Special to Globe and Mail Update July 20, 2008

Pascal Lamy, head of the World Trade Organization, may be desperate to reach a global trade deal, but developing countries have rightly been concerned about agreeing to texts that promise illusory reductions in agricultural subsidies in the European Union and the United States while requiring them to cut their industrial tariffs proportionally more than the developed countries. They should also not allow themselves to be snookered into a bad agreement on services. (Keep reading…)

Canadian Dimension magazine, July/August 2008

In recent months major international banks, financial newspapers and mass media have been forced to recognize that there is a major food crisis and that hundreds of millions of people face hunger, malnutrition and outright starvation. World conferences have been convoked and national emergencies have been declared, as millions riot in nearly fifty countries, threatening to overthrow regimes. In North America and Europe, skyrocketing food prices, combined with stagnant wages, home evictions and debt payments threaten incumbent regimes and increase pressures on all governments to take urgent action. (Keep reading…)

New Left Review 48, November-December 2007

A reckoning of global shifts in political and economic relations, with China emerging as new workshop of the world and US power, rationally applied elsewhere, skewed by Israeli interests in the Middle East. Oppositions to it gauged, along with theoretical visions that offer exits from the perpetual free-market present. (Keep reading…)

Le Monde Diplomatique January 2008

The unimaginable has happened, to the displeasure of arrogant Europe. Africa, thought to be so poor that it would agree to anything, has said no in rebellious pride. No to the straitjacket of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), no to the complete liberalisation of trade, no to the latest manifestations of the colonial pact. (Keep reading…)

Canadian Dimension Magazine, November/December 2007

“Globalization” has become the easy explanation for any disaster that befalls. In itself, however, this generally obscures as much as it explains. The crisis in Canadian manufacturing is a case in point. (Keep reading…)

Special to Canadian Dimension, September 6, 2007

Today’s two most conspicuous global flashpoints – the Middle East and Latin America – have widely exposed the fact of US imperialism and highlighted some of its limitations. Adding the apparent cracks in US economic hegemony seems to indicate an empire in decline. Yet a more cautious assessment would recall that the earlier defeat in Vietnam did not derail US global expansion, while the new Vietnam has become a model member of the WTO. It is equally sobering to note that the four largest Latin America economies - Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Columbia which collectively account for some 80% of the continent’s GDP - are, in spite of significant jolts along the way, hardly considering any radical break with capitalism but in fact deepening their integration into global capitalism. As for the US trade deficit and falling dollar this is, as I’ll argue below, simply too economistic a measure of imperial strength. (Keep reading…)

WSWS 25 May 2007

In preparation for the G8 summit of world leaders to be held June 6-8 in Germany, the idyllic bathing resort of Heiligendamm is being transformed into a high-security tract resembling the notorious “Green Zone” in Baghdad. The leaders of the seven major industrial nations and Russia will be entrenched behind a wall 12 kilometres long, 2.5 metres high (7.5 miles by 8.2 feet), comprising 4,600 steel panels, mounted with barbed wire, cameras and sensory detectors. An exclusion zone of 11 nautical miles will be established out to sea, complemented by an air exclusion zone extended 50 kilometres into the skies. (Keep reading…)

ZNET May 03, 2007

Venezuela’s decision this week to pull out of the IMF and the World Bank will be seen in the United States as just another example of the ongoing feud between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the Bush Administration. But it is likely to be viewed differently in the rest of the world, and could have an impact on both institutions, whose power and legitimacy in developing countries has been waning steadily in recent years. (Keep reading…)

Canadian Dimension Magazine, May/June 2007 issue

Like a thousand other domestic mining companies operating abroad, Glamis is supported through Canadian stock exchanges, the world’s biggest source of capital for mining. Canada’s laws protect investors by imposing reporting, disclosure and other obligations on corporations. These laws, however, do little to protect people in developing countries from mining risks, including the human-rights abuses that often accompany such mega-projects. And for opponents of the mines, the question is not just about the rules of the game it’s about the questionable benefits of participating in the first place. (Keep reading…)

Canadian Dimension Magazine, May/June 2007 issue

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blockquote>Our action will be guided by shared principles. We’ll take concrete steps in the coming 24 months to improve security at our borders and to ensure the smooth and efficient flow of goods and people, particularly with particular discussions with President Bush on the Windsor-Detroit Corridor. (Keep reading…)