Quito, March 8-13, 2004

The 1st Americas Social Forum will take place in Quito, Ecuador, from March 8 to 13, 2004. This first hemispheric Forum reflects the modality of regional events adopted by the World Social Forum ­WSF­, in order to tackle in greater depth the regional impacts and specificities of neoliberal globalization, and, likewise, to have a broader space for expression of critical thinking, the diversity of experiences of resistance and of construction of alternatives rooted in the history of the different regions of the world.

Quito will be the meeting point for the Americas, as a new moment in the dynamic process that was set in motion in the hemisphere, thanks to the first three editions of the WSF in Porto Alegre, Brazil (2001-2003). (more…)

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 29 (IPS) - Faced with a no-win situation in an increasingly deadly Iraq, the United States is proposing the creation of a new U.N.-authorised peacekeeping force led by a U.S. military commander.

‘’But it just won’t fly,'’ predicts Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies.

The proposal is a non-starter because it is incompatible with the demand of countries such as France, Germany, Russia and India, which are insisting on ‘’power-sharing'’ – with or without the United Nations, she added. (more…)

In November 2001, the 142 World Trade Organization (WTO) member countries gathered in Doha approved the TRIPS Agreement (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights) and Public Health Declaration, which ratified the right of countries to protect the health and promote universal and equitable access to essential drugs. The Declaration recognizes the primacy of the right to public health over commercial interests, i.e., drugs should be treated differently from other goods and services.

Two years after it was signed, the Declaration has not come into effect yet, basically as a result of the pressure put by the United States on the content of its chapter on Intellectual Property, thus evidencing that country’s intention to prioritize commercial interests to the detriment of public health. This translates into a setback in the attempt to enforce the Declaration. (more…)

Route to Accord Laid Out, Construction Another Matter

By Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Aug (IPS) - The general lines are drawn for the negotiations to
take place among the WTO’s 146 member states next month in Cancun, Mexico.
But pending is the difficult task to unite the behind putting together an
agreement, say sources close to the trade talks.

An agreement would be finalised with the resolution of issues that have
stood out as the critical questions since the beginning of the Doha Round of
negotiations in early 2002: agricultural trade, industrial tariffs and the
agenda items from the 1996 World Trade Organisation ministerial conference
in Singapore. (more…)

Prescott Bush, 1.5 million dollars, and Auschwitz: How the Bush Family Wealth is Linked to the Jewish Holocaust

By Toby Rogers

While the Enron scandal currently unfolds, another Bush family business scandal lurks beneath the shadows of history that may dwarf it.

On April 19, 2001, President George W. Bush spent some of Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Capital Rotunda with holocaust survivors, allied veterans, and their families. In a ceremony that included Jewish prayers and songs sung by holocaust victims in the camps, Benjamin Meed, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, movingly described to the gathering what he experienced on April 19, 1943. (more…)

By Gustavo González*

SANTIAGO, Aug (IPS) - The great disparity between rich and poor is
preventing Latin America from achieving the U.N. Millennium Goal of halving
its malnourished population, says the Economic Commission for Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in its new report “Social Panorama 2002-2003″.

There are some 55 million Latin Americans – 11 percent of the population –
suffering some degree of malnutrition, a “very marginal improvement” over
the 13 percent recorded 10 years ago, says Gustavo Gordillo, regional
director of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO),
which contributed to the report. (more…)

Greg Palast

The tale of the brits who swiped 800 jobs from New York, carted off $90 million, then tonight, turned off our lights

I can tell you all about the ne’re-do-wells that put out our lights tonight. I came up against these characters – the Niagara Mohawk Power Company – some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, “NiMo” built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State’s electricity ratepayers. (more…)

By Brian Thomson*

GENEVA, Aug 26 (IPS) - The international media community would be right to
feel somewhat confused over the role it should play at the upcoming World
Summit on the Information Society. Should journalists be there as reporters, or
are they ready to take a seat at the conference table?

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to be held in Geneva
between Dec.10 and 12 is presenting itself as something new on the summit
scene. It is attempting to recognise the impact of information technology on
diverse groups, and to seek a consensus on a global strategy. But questions
have been raised whether the government is ready to listen to media. (more…)

By Haider Rizvi

New York, Aug (IPS) - “Look at him. I don’t understand why they are punishing this innocent one,” says Rukhsana Saeed, pointing to her infant son who cries in her lap, his small hands holding a plastic bottle filled with milk.

