The headlines out of Mexico these days are dominated by the fiery violence related to the war on drugs. Mexico’s economy is also heating up in ways that are extremely dangerous to the future of the country.
The real story of why American industry moves to China may never be told in the mainstream media.
Kenyan scholar Firoze Manji gives his thoughts on the ‘aid industry’, an industry which hampers Africans’ recovery of their continent, made rotten with corruption and the pillaging of natural resources.
Sounding the alarm about various threats posed by a rising China has become a cottage industry among pundits and politicians. One of the oldest warnings is that China’s increasing demand for food will wreak havoc on international markets, causing mass starvation in food-importing countries. But this concern ignores the safeguards China has in place for food shortages and the lessons the rest of the world could learn from this approach.
The last decade of officially celebrated growth left behind a vast underclass. The world’s richest 500 people, hardly enough to fill a movie theater, command more wealth than the bottom 416 million. From the varied vantage points of affluence, the poor are many things — victims, citizens, objects, profit opportunities. Ananya Roy’s recent book Poverty Capital brilliantly captures a growing global consensus about poverty, and a brave new world of ideas aiming to fulfill oft repeated declarations of “making poverty history.”
In 1875, as Europe set its sights on Africa’s vast riches, King Leopold II of Belgium wrote to his ambassador in London, “I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake.” It’s America’s turn now, and it appears that the Obama administration – like Bush before him – is driven by a similarly disturbing vision: a new scramble for Africa.
The Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (Korea FTA), which the Obama administration is promising to send to Congress for ratification in the next weeks, would be the largest international trade deal since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Korea is the seventh largest U.S. trading partner and the United States is Korea’s third largest trading partner. Commerce between the two countries is estimated at $86 billion annually. The Korea FTA was originally signed in April 2007 by President Bush and later amended by the Obama administration in December 2010. But neither the U.S. Congress nor the South Korean parliament has yet to sign it
Microcredit’s odd link to police brutality.
In 2007, a determined Democratic caucus put their collective feet down. They refused to consider any more free trade agreements without a new model, with stronger protections for labor, human rights, and the environment. And so in May, the caucus and its supporters cut a deal with the Bush administration for a new and improved FTA with Peru.
Citing canard that moderates are more inclined to respect Republicans on national security matters, libertarians and Grover Norquist call for defense cuts than Democrats.