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News archives

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Power to the People
Every nongovernmental organization has a mission statement. For example, CARE, one of the world's largest and best-funded NGOs, explains its mission as serving "individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. Drawing strength from our global diversity, resources and experience, w... Continued...

Monday, October 27, 2008

Farm-Credit Squeeze May Cut Crops, Spur Food Crisis (Update1)
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The credit crunch is compounding a profit squeeze for farmers that may curb global harvests and worsen a food crisis for developing countries. Global production of wheat, the most-consumed food crop, may drop 4.4 percent next year, said Dan Basse, president of AgResource C... Continued...

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Financial Meltdown Worsens Food Crisis
SHANGHAI -- As shock waves from the credit crisis began to spread around the world last month, China scrambled to protect itself. Among the most extreme measures it took was to impose new export taxes to keep critical supplies such as grains and fertilizer from leaving the country. About 5,700 mi... Continued...

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Tar sands 101
Canadian fuel source has huge impact on environment, health As energy demand increases, it's clear we need to find cleaner, more affordable, and more efficient ways to produce energy. What we don't need? Outdated and dirty energy sources that are more polluting, less efficient, and worsen global w... Continued...

To Counter Problems of Food Aid, Try Spuds
VITORIA-GASTEIZ, Spain — With governments having trouble feeding the growing number of hungry poor and grain prices fluctuating wildly, food scientists are proposing a novel solution for the global food crisis: Let them eat potatoes. Grains like wheat and rice have long been staples of diets in m... Continued...

Targeting Unions in Colombia
There are lots of places in the world where you need to watch your step. You don't want to be a Sunni in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad (or vice versa). It's probably not smart to speak Tamal in southern Sri Lanka. You might want to keep being a Muslim under wraps in parts of Mindanao. But most of... Continued...

Friday, October 24, 2008

Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security
A new report from GRAIN Today's food and financial crises have, in tandem, triggered a new global land grab. "Food insecure" governments that rely on imports to feed their people are snapping up farms all over the world to outsource their own food production and escape high market prices. Private... Continued...

New Treaty Aims to Protect Shared Transboundary Aquifers
PARIS, France, October 23, 2008 (ENS) - Underground aquifers contain 100 times the volume of fresh water found on the Earth's surface but they have been neglected under international law despite their environmental, social, economic and strategic importance. On Monday, that will change as the UN ... Continued...

Poorest countries must improve trade capacity: WTO
GENEVA (Reuters) - The world's poorest countries need to get more competitive at producing and exporting goods in order to take advantage of preferential access offered by rich countries, an internal WTO report says. But many Least Developed Countries (LDCs) find their export opportunities limite... Continued...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

When the U.S. Gets a Cold, Mexico Gets Pneumonia
The U.S. subprime mortgage mess has gone viral, infecting almost every country. Among large developing economies, the one that will suffer by far the most is Mexico. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that Mexico's economic growth rate will reach only 1.8% in 2009, a steep drop from ... Continued...

Oct. 21 - New Memo Shows WTO Roots of Financial Crisis
Deregulation of the financial service sector – including banking, insurance, asset management, pension funds, securities, financial information, and financial advisory services – has been among the most important, but least discussed aspects of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) agenda since its 1... Continued...

Tar sands transform Canada
A Calgary author and journalist says most Canadians don’t understand that we’re living in a “petrostate” that could undermine our democracy. Andrew Nikiforuk, author of Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Greystone Books, $20), told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview that Cana... Continued...

Lawmakers gain in EU climate power struggle
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European parliament leaders will bring forward a vote on steps to combat climate change to try and gain influence in a power struggle with member states, parliament sources said on Thursday. The parliament, which has so far taken a strong line on protecting the environment, w... Continued...

`We blew it' on global food, says Bill Clinton
UNITED NATIONS – Former President Clinton told a U.N. gathering Thursday that the global food crisis shows "we all blew it, including me," by treating food crops "like color TVs" instead of as a vital commodity for the world's poor. Addressing a high-level event marking Oct. 16's World Food Day, ... Continued...

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Ban on pesticides may face NAFTA test
Dow AgroSciences is considering using the controversial investor-protection provisions of the North American free-trade agreement to seek compensation from the federal government over Quebec's ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides. The company, a maker of the weed-killer 2,4-D, filed a notice of ... Continued...