Separated from her husband for more than 10 years, Saeed, a mother of three, came to the United States in April last year, but within 12 months the couple were separated again. (more…)

Desmond Tutu & Ian Urbina

It is difficult not to feel despair and powerlessness at this awful juncture. Millions in the world fought with all their hearts and minds to avoid violence in Iraq. Inevitably, when bombs fall, there is a deep and emotional void that is opened. Many will pray. Others will simply reflect. Countless numbers will continue to take to the streets. But all will worry over the extent of destruction to come and the scope of its repercussions.

We have seen dark moments before. Slavery, the holocaust, the Vietnam War - man’s inhumanity to man is not to be underestimated. In the fight against apartheid, we saw times that seemed the world had come to an end. The nation wept in 1993 with the assassination of Chris Hani, the widely popular leader who many thought would succeed Nelson Mandela as head of the African National Congress (ANC). Violence clenched South Africa. The constitutional negotiations between the ANC and the whites-only National Party were broken nearly beyond repair. This was the lowest point of our struggle. But faith prevailed, as did the moral fortitude of average people to do what is right. With it, apartheid ended. (more…)

By Marty Logan

MONTREAL, Aug (IPS) - Five legal experts will hear submissions in
November on whether Britain, Australia and other nations in the coalition
that attacked Iraq should be tried for war crimes by the International
Criminal Court (ICC).

The independent panel will meet Nov. 8-9 in London and focus on particular
events and issues, said Felicity Williams of the U.K.-based group Public
Interest Lawyers. (more…)

By Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Aug (IPS) - A group of developing countries is discussing an initiative that could be the last chance for averting failure of agricultural trade negotiations at the WTO ministerial conference next month in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.

Trade officials from Argentina, Brazil, China, India and Kenya are working in Geneva on a document that aims to consolidate the issues of critical interest to the developing South. (more…)

This introduces a proposal to hold a one-day World Forum on Communication Rights alongside the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in December 2003. The CRIS campaign (Communication Rights in the Information Society: www.crisinfo.org) is launching the initiative as a collaborative event, and is actively building a broader partnership.

1. The Rationale

The purpose of the Forum is specific. In the context of human rights in general, it focuses on information and communication rights issues that surround the emergence of an information society. These are not limited to concerns regarding the ‘digital divide’ and access to ICTs; but draw on a more profound understanding of the role of information and communication in society and current dynamics and trends. They encompass areas such as the public domain and intellectual property rights, the public sphere and media and communication, and the commercialisation and closure of the Internet. (more…)

Agreements Of The Iii Encuentro Campesino Mesoamericano

Tegucigalpa, Honduras

The three Rural Conventions of Middle America that have been held so far (Tapachula, Managua and Tegucigalpa), have each represented a breakthrough in support, representation, participation, and wealth of proposals. We have always had a common history, common problems, shared experiences and thanks to these meetings we now also have a Middle America Rural Platform and a better mutual understanding and trust.

However, the action plans agreed at these meetings are being carried out to a minor degree and the Liaison Committee, which we agreed to form at the Managua Meeting, has functioned very slightly. That is to say that this understanding between Middle American campesinos has not yet become a true regional organisation. (more…)

By Miren Gutierrez*

ROME, Aug 20 (IPS) - Transparency is not one of oil’s properties;
corruption
seems to rise to its surface wherever it is found. Is oil intrinsically dirty?

“Oil rents have tended to impede democratisation and have sustained a long
line of authoritarian rulers – from the Shah of Iran to Sani Abacha (former
Nigerian dictator) to the House of Saud to Saddam Hussein,” the independent
watchdog Catholic Relief Services (CRS) says in a report ‘Bottom of the Barrel’.

