Globalisation

TRADE-INDIA: Wal-Mart Gets a Foot in the Retail Door

By IPS Correspondents
A decision by the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA)government, this week, to allow the entry of Wal-Mart Stores into India's closed retail business has come up against opposition from not only the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but also its own communist allies.

ECONOMY-MAURITIUS: Resistance as Foreign Workers Demand Rights

By IPS Correspondents
Fifteen years after they first came to Mauritius, "guest workers" from China, India and Bangladesh still face resistance to their efforts to improve the difficult conditions they live and work under.

DEATH PENALTY: WTO Entry – Reprieve for Vietnamese Banker?

By IPS Correspondents
Vietnam's recent softening toward economic offences, brought about by its new trade status, could bring relief to traders facing the death penalty for making bad financial transactions.

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: “What Is WSF? Something That Will Bring Me Medicine?”

By IPS Correspondents
In just two months time the World Social Forum (WSF) will get underway in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, marking the first instance in which Africa is acting as sole host of the event.

MEDIA-ASIA: Bush Irrelevance Showing

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
If the commentaries in East Asian newspapers on the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on the weekend are a reflection of the region's mood, then United States President George W. Bush's visit is seen as lacking in relevance.

ECONOMY-VIETNAM: US, China Foster Asia’s Fretful Tiger Cub

By IPS Correspondents
As workers roll up the red carpet and the hoopla over the summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), hosted by Vietnam on the weekend, reality is dawning on the real significance of this communist country joining the global trading system.

ECONOMY-ASIA: China, India See Trade as Fence Mender

By IPS Correspondents
Chinese President Hu Jintao's four-day visit to India from Monday, has revived an old debate on whether the planet's two most populous countries could become closer collaborators rather than cut-throat competitors. Can trade and investment help two of the world's fastest growing economies mend relations marred by decades of mistrust and acrimony?

ECONOMY-ALGERIA: What is the Best Week End for the Weekend?

By Kaci Racelma
Many Algerian employers are lobbying for a return to having their country's weekends over Saturdays and Sundays, rather than Thursdays and Fridays, saying the current policy is cutting into foreign trade revenues.

TRADE: Fears Over Asia-Pacific Free Trade Zone

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Plans to create the world's largest free trade area at a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Vietnam, this weekend, are being viewed with suspicion by activists.

JAPAN: Exploiting ‘Trainee’ Migrant Workers

By Suvendrini Kakuchi
The story, this week, of three Chinese women workers fleeing a garments factory in northern Aomori prefecture has dealt another blow to Japan's much touted trainee programme for foreign workers-that activists say is a front for cheap labour.

AFRICA: China Reaches into Europe’s Resource-Rich ‘Backyard’

By Julio Godoy
The new African-Chinese economic and diplomatic partnership, manifested in the pact signed by China and 48 African countries in Beijing this month, is unsettling European leaders and analysts, who continue to see Africa as Europe's backyard.

DEVELOPMENT: India Social Forum Turns Focus on New Issues

By Praful Bidwai
What do you call a five-day-long gathering of 50,000 people, which features more than 350 panels, conferences, seminars and workshops on a range of social, political and cultural issues, along with film festivals, musical and dramatic events, and colourful marches by diverse groups dancing for different causes?

HEALTH: Chip’n Cola Diets Causing Diabetes in Asian Kids?

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Ahead of World Diabetes Day, marked on Nov. 14, a leading British medical journal has issued a grim warning to Asian countries. Type-2 diabetes among the region's children has reached ‘'epidemic levels,'' says a paper published in ‘The Lancet.'

VIETNAM: WTO Brings Challenges and Opportunities

By IPS Correspondents
Like many of her compatriots, Pham Thi Viet Nga, chief of the Hau Giang Pharmaceutical Co., expects Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to bring both opportunities and challenges.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Think Global, Eat Local

By Toye Olori
It's certainly a logical suggestion: in an effort to make cocoa-producing countries in Africa less dependent on consumers abroad, why not increase domestic consumption of cocoa products?

ECONOMY-INDIA: Double-Digit Growth Possible but Poverty Will Stay

By IPS Correspondents
As India's leaders gear up to boost the country's gross domestic product (GDP) to a dizzying 10 percent per annum, analysts warn that although double digit growth is achievable the country's problems of endemic poverty, unemployment and agrarian distress are unlikely to disappear in a hurry.

ECONOMY-ZAMBIA: China’s Growing Presence Met With Resistance

By IPS Correspondents
Votes cast for presidential contender Michael Sata in the recent election suggest a growing discontent among Zambians over the effects of increased Chinese involvement in their country.

MALAYSIA: Return of Paraquat – Activists Aghast

By IPS Correspondents
The Malaysian government has stunned activists by ‘‘temporarily lifting'' a ban on the toxic weed-killer paraquat so that ‘‘an extensive study'' can be carried out.

POLITICS: Thai Social Forum – Chance for the Voiceless Poor

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
When grassroots activists and academics gather this weekend for the first Thai Social Forum (TSF), they will have to thank the mid-September coup for giving this meeting extra political weight.

CHILE: Exposing the Salmon Industry

By Daniela Estrada
More than 30 environmental and consumer organisations in six countries that produce farmed salmon, including Chile, have launched a global week of action to raise awareness on abusive practices by the salmon industry.

LABOUR-BANGLADESH: Garment Exports Thrive on Dirt Wages

By IPS Correspondents
Bangladesh's garment industry may have survived the quota-free global trade regime but the eight billion dollar earnings it posted in the last fiscal year ending June, was built on the backs of two million workers barely able to keep body and soul together on dirt wages.
« Previous Page — Next Page »
*#*