U.S. Chemical Company Challenges Pesticide Ban
The issue of free trade was largely a non-issue during our recent federal election. However, the North American Free Trade Agreement might have garnered a few headlines if the Feds had disclosed that U.S. chemical giant Dow signalled in late August that it is gearing up to sue Canada. Dow Agro... Continued...

Monday, October 20, 2008

OIL SANDS-PART 3: Biggest Customer Has Second Thoughts
FT. MCMURRAY, Oct 20 (IPS) - As Canada's tar sands extraction expands full steam ahead, a perfect storm of internal and external opposition could derail some of the voracious growth at the world's largest energy project. Together, skyrocketing construction costs, falling crude prices, increasingl... Continued...

Friday, October 17, 2008

OIL SANDS-PART 2: "Where I Come From Is Ground Zero"
FT. MCMURRAY, Oct 17 (IPS) - The wheels of the Caterpillar 797B, the world's largest truck, are always going round and round at Shell Canada's Albian Sands mine. The massive dump trucks, with wheels standing twice the size of a person and tires costing some 40,000 dollars apiece, carry tar sand 2... Continued...

U.S., EU both claim victory in beef hormone dispute
A ruling on the European Union's ban on beef treated with growth hormones had both the United States and the EU applauding. The World Trade Organization's Appellate Body concluded on Thursday that the European Union can continue to ban imports of beef treated with growth hormones, but the United... Continued...

WFP to buy more local food
THE UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) wants to double the amount of food it buys in Uganda, to about $100m (sh170b) worth annually, to support agriculture in the country and improving the lives of small-scale farmers. This was announced yesterday by the country director, Stanlake Samkange, ahead of... Continued...

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Hunger crisis prompts call for government 'food czar'
Washington, D.C. - During the 1960 presidential campaign, George McGovern hatched an idea he thought would help John Kennedy appeal to Midwest farmers and also do something about world hunger. Farmers could feed their world, McGovern thought, if only the U.S. government did a better job of buying... Continued...

OIL SANDS-PART 1: Showdown at Ft. McMoney
FT. MCMURRY, Canada, Oct 16 (IPS) - The sun rises in a bright, red line over flat land, small lakes, boreal forest and peat bogs as our small double engine plane bumps through early morning turbulence between Edmonton and Ft. McMurray, Canada. With more than 173 billion barrels of oil recoverable... Continued...

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

NAFTA: A possible catalyst for increased migration rates?
With promises of higher employment rates, more affordable and better quality goods and increased economic growth, the North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico would seem a beneficial alliance. But Marco Antonio Velasquez Navarrete, a Mexican sociologist, belie... Continued...

European Leaders Call for Summit to Overhaul Global Financial System
As the world's industrialized nations continued to roll out more plans to bolster flagging economies, European leaders called for a review of the global financial system. "If we can bring coordinated answers to the financial crisis, can we not bring coordinated answers... Continued...

Britain urges EU to stick to climate change agenda
BRUSSELS (AFP) — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown urged EU leaders on Wednesday not to abandon their goals to combat climate change in the face of growing pressures from the global financial crisis. "This is not the time to abandon a climate change agenda which is important for the future," he... Continued...

Rich countries to keep up climate funds: World Bank
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Despite the current global financial storm, rich countries are resolved to keep up funding to help developing nations combat climate change, a top World Bank environment official said on Tuesday. Countries that have pledged to donate a total of $6.1 billion to the bank's ne... Continued...

Climate Change: Rural Women are Part of the Solution
October 15 2008, Rome - World Rural Women’s Day takes place on October 15 of every year, one day before FAO’s World Food Day. Its aim is to raise the profile of rural women and to highlight the crucial role they play in supporting global food security. The world is facing a climate change crisis and... Continued...

Where Water Trumps Energy
Editorial Deep beneath the Earth’s surface from New York to West Virginia sits the Marcellus Shale, an enormous geological deposit of natural gas. Natural gas is one of the cleanest fuels available — if you can extract it without ruining the water around it. Retrieving Marcellus natural gas re... Continued...

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

WWF: Financial crisis must not overshadow climate crisis
BRUSSELS, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) -- The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Tuesday asked the European Union (EU) not to backtrack on its emissions reduction commitments because of the current financial crisis. The WWF launched the appeal through its Brussels-based European Policy Office on the eve of an EU ... Continued...

