Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Mar (IPS) - When Presidents Vicente Fox of Mexico and George W. Bush of the United States met in 2001, they promised to advance, along with Canada, towards the creation of a North American economic community. But they have not done so. On Friday they reiterated their pledge.
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By Bill Van Auken

The government of Puerto Rico went to federal
court last week, accusing the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and the US Justice Department of
obstructing justice by stonewalling a local
investigation of the FBI’s killing of a leading
figure in the island’s independence movement
during a raid last September.
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Antoaneta Bezlova

BEIJING, Mar (IPS) - For a country in the middle of a huge urbanisation process, involving the movement of hundreds of millions of peasants to the cities, China had surprisingly little to share with its developing counterparts at the World Social Forum, that concluded in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Wednesday.
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ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
Associated Press

GENEVA - The United Nations’ attempt to put 3 million HIV-infected people around the world on antiretroviral drugs by last year fell far short of its goal, but it saved hundreds of thousands of lives nonetheless, the U.N. health agency said Tuesday.
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Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Mar (IPS) - Women were far better off under former Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein, a women’s group has found after an extensive survey in Iraq.
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Alejandro Kirk

KARACHI - Many things did not work here in Karachi over the last few days.
Meetings started late, were cancelled or changed venue; garbage was strewn
all over the place and trash bins nowhere to be found. Just getting into
Pakistan was a nightmare and, to some, just impossible.
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Meena Janardhan

DUBAI, Mar (IPS) - In the evolving debate on reforms, Arab intellectuals and common people continue to emphasise the need for culture and region-specific democratic reforms in the Middle East, and strongly oppose the imposition of Western models.
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IRC | March 2006
Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC)

Why has immigration become such a hot social and political issue in the past few years? What is the intersection between immigration policy, domestic economic policy, and foreign policy in these times of rapid economic globalization and the global war on terrorism? And what are the outlines of a comprehensive immigration reform that would resolve the immigration policy crisis, protect immigrant and worker rights, and address legitimate citizen concerns, while at the same time deflating the agenda of the hard-line restrictionists who are setting the terms of the national policy debate? This is the first of two IRC discussion papers written by IRC policy director Tom Barry that aim to contribute to a constructive discussion of these pressing questions. We invite your criticisms and comments.
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By M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times

Three assaults on the Kremlin within the month must be extraordinary even by Cold War standards. They prompted Anatol Lieven, a prominent American scholar on Russia, to pose a rhetorical question: “Why are we trying to reheat the Cold War?”
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Moyiga Nduru

JOHANNESBURG, Mar (IPS) - There is much that separates Africa and Asia, not least ethnicity, culture and language. But, as the third and final leg of this year’s World Social Forum (WSF) gathers momentum in the Pakistani financial centre of Karachi, the hope is that civic groups will build on common aspirations for the two continents.
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Anil Netto

PENANG, Malaysia, Mar (IPS) - While a buzz of excitement surrounds the World Social Forum, now under way in the Pakistani city of Karachi, veteran activists and political scientists here are having reservations over the regional approach to the global event, with some even unaware it was taking place.
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Ignacy SACHS - January 2006
Background Paper for UNCTAD’s Report on Least Developed Countries.

The early seventies of the past century where marked by an environmental revolution in people’s minds. It was prompted by the realization of the finiteness of the Planet Earth and of the staggering environmental disruption caused by rapid economic growth on account of careless technologies, predatory use of natural resources and excessive reliance on fossil fuels.

More than thirty years later – and three world conferences on environment and sustainable development held in Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg – the gap between environmental rhetoric and disruptive economic growth is widening. Yet, future historians of our ages may recognize 2005 as a turning point in public awareness insofar as it signals the beginning of the oil endgame . Where more than three decades of environmental predication failed, the hike in oil prices succeeded. Gradual phasing out of oil consumption and its substitution by biofuels, side by side with the search for greater energy efficiency, have been put on the agenda of the development debate.
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Mario Osava

CURITIBA, Brazil, Mar (IPS) - Affect, care, cooperation and responsibility are the four central principles of a new ethics that humanity urgently needs to adopt, in order to avoid becoming extinct as “a victim of itself,” Leonardo Boff, one of the founders of liberation theology, said Thursday.
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‘Reflect circles’ of adults cooperate to tackle development projects - and their own illiteracy.
By Stephanie Hanes | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