Several other reports point the same way. Oil and gas produce the biggest
kickbacks after arms deals, Transparency International (TI) says in its latest
report on bribery. (more…)

Greg Palast

The tale of the brits who swiped 800 jobs from New York, carted off $90 million, then tonight, turned off our lights

I can tell you all about the ne’re-do-wells that put out our lights tonight. I came up against these characters – the Niagara Mohawk Power Company – some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers. In the 1980s, “NiMo” built a nuclear plant, Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and its partner companies charged billions to New York State’s electricity ratepayers. (more…)

By Katrin Dauenhauer

WASHINGTON, Aug (IPS) - About one in three African American males in the United States can be expected to be jailed during their lifetime, according to a Justice Department report released Sunday.

One in six Latinos and one in 17 whites will also serve time, says the study by the department’s office of justice programmes (OJP).

About 1 in 37 U.S. adults has already been or is now in prison, it adds, giving the “land of the free” the world’s highest incarceration rate in the world. (more…)

NEW ENGLAND INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW ANNUAL

Diane Johnson*

I. Introduction

Kasia T., a 25 year-old mother from Warsaw had no interest in working abroad.(1) The young woman was having marital difficulties and, as a result, became easy prey for “recruitment” by the neighborhood pimps.(2)When Kasia turned down their offer for a high paying club job in Germany, they kidnapped her, took her to a cottage in a remote area and tried to gang rape her into submission.(3) For three days, three men raped Kasia repeatedly.(4) They spoke of selling her to a German brothel owner, as they had other women.(5) It was not until the kidnappers heard that police were investigating the kidnapping that they put Kasia into a car and dumped her on the outskirts of Warsaw.(6) (more…)

By Gustavo González - Tierramérica*

SANTIAGO, Aug (IPS) - Glaciers around the world are disappearing more quickly than initially thought, and global warming is believed to be the culprit. The deglaciation phenomenon – while most intense in Antarctica – is having a major impact on the mountains of Latin America, warn scientists.

One can no longer speak of “eternal ice” in reference to mountain glaciers. This is proved by the continual reduction of the glacier-covered areas of the Southern Ice Fields in Chile and Argentina, of the Mexican volcano Popocatépetl, and of the Callejón de Huaylas, known as “the Peruvian Switzerland". (more…)

Massive Military Contractor Makes Media Mess

Analysis - By Katrin Dauenhauer and Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug (IPS) - It is no secret that U.S. defence and construction companies – particularly those with close ties to the administration of President George W. Bush – are making a lot of money in the post-war rush for contracts in Iraq.

Firms whose directors held membership in Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Defence Policy Board (DPB) or in the ‘Committee for the Liberation of Iraq’ (CLI) did not appear to suffer any handicap, either.

Two big winners, of course, were Halliburton, whose last CEO was Vice President Dick Cheney, and engineering giant Bechtel, whose senior vice president, Jack Sheehan, serves on the DPB. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Bechtel board member and former top executive, also chaired CLI, a supposedly non-governmental body that helped lead the march to war and dissolved itself late last month. (more…)

Noam Chomsky

SEPTEMBER 2002 was marked by three events of considerable importance, closely related. The United States, the most powerful state in history, announced a new national security strategy asserting that it will maintain global hegemony permanently. Any challenge will be blocked by force, the dimension in which the US reigns supreme. At the same time, the war drums began to beat to mobilise the population for an invasion of Iraq. And the campaign opened for the mid-term congressional elections, which would determine whether the administration would be able to carry forward its radical international and domestic agenda.

The new “imperial grand strategy", as it was termed at once by John Ikenberry writing in the leading establishment journal, presents the US as “a revisionist state seeking to parlay its momentary advantages into a world order in which it runs the show", a unipolar world in which “no state or coalition could ever challenge it as global leader, protector, and enforcer” (1). These policies are fraught with danger even for the US itself, Ikenberry warned, joining many others in the foreign policy elite. (more…)

By Jim Lobe

Washington, Aug 14 (IPS) - Human rights groups are hailing the publication of a set of guidelines for businesses worldwide to follow to ensure their compliance with global human rights treaties and conventions.

The United Nations document, ‘Draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights’, could become the basis of an enforceable code of conduct that will protect individuals and communities from rights violations by private businesses.

It was formally adopted Wednesday by the U.N. Sub-Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights, a group of experts attached to the U.N. Commission for Human Rights. It will now be considered by the 53-nation commission and could eventually be adopted as binding by individual nation states. (more…)

By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug 13 (IPS) - When historians look back on the U.S. war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neo-conservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the U.S. media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been.

