Key Points
Andean Regional Initiative: A Policy Fated to Fail
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Latin America & Caribbean
U.S. Military Bases in Latin America and the Caribbean
Key Points
WTO Agreement on Agriculture: Suitable Model for a Global Food System?
Can Debtors be Choosers?
On February 4th and 5th, leaders of the G-7 nations convened in London to discuss options for ending the grievous cycle of debt that has plagued the world’s most impoverished nations for years. Announcements and proposals prior to the meetings by officials from the United States and Britain calling for 100% cancellation of multilateral debt spurred optimism that a deal could and would be reached over the weekend. Unfortunately, disagreements between John Taylor, the Under Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and Gordon Brown, Finance Minster for Britain over how to finance the cancellation prevented debt-laden nations from receiving the solutions they need.1 Furthermore, the proposals on the table also failed to include provisions that would eliminate the contentious conditions attached to the current Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) debt-sustainability framework that have caused fierce objections among some debtor nations.2
The Last Porto Alegre
ItÂs not Paris or Tokyo, Beijing or New York. Nor is it São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro. Enthusiastic residents of Porto Alegre, Brazil will tell you that their modest city of 1.5 million people in the countryÂs deep South is Âthe last bastion of socialism and rock Ân roll. Indeed, stalls covered with black Iron Maiden t-shirts stand in the public markets, and the municipality long served as a stronghold of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), the Brazilian Workers Party. But today Porto Alegre is best known around the globe, especially among those inclined to hold a critical opinion of capitalism, corporate power, and U.S. military aggression, as the original home of the World Social Forum.
The Toxic Border
In early September 2002, the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras (CJM) put out a call to border activists, urging them to act quickly to salvage one of the few remaining complaints filed under the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC)Âthe case of mistreated workers at Customtrim/Autotrim. Inside the cavernous San Diego Convention Center, the CJM had learned, the temporary Binational Working Group on Occupational Safety and Health was holding a secret discussion between U.S. and Mexican government officials, supposedly to find ways of protecting the safety and health of maquiladora workers.
The Trouble With CAFTA
On December 17 officials from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua finished negotiations with the United States on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA is a bad deal, one that promises to extend the harmful impacts of NAFTA to Mexico’s weaker southern neighbors.
Guatemalan Woman’s Asylum Case a Major Test for Ashcroft’s Position on Women’s Rights
Immigration and human rights groups are hoping that a legal brief they have submitted to Attorney General John Ashcroft will persuade him to uphold a proposed Clinton administration policy that women who have suffered severe domestic abuse in their homeland may be granted political asylum in the United States.
Guatemala and the Forgotten Anniversary
Democracy has been much in the news of late. At the G-8 Summit in Georgia, one of the main items on the agenda was the democratization of the Middle East, and the recent commemoration of the D-Day anniversary and the passing of President Reagan both generated discussion concerning the defense and spread of democracy.
Chvez Reconfirmed
Ryan Murphy, creator of television’s popular reality TV show Nip/Tuck, has a theory based in Greek tragedy of why viewers tune in to see volunteers request extreme plastic surgery and wind up hideously disfigured. “It’s a cautionary fairy tale. It says, ‘Be careful what you wish for’,” he told USA Today recently.1