WTO launches search for new chief
GENEVA, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) launched its search for a new head on Tuesday when it is still unknown whether current director-general, Pascal Lamy, will stand for a second term. Lamy, a former EU trade chief, became director-general of the body that umpires world t... Continued...

The death of the Washington consensus?
Last Friday the New York Times quoted the World Bank as saying "There's no question the Washington consensus is dead," indeed it "died at the time of the $700bn bail-out." If the bail-out is death, then awarding Paul Krugman the Nobel prize for economics is the nail in the coffin. Paul Krugman di... Continued...

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Will Steger: It's a poor time to exploit oil shale
We are at a critical moment. As we burn fossil fuels, we are causing a buildup of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and our climate is very close to spinning out of control. Demand has outstripped supply of petroleum, causing inflation and putting America in the precarious position of relying on for... Continued...

Friday, October 10, 2008

How Badly Can the 'Experts' Ruin the Planet?
Remember the World Bank, that global "development" institution based in Washington, D.C., that dispenses billions of dollars a year to poorer nations with the declared intent of ending global poverty? We -- and many of you -- spent decades protesting the World Bank and documenting the bank's project... Continued...

Tar sands pollution to spread east, says report
Oil production in the Albertan tar sands could have an adverse effect on the Great Lakes Basin region, 1,700 miles to the east, according to a report from the University of Toronto. The Program on Water Issues, part of the University’s Munk Centre for International Studies, has warned that the side ... Continued...

George Monbiot stirs debate over fate of tar sands
George Monbiot wants the Alberta tar-sands industry shut down “as quickly as possible”. The best-selling author, Guardian columnist, and environmentalist told the Georgia Straight he would like to see “large-scale direct actions” to make that happen. When Monbiot granted the Straight an interv... Continued...

Making trade work
Recent work by leading economists suggests that a new consensus is emerging on free trade agreements. Gone is the doctrine of the Washington consensus which preached signing trade deals with any nation that is willing. A narrow but significant accord is emerging that says smaller regional and bilate... Continued...

Thursday, October 9, 2008

WTO head suggests world summit to set economic rules
Paris, Oct 09: The WTO head suggested world powers hold a summit like the historic Bretton Woods economic gathering to tackle the world financial crisis, in comments published on Thursday. "If it means getting the world powers round the table, namely the United States, Europe... China, India, Bra... Continued...

U.S. focus on climate could ease financial crisis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If the United States focused on curbing climate change as soon as a new president took office -- or sooner -- it could help pull the world from the financial brink, environmental policy experts told Reuters. "Skyrocketing energy prices and the financial crisis have been a w... Continued...

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Free Traitors
Jagdish Bhagwati is a humble man. He will tell you so himself. Describing the effect of his book In Defense of Globalization during a speech at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) last fall, the Columbia economist politely refused credit for single-handedly dampening gro... Continued...

Oil sands will pollute Great Lakes, report warns
The environmental impacts of Alberta's oil sands will not be restricted to Western Canada, researchers say, but will extend thousands of kilometres away to the Great Lakes, threatening water and air quality around the world's largest body of fresh water. In a new report, the University of Toronto... Continued...

Canadian Government Lets Oil Companies Off the Hook on Climate Change - Environment Groups Demand Real Action, Reject Tar Sands Pipeline
OTTAWA, MONTREAL and TORONTO, Oct. 8 /CNW Telbec/ - On the eve of Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach's central Canadian tour to promote development of the Athabasca tar sands, the Climate Action Network released a report today showing that the federal government's proposed climate change strategy lets oil... Continued...

Paraguay Limits Sale of Farm Land to Foreigners
The Associated Press -- ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Oct. 6 -- The government says it will enforce a long-standing law against foreigners buying agricultural land from Paraguayan citizens. The government's land agency says enforcing the nation's Agrarian Reform may require some foreign owners to forfeit... Continued...

Monday, October 6, 2008

Amid financial crisis, World Bank chief urges 'new multilateralism'
WASHINGTON (AFP) - World Bank president Robert Zoellick said Monday that the current financial turmoil highlighted the need for a "new multilateralism" to replace outdated structures. Describing the financial turmoil of this year as a "wake-up call," Zoellick said the world needed to look beyond ... Continued...

Friday, October 3, 2008

The Wall Street Mega Bailout: Bad News for the World's Hungry
Rising food prices are proving deadly for the world's poor. Reeling under a combination of speculation, high oil prices, agrofuels and a weak dollar, one in every six people on earth are going hungry this year. Fully half the world is now at risk of hunger and malnutrition. The current financial cri... Continued...

