Page 449 – Toward Freedom

A Corporate Coup of a Different Order: The Growing Resistance to the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Arthur Phillips September 26, 2013 Arthur Phillips

In February, Obama claimed his to be “the most transparent administration in history.” Perhaps the least publicized example of that statement’s dishonesty is the White House’s efforts to negotiate the biggest trade agreement since the mid 1990s in near-total secrecy. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, has been in negotiations since 2007. In November 2009 the Obama administration made it a centerpiece of the United States Trade Representative’s work.

Israel-Palestine: Waiting at the Checkpoint

Ella David September 25, 2013 Ella David

Source: The New Internationalist

Hours of queuing is the lot of Palestinian workers traveling to their jobs on the other side of Israel’s separation wall.

At 3 o’clock this morning, many Palestinian men were already awake and dressed, standing in a queue at Gilo checkpoint in Bethlehem in order to work on the other side of the separation wall. Approximately 4,000 people – mostly men between the age of 18 and 45 – have passed through this checkpoint every day, all year round, to get to their jobs in East Jerusalem or Israel since the construction of the wall began in 2002. Gilo checkpoint is just one of 500 roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank. read more

The Ancestral Values We Inherited: Protecting Indigenous Water, Land, and Culture in Mexico

Tory Field and Beverly Bell September 25, 2013 Tory Field and Beverly Bell

"Within our indigenous community of Xoxocotla, we continue to hold the ancestral values we inherited. It never crosses our mind to leave them behind. Because in daily life we are always in contact with nature, with our lands, with our water, with our air. We live in harmony with nature because we don't like the way that modernity is advancing, destroying our territory and our environment." - Saúl Atanasio Roque Morales, a Xoxocotla indigenous man from Morelos, Mexico

Hundreds of Bangladesh Garment Factories Shut Down as Women Take to Streets in Dhaka

Laura Gottesdiener September 24, 2013 Laura Gottesdiener

More than 300 garment factories are currently shut down in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as hundreds of thousands people — mostly women — take the the streets in the third day of sweeping protests for wage increases in the notoriously exploitative industry.

The New Global Capitalism and the War on Immigrants

William I. Robinson September 23, 2013 William I. Robinson

To understand the immigration reform debate, we need to go beyond the headlines and see the big picture of the role that immigrants play in the new global capitalism system. There is more here than meets the eye.

India’s food security act: Myths and reality

Vandana Shiva September 23, 2013 Vandana Shiva

Source: Al Jazeera

The reforms promoted by Prime Minister Singh do not go far enough to help food production and the hungry.

The debate on the Food Security Act is based on myths on both sides. The government is propagating the myth that it is the largest anti-poverty and anti-hunger programme ever introduced anywhere in the world. The programme is being heralded as Sonia Gandhi’s dream project, and billed as a miracle solution to the agrarian and food crises.

On the other hand, economic pundits are blaming the Food Security Act for the falling rupee and the economic emergency.

The pundits have it wrong, because they are treating the spin as reality. read more