Part of their success, of course, is attributable to their own close ties to the administration. Some, such as former CIA chief James Woolsey, and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Richard Perle, for example, used their access as members of the Defence Policy Board to enhance their credibility as players with inside information (more…)

Commentary - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug (IPS) - With all the attention paid to neo-conservatives in the global media today, one would think that a standard definition of the term would exist. Yet, despite their now being credited with a virtual takeover of U.S. foreign policy under President George W. Bush, a common understanding of ‘neo-cons’ remains elusive.

A brief description of their basic tenets and origin can help distinguish them from other parts of the ideological coalition behind the administration’s neo-imperialist trajectory; namely, the traditional Republican Machtpolitikers (Might Makes Right), such as Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, and the Christian Rightists, such as Attorney General John Ashcroft, Gary Bauer, and Pat Robertson. (more…)

Table of Contents / GGN:

1) Hope for Kids in Nairobi
2) Committed Phone Calls
3) Physicians for Human Rights

1) Hope for Kids in Nairobi

Two third of the inhabitants in Nairobi live in poor districts without infrastructure
and safety. Due to their social situation half of the children in Nairobi are not
able to attend primary schools but become or culprits or victims of violence and
crime. (more…)

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug (IPS) - As Karl Marx might have said, ‘’A spectre is haunting Washington – the spectre of Iran-Contra'’.

Even some of the people and countries are the same. And the methods – particularly the pursuit by a network of well-placed individuals of a covert, parallel foreign policy that is at odds with official policy – are definitely the same.

Boiled down to its essentials, the Iran-Contra affair was about a small group of officials based in the National Security Agency (NSC) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that ran an ‘’off-the-books'’ operation to secretly sell arms to Iran in exchange for hostages. (more…)

By HASSAN BIN TALAL

AMMAN, Jordan
Faisal I, who became the first king of Iraq in 1921, was a
man of wisdom and foresight. He achieved what few, if any,
leaders of the Muslim and Arab world of the last century
could have done: he brought together all of his country’s
disparate communities in a spirit of genuine friendship and
reconciliation despite the constraints of the largest
hegemonic power of that time, Britain.

One of the most remarkable results of the unity that King
Faisal created was the Constitution of 1925, which not only
incorporated points on human rights but also promoted the
notion of a separation of powers. It is not hard to find
parallels between the concepts expressed in this
Constitution and those of the Charter of Medina, instituted
at the time of the Prophet Muhammad - nor indeed between
both these documents and the American Constitution. (more…)

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug (IPS) - An ad hoc office under U.S. Undersecretary of
Defence for Policy Douglas Feith appears to have acted as the key base for
an informal network of mostly neo-conservative political appointees that
circumvented normal inter-agency channels to lead the push for war against
Iraq.

The Office of Special Plans (OSP), which worked alongside the Near East
and South Asia (NESA) bureau in Feith’s domain, was originally created by
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to
review raw information collected by the official U.S. intelligence agencies
for connections between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. (more…)

Mary Robinson

“Making Globalization Work for all the World’s People”

Aspen Institute Summer Speakers Series
Walter Paepcke Memorial Auditorium
22 July 2003, Aspen, Colorado

Ambassador Nancy Rubin, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great pleasure to be back in Aspen. My last visit was 3 years ago, half-way through my term as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, when I took part in the Aspen Institute’s 50th anniversary celebrations which centered around the theme: Globalization and the Human Condition. I recall vividly the lively spirit of those discussions, which combined serious analysis of problems - from global environmental and health risks to humanitarian intervention and international security threats - with a mood of optimism that the new century would bring greater coherence of action, greater togetherness. I also recall the stunning beauty of the surrounds of Aspen. It really is - as you know well - a special place. (more…)

By Katrin Dauenhauer

WASHINGTON, Aug (IPS) - More than a year after the administration detained two U.S. citizens without charges, a growing number of groups reflecting a broad spectrum of views believe that constitutional rights here are increasingly threatened by the so-called ‘war on terrorism’.