OBAMA: "Subsidising Big Oil Makes No Sense"
GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan, Oct 3 (IPS) - Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama sat down with IPS correspondent Bankole Thompson again on Thursday for a one-on-one interview in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where over 15,000 enthusiastic Obama supporters turned out to hear his message of change at... Continued...

Protesting First Nations, Enbridge, may have a deal
SASKATOON - An official for Enbridge Pipelines Inc. is confident that First Nations protests against the company will end later today after the sides reached a tentative agreement. Talks between the two groups began Thursday morning at a Saskatoon hotel and went late into the night. The First Nat... Continued...

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Pipelines at risk from red tape, industry says; Government urged to hasten approvals
Governments need to streamline more than $40-billion worth of pipeline approvals to increase investor certainty and provide Canadians with access to timely and affordable energy supplies, the head of the country's pipeline industry group said in Calgary on Wednesday. Speaking at an international ... Continued...

Enbridge proposes pipeline reversal
If all goes according to plan, Enbridge Pipelines will have oil running west to east by this time in 2010. The pipeline company had a team of employees in Brighton Sept. 19 to explain the proposed changes to area residents. The open house was the fifth of seven planned by the company. About 2,500... Continued...

Kitimat plant now geared for export; Market conditions call for change of emphasis
Rising natural gas demand in Asia and supply increases in North America have resulted in Kitimat LNG announcing it will build an export liquefied natural gas plant in Kitimat, a change from its initial plan to build an import facility. The switch in plans also comes with a significant cost increa... Continued...

Canada must renegotiate NAFTA now!
(Montreal and Ottawa, October 1st 2008) – Given that the North-American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is emerging once again as an issue in the US elections, the Harper government has been quick to praise the agreement in an obvious attempt to avoid renegotiating it. We, civil society networks and or... Continued...

ENVIRONMENT: Companies Scramble for Ever-Scarcer Resources
NEW YORK, Oct 1 (IPS) - As humanity runs out of oil and minerals, the extraction of previously untouched deposits suddenly pays off -- financially. But experts warn that it will likely further accelerate climate change and seriously damage the environment. Back in the 19th century it was easy to ... Continued...

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Dos, don'ts on energy; Another bill Congress hasn't passed
The bailout strikeout is not the only congressional swing-and-a-miss these days. Congress also has failed to agree on a comprehensive energy bill that could steer our economic and environmental future in the right direction. Even if legislators do finish work on the bailout sometime soon, they'll... Continued...

Oil sands safe from U.S. law, advocates say
U.S. environmentalists have declared another victory in their efforts to protect legislation that threatens Canada's booming oil sands, but oil sands advocates say there is no triumph to celebrate. The legislation in question bans the U.S. government and its agencies from buying alternative fuels... Continued...

U.S. government seeks new solutions to combat global hunger crisis
New York - Insufficient food production is one factor in the food crisis hitting much of the developing world – yet it is also true that some African farmers see 70 percent of their production lost before it reaches the market. And irrigation will be part of the answer to feeding hungry populatio... Continued...

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Let's Renegotiate NAFTA and the WTO Agreement
Battle in Seattle is opening in movie theaters across the country, a rare combination of high drama and history-making events as they actually happened when thousands of protesters shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle nearly nine years ago. It has an all-star cast including Oscar-winnin... Continued...

High stakes in Canada’s vast oil-sands fields
Fort McMurray, Alberta The relentless search for oil has led explorers to the boreal forest of northeastern Alberta, among the jack pines and black spruce trees an hour’s drive from the boom town of Fort McMurray. Kelly Hansen, operations manager at ConocoPhillips’s $1 billion Surmont oil-sands p... Continued...

Canada to Curb Tar Sands Exports?
Canada prides itself on its clean-and-green bona fides, and its ratification of the Kyoto protocol a few years back came in sharp contrast to the Bush administration’s dismissal of the agreement. But the country’s rapid expansion of oil sands development, a great emitter of greenhouse gases, has ... Continued...

Friday, September 26, 2008

Growing Majority of Canadians Agree with Obama: Renegotiate NAFTA
Ottawa – The Council of Canadians has found that 61% of Canadians agree with U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama that NAFTA should be renegotiated to include enforceable labour and environmental standards, in a poll commissioned from Environics. The finding follows those of earlier polls and de... Continued...