ORANGE FARM, SOUTH AFRICA – In the middle of this settlement on the southern edge of Johannesburg, a place where poverty and sickness often squeeze out hope and plans, a group of women sit in a circle, recording their goals for the year.
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Laura Carlsen | March 2006
Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC)

The following is the text version of a presentation by IRC Americas Program Director Laura Carlsen to the plenary of the Latin America track of Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington DC, March 11, 2006.
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Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Mar (IPS) - The agreement last week between Washington and Iran to hold direct talks on Iraq has forged a new linkage between the Iraq and Iran crises.
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Marie Trigona | March
Americas Program, International Relations Center (IRC)

Argentina’s worker-run factories are setting an example for workers around the world that employees can run a business even better without a boss or owner. Some 180 recuperated enterprises up and running, providing jobs for more than 10,000 Argentine workers. The new phenomenon of employees taking over their workplace began in 2000 and heightened as Argentina faced its worst economic crisis ever in 2001. Nationwide, thousands of factories have closed and millions of jobs have been lost in recent years. Despite challenges, Argentina’s recuperated factory movement have created jobs, formed a broad network of mutual support among the worker-run workplaces and generated community projects.
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Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar (IPS) - The 5,000-strong U.N. Staff Union, which passed a vote of “no confidence” in Secretary-General Kofi Annan last month, has implicitly declared that his much-publicised plan to restructure the world body is driven primarily by a single country: the United States.
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By ERIC SCHMITT and CAROLYN MARSHALL
THE NEW YORK TIMES
March 2006

As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein’s former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government’s torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.
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Diego Cevallos

MEXICO CITY, Mar (IPS) - Mutual distrust and even suspicions of a “conspiracy” separate the organisers of the Fourth World Water Forum, taking place in the Mexican capital, and the activists holding their own simultaneous alternative gathering.
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By MARK STEVENSON
The Associated Press

MEXICO CITY – Water is worth fighting for _ even to the death, activists holding an “alternate” forum outside the world water summit said Friday. That attitude might seem strange in developed countries, where water flows at the touch of a faucet. But it isn’t nearly as accessible in the developing world.
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Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar (IPS) - A running gag at the United Nations is that whenever the United States takes a defiant stand against an overwhelming majority of the 191 member states, there are only three countries that predictably vote with Washington most of the time – whether it is right or dead wrong.
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Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar (IPS) - The United Nations Security Council remains powerless and ineffective as mandatory military sanctions imposed on conflict-ridden countries and rebel groups are being openly violated, a coalition of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) said Thursday.
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By WARREN HOGE
The New York Times
March 2006

UNITED NATIONS, March — The United Nations on Friday extended by a week its deadline for seeking approval of a new human rights council that is opposed by the United States but backed by rights groups and a vast majority of the 191 member states.
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Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar (IPS) - The United States, a self-styled promoter of human rights and global democracy, has come under heavy fire for “serious violations” of labour rights in its own backyard.
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by Anna Ylä-Anttila,
The writer participated the forum as a representative of Siemenpuu Foundation, Finland

The Caracas forum this year was anticipated to turn into a showcase of Bolivarian revolution and Chávez regime in Venezuela. El presidente surely did use the opportunity to his best advantage, but did not dominate the actual content of the forum.
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Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Mar (IPS) - At a time when people in the developed world are enjoying longer lives, citizens of the world’s poorest countries (LDCs) are still expecting to live comparatively short lives.
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March 2006, SR-06-01

Who’s competing for power in Latin America

Rather like the appearance of El Niño, every four to five years in Latin America there is a bunching of elections in which nearly half the governments of the region come up for renewal. In 2006 11 major elections are scheduled to take place. On few occasions have the outcomes been less predictable, due to considerable mood swings in the electorates and, in several cases, to surprises and uncertainties as to what or who is on offer.
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Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Mar (IPS) - The sudden death of former leader Slobodan Milosevic (64) Saturday has brought the focus back on the controversies of his rule, and raised questions again about the future of Serbia.
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By Thomas Palley | March 2006