Soon after their arrests, Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla were both declared enemy combatants by President George W. Bush and detained by the military – without a chance to see lawyers or face charges. (more…)

Brussels, 4 August 2003

Commission co-ordinates EU aid to fight forest fires in Portugal and France
The Response Centre of European Commission has been active over the last few days to rapidly co-ordinate assistance and support to Portugal and France in combating forest fires. 29 countries participate in the EU system of civil protection (Member States, EEA countries and 11 accession countries). Forest fires in France burnt more than 30,000 ha and in Portugal 54 000 ha. Five people have died in France and 9 people in Portugal. Assistance has been provided by Italy (1 helicopter, 2 Canadair), Spain (2 Canadair), Greece (2 Canadair) and Germany (3 helicopters) to France and by Italy (2 Canadair) to Portugal. Germany and Norway also offered assistance to Portugal. (more…)

June 2003
Euro-zone unemployment stable at 8.9%
EU15 up to 8.1%

Euro-zone1 seasonally-adjusted unemployment2 stood
at 8.9% in June 2003, unchanged compared to May3,

Eurostat - Statistical Office of the European
Communities in Luxembourg - reports today.

It was 8.4% in June 2002. The EU15 unemployment rate
was 8.1% in June 2003, compared to 8.0% in May3.
It was 7.7% in June 2002. (more…)

By Ricardo Grassi

ROME, Aug 4 (IPS) - Women’s health is threatened by an effective global
campaign being waged by conservative Roman Catholic organisations from the
United States, in harmony with the policies of President George W. Bush, of
Protestant faith, and the diplomatic efforts of the Vatican, say
reproductive rights activists.

The campaign charges that the institutions defending the right of women to
decide whether to give birth and how many children they want are in fact
promoting abortion. (more…)

By Katrin Dauenhauer

WASHINGTON, Aug (IPS) - Observation of the environment must lead to action and individual countries must retain some control over global monitoring systems, environmental groups and developing nations told an international meeting here last week.

Representatives of 35 countries and 22 multilateral organisations were invited by the administration of President George W. Bush to discuss an observation system that is supposed to document environmental changes worldwide.

Most were positive about the initiative but they cautioned officials not to re-make existing systems or set aside important developments in other areas. (more…)

NEWS: http://soros.c.tclk.net/maabjAZaaZAzYb36p4Yb/

Latest News: The One to Watch: Radio, New ICTs and Interactivity
(Comunica/CRIS)

“Sometimes looked down upon as the “poor relation” of television, and
certainly considered old-fashioned compared to the Internet, radio today
has become the one to watch…”
http://soros.c.tclk.net/maabjAZaaZAzZb36p4Yb/

Media Ownership in Easter Europe: full report (ifj-europe)
The report presents startling details on the extent of foreign ownership
and highlights a number of important trends and policy issues that are
having an impact on the development of media policy and media ownership
within these CEE countries and in the European Union in general. (more…)

Analysis - By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Aug 1 (IPS) - If foreign leaders and diplomats appear increasingly confused about where U.S. foreign policy is being made, they are not alone.

>From Qalqiya on the West Bank to Karbala in Iraq to North Korea, contending forces within both the administration of President George W. Bush and his Republican Party are duking it out for control, and the White House seems more and more unable to impose discipline.

While the neo-conservatives and right-wing hawks in the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, who led the drive to war in Iraq, have been put the defensive as the costs in blood and treasure of the post-war occupation mount, they have by no means retreated from the battle. (more…)

EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Trade Ministers from Africa, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACPs) met on 31 July in Brussels to prepare the upcoming WTO Ministerial meeting which will take place in Cancun (Mexico) in September as well as to discuss the ongoing negotiations for EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements.

With less than a month to go before Cancun, both parties agreed to work together to ensure the right balance between market opening and rules, taking into account the particular circumstances of ACP countries, especially the poorest countries and landlocked and island countries. (more…)

By Rahul Goswami

SINGAPORE, Jul (IPS) - A continent that contains a third of the world’s
spoken codes – and yet one whose astonishing diversity of speech and
written systems – is being eroded by relentless globalisation. That, in a
nutshell, is the ethnolinguist’s lament for Asia.

“In South-east Asia, the response to globalisation is to acquire
language skills, not in many languages, but in one, the English language,
which is seen as the key to success in the globalised age,” said Dr Rujaya
Abhakorn, lecturer in South-east Asian history at Chiang Mai University,
Thailand. (more…)