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Wednesday, June 10, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
TRADE: Global Growth Moderate in 2003, Looking Up for 2004
Global trade grew 4.5 percent in 2003, a modest recovery with respect to the healthy margins achieved in the 1990s, said the World Trade Organisation on Monday, though predictions are for stronger trade growth this year.BURMA: Even Basic Freedoms Still Lacking, Says UN Expert
The most disturbing indicators of the human rights situation in Myanmar (Burma) are the absence of basic freedoms and the prolonged imprisonment of political dissidents, who in some cases have been behind bars for 14 or 15 years, said United Nations expert Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.HUMAN RIGHTS: UN Commission Condemns Israel for Hamas Leader’s Death
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights condemned the assassination of Palestinian sheik Ahmad Yassin, spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), by Israeli troops in Gaza on Monday.HEALTH: Experts Divided in War Against Tuberculosis
World Tuberculosis Day found the scientific community divided on the status of this disease: the optimism of the World Health Organisation contrasts with the gloomy forecasts of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF).HUMAN RIGHTS: Cuba-US Tensions Heat Up Early in UN Sessions
Cuba denounced the inclusion of an alleged terrorist in the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, stirring up the existing tensions just as its annual sessions are getting under way this week in Geneva.ECONOMY: Developing Nations Want Bigger Voice in IMF, World Bank
Developing nations are not happy with the process used to select the heads of the multilateral financial institutions, which are controlled by the industrialised powers.HUMAN RIGHTS: U.S. Blocks Protocol for ‘Neglected’ Rights
Economic, social and cultural rights are the pariahs of international human rights legislation and will continue to be relegated to the second order, mostly due to U.S. obstructionism, say activists.DRUGS: Fight Against Narco-Trafficking Goes Local
Experts on the illegal narcotics trade used to focus on the drug kingpins, but now they are shifting their gaze towards the small-time dealers who are active in local communities.GLOBALISATION: Incoherence Persists Among International Agencies
An independent commission of experts suggests that the criticisms against the current globalisation process would be sharply reduced if there were full employment, though warned that to achieve such a lofty objective requires international institutions to act with coherence.GLOBALISATION: A Positive Force or Source of World’s Woes?
One of the most provocative interpretations of globalisation comes from former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has said the process "is really another name for the dominant role of the United States."/CORRECTION/HEALTH: WHO Has Eye on Use and Abuse of Medicinal Plants
Devil's claw is a medicinal plant grown in southern Africa that is considered a cure-all - used in treating sores, fever, arthritis, muscular pain, high cholesterol and many other ills - and is now in the sights of the World Health Organisation.COMMUNICATIONS: Tunisia Pledges Openness for Second WSIS
The government of Tunisia has assured that all civil society organisations will be allowed to participate in the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, to take place in Tunis next year, the follow-up to last December's meet in Geneva.RIGHTS-COLOMBIA: The Displaced Ask, Where Is the State?
What is most astonishing about Colombia is the poverty, particularly among Afro-Colombians and Indians, abandoned by the state and displaced by the armed conflict in the Choco region, near the Panama border, says a United Nations official.DEVELOPMENT: Globalisation Should Pick Up Hunger Tab
The globalisation process generates more than enough resources to finance programmes to fight hunger and poverty, states the initiative announced here Friday by Brazil's president, with backing from other countries and the United Nations.RIGHTS-U.N.: Complaint Filed on Behalf of 9/11’s Other Victims
Pakistani Khurram Altaf longs to be reunited with Anza, his nine-year-old, U.S.-born daughter, who remained in New York after the U.S. government arrested and deported her father, like hundreds of other Muslim and Arab immigrants in the wake of the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks.DAVOS FORUM: Farm Trade Unnerves Even the Most Stolid
The inequality of international farm trade, of all the problems afflicting the developing countries, is apparently the only one capable of shaking up the more than 2,000 business executives, financiers, government leaders and economists participating in the World Economic Forum this week.TRADE: Pressure Rises for WTO Negotiators
The goal of recovering this year the ground lost in the Doha Round of trade talks is winning support among the 147 member states of the World Trade Organisation, troubled by two years of sluggish negotiations.TRADE: Agriculture the Yardstick for Liberalisation
The director-general of the World Trade Organisation rejects the idea of separating agriculture from the rest of the issues in the Doha Round as a means to kick-start the foundering multilateral negotiations.DAVOS FORUM: Flexibility the Price for Making Profits in China
China holds surprises for foreign investors, who might find themselves doing business with the president of a major company who is also the leader of the firm's labour union and local secretary of the governing Communist Party.DAVOS FORUM: Two Different Worlds Overlap
The World Social Forum, which ended Wednesday in Mumbai, seemed to have a lingering after-effect on the corporate executives, financiers and government leaders gathered in the alpine resort of Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF), which began that same day.TRADE: Intensive Care Prescribed for WTO Mini-Meet at Davos
A stay at the tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss city of Davos proved beneficial for one of the protagonists of Nobel laureate Thomas Mann's novel, The Magic Mountain.« Previous Page — Next Page »
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