simple rites held under historically significant circumstances, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal: Second Session on the Philippines was convened in the Hague, the Netherlands last October 30, upon the appeal of Philippine human rights and people’s organizations. The first session on the Philippines held twenty six years ago in 1980, in Antwerp, Belgium had indicted the United States-backed Marcos dictatorship of grave crimes against the Filipino people.

The government of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has reacted to the filing of charges by victims of grievous human rights violations with the dismissive remark of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, a former military general, …

Today Pacific Island nations at the Pacific Island Forums have welcomed and endorsed the Pacific Plan, a blueprint for neo-colonialism in the south Pacific.

The Governments of Australia, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, and representatives of Palau and Tonga. New Caledonia, French Polynesia Timor-Leste and Tokelau endorsed the Pacific Plan which is mainly based around implementing a number of trade liberalisation agreements notably Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA), the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) and the Pacific Agreement on …

A few minutes ago I read an article by William Greider, called “Whither the WTO? ” (which follows).
I started looking for more info, specifically the briefing paper he mentions -

What I found though, were hundreds of news articles and press releases, some of which contradict each other so much, that I thought it be could to post it here

Whither the WTO?
In round-about fashion, the WTO’s failure represents belated vindication for the blue-green movement that arose in Seattle six years ago and the Global Social Forum launched later from Porto Alegre, Brazil. These bottom-up political mobilizations offered an alternative vision …

Published on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
by Walden Bello and Soren Ambrose

As economists and politicians debate what to do about the latest challenges facing the IMF, civil society groups have a straightforward answer: take the IMF off life support.

For over 25 years the world has had one answer for countries that find themselves in a financial crisis: take the IMF policy medicine and get on the debt treadmill that comes with IMF and World Bank loans. This path has worked very well – for big corporations in wealthy countries which walk into countries through the doors …

By Siv O’Neall

Manipulated again!

The emptiness behind the slogan free trade has been pointed out again and again by numerous NGOs, by Progressive Internet sites and by individual objectors to the obscene power of the transnational corporations. It needs however to be stressed constantly until the corporate empire falls and IN BOLDFACE CAPITALS, that the free trade concept which the rich countries are holding forth as the savior of the world from poverty, increasing unemployment and horrendous inequality is just a legerdemain, an empty illusion. It is a way of duping all of us into believing that something positive is coming …