Editor: John Gershman, IRC
Foreign Policy In Focus

Outsourcing is a central element of economic globalization, representing a new form of competition. Responding to outsourcing calls for policies that enhance national competitiveness and establish rules ensuring acceptable forms of competition. Viewing outsourcing through the lens of competition connects with early 20 th century American institutional economics. The policy challenge is to construct institutions that ensure stable, robust flows of demand and income, thereby addressing the Keynesian problem while preserving incentives for economic action. This was the approach embedded in the New Deal, which successfully addressed the problems of the Depression era. Global outsourcing poses the challenge anew and calls for creative institutional arrangements to shape the nature of competition.
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Mario Osava

PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Mar (IPS) - Rural social movements are calling for a “new agrarian reform based on food sovereignty,” that would incorporate a range of sectors, including peasant farmers, women, and ethnic minorities, in order to build an effective, and more just, development model.
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By Leif Brottem |
Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco, IPS
Foreign Policy In Focus

The free flow of capital and information is the visible and oft-celebrated face of globalization. Hidden behind the flash of supply chains and e-commerce are countless people that migrate annually from the Global South to North America and Europe in search of work. These economic migrants form an immensely important but largely hidden side of globalization.
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The Times of India

NEW YORK: On the occasion of International Women’s Day on March 8, the UN has called for more women in top national leadership roles and in parliaments across the world.
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Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Mar (IPS) - Both developed and developing countries will lay bare their final negotiating positions at a crucial round of trade talks this weekend.
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Brian Conley and Isam Rashid

BAGHDAD, Mar (IPS) - Repeated cries in the mainstream press of an unfolding civil war fall on deaf ears of many Iraqis. Only some have begun to use the term ‘civil war’ to describe the conflict raging around Iraq; many feel the term is inappropriate.
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by Mika Rönkkö, NIGD

Moving the World Social Forum (WSF) to Africa is an important symbol and great challenge for the global justice movement. The Bamako WSF in January 2006 was an inspiring event, but it also demonstrated that there is still a lot of work ahead, especially outside Africa, in order to make the Nairobi WSF in January 2007 a great success. Though the Bamako forum was encouraging, and the Caracas forum attracted lot of participants and attention, the experiences of the polycentric forum are not very convincing whilst now heading towards the Karachi forum. The Caracas forum attracted major attention while the African organising committees were more or less abandoned. Movements and media invested in the Caracas hype, and for some reason the WSF International Council (IC) forces were also concentrated in Caracas.
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Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose beleaguered administration is facing charges of fraud, cronyism and mismanagement, wants to radically restructure the Secretariat by increasing investments in staff training, shrinking the organisation’s bloated bureaucracy and streamlining budgetary management.
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Network Institute for Global Democratization
Marc Becker
marc@yachana.org

February 2006

As has happened every year for the last six years, at the end of January people from around the world gather in the World Social Forum (WSF) under the slogan “Another World is Possible.” The goal of the forum is to provide a space for social movements and civil society to reflect and strategize on ways to confront neoliberalism and militarism.
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Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Mar (IPS) - While U.S. President George W. Bush hailed Thursday’s nuclear accord with India as a major breakthrough in forging a “strategic partnership” with the South Asian giant, the pact has been broadly denounced by non-proliferation experts here as a devil’s bargain.
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By ANTHONY LAGOURANIS
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Op-Ed Contributor

I HAVE never met Sgt. Santos Cardona or Sgt. Michael Smith, but we share similar experiences. In late 2003 and early 2004, both men used their dogs to intimidate Iraqi prisoners during interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison. They maintain that they were following legal orders. Now they both face impending court-martial.
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Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Mar (IPS) - The European Union has announced concrete measures to improve the effectiveness of development aid and external assistance because it says too much aid is being squandered on the ground.
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International leaders agreed that Muslim anger over the Mohammed cartoons is a symptom of a far more serious problem.

BY TANALEE SMITH
Associated Press
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Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Feb (IPS) - The findings of an unprecedented poll of U.S. troops in Iraq are certain to add to steadily growing pressures on the administration of President George W. Bush to accelerate Washington’s withdrawal from a country that is increasingly seen as being on the verge of civil war.
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Mumia Abu-Jamal

It is mind-boggling for us to be here, now, at this late hour, with Leonard Peltier still in chains.

Books have been written; documentaries have been produced; congresspeople have joined his freedom campaign – all for naught. For Leonard Peltier, a former leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), is still not free!
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