My friend Walden Bello has been characteristically busy. He has just announced his intention to run for parliament in the Philippines (check out his site here, which is already gathering vast numbers of endorsements from the global left). Part of the reason so many regard him so highly is that he's an unusually lucid and clear thinker. A couple of days ago, he wrote this excellent and readable review of the plight of farmers struggling against international trade. Check it out, and see why he concludes that

As environmental crises multiply and the social dysfunctions of urban-industrial life pile up, the farmers' movement has relevance not only to peasants but to everyone who is threatened by the catastrophic consequences of obsolete modernist paradigms for organizing production, community, and life. ... read more »

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Posted on 1 May, 2007 - 18:34

If you found Ngaire Woods' report on how the WTO works a little dry, you probably won't appreciate the humour at this site, run by the Yes Men.

They've posted a press release from the WTO announcing a "Formalized Slavery Model for Africa".

"The same can be applied to poor Africans", claims GATT.org.

The press release continues

"a WTO initiative for "full private stewardry of labor" for the parts of Africa that have been hardest hit by the 500 years of Africa's free trade with the West. ... read more »

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Posted on 12 January, 2007 - 22:06

One of the best organisations of its kind anywhere on the planet, Focus on the Global South manages to straddle the difficult worlds of providing analytical rigour, and concrete support to mass-based social movements. According to its website

Focus’s overall goals are to: dismantle oppressive economic and political structures and institutions; to create liberating structures and institutions; to promote demilitarisation and peace-building, instead of conflict. These three goals are brought together in the paradigm of deglobalisation. This term describes the transformation of the global economy from one centred around the needs of transnational corporations to one that focuses on the needs of people, communities and nations and in which the capacities of local and national economies are strengthened. ... read more »

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Posted on 12 January, 2007 - 20:40

Ngaire Woods, author most recently of The Globalizers and lecturer at Oxford University, has put together a lovely radio documentary at the BBC, looking at how negotiations happen at the World Trade Organization. The title of the show, War by Other Means, suggests what's in store. She managed to secure a interviews with the great and the good at the WTO and, more important, with the diplomatic minnows - most countries in the developing world fall into this category - who are brushed aside in the negotiating process. Listen to the podcast here. ... read more »

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Posted on 12 January, 2007 - 20:25