What’s New August 1999

This page will list the changes that have been made to this site, with the most recent at the top. The "Go There" links will take you to the changes. If this jumps to the middle of a page, you can easily scroll up to understand the context of the new information a bit further.

Date of Update	Description
August 29, 1999	The US threaten South Africa with trade sanctions because it is trying to produce AIDS drugs much cheaper than pharmaceutical corporations in the US. A major force in this has actually been Vice President Al Gore. maybe because of the current election campaign in the US. Go There! - Related Section(s): Fair Trade / Banana Trade War / Causes of Poverty / Conflicts in Africa Milosevic steps up his propaganda campaign as public pressure against him mounts. Many people have protested against him in Yugoslavia. Go There! - Related Section(s): The International Criminal Court / The Need for NATO The Multilateral Agreement on Investment would have been good for the military industry. It would have allowed easier access to foreign markets for cheaper labor and also for selling arms even if the receiver was known to be a gross violator of basic rights, or involved in a military conflict. Go There! - Related Section(s): Fair Trade / Multilateral Agreement on Investment Over population in some areas can lead to conflicts for control of basic resources especially if development in those areas are not sustainable, or favors one group over another unfairly. The Narmada dam project in India is one such current area of tension as well as others. Go There! - Related Section(s): Poverty / Fair Trade / Geopolitics Water and forests are affected by and affect global warming. Global temperature changes are already affecting many species throughout the food chain. Go There! - Related Section(s): Biodiversity Another source of information on Genetically Engineered or Modified food has been added. This one is from a Canadian organization called the Rural Advancement Foundation International. They have a lot of information on their site. Go There! - Related Section(s): Genetically Engineered Food / Biodiversity Another quote added. This is another one from Noam Chomsky about freedom and opportunities. Go There! - Related Section(s): Noam Chomsky
August 22, 1999	The UN has recently been criticized by the US for being ineffective in peace keeping roles in Kosovo. Pretty ironic given that the US is part of those who refuse to provide adequate monetary or political support to the UN in the first place. Go There! - Related Section(s): The Need for NATO / Foreign Policy / UN and Development Is race also a factor in the lack of attention and aid to the various crisis in Africa? A link to a decent commentary from the Guardian provides some interesting perspectives, when compared to the West reaction to the Kosovo crisis. Go There! - Related Section(s): The Kosovo Crisis / Foreign Policy / Corporations and Fair Trade / Causes of Poverty The US threaten South Africa with trade sanctions because it is trying to produce AIDS drugs much cheaper than pharmaceutical corporations in the US. Even though there are ways to make drugs much cheaper via compulsory licensing Washington seems to want to do the opposite. Go There! - Related Section(s): Fair Trade / Banana Trade War / Causes of Poverty / Conflicts in Africa The WTO plays an important part in the GE Food debate. While people believe that the WTO is generally designed to help the US, EU and Japan, the GE Food debate and the safety concern is raising a lot of issues in Europe as well as other places around the world. Go There! - Related Section(s): Genetically Engineered Food / Fair Trade / Causes of Poverty / Environment Issues Some more links to poverty related information has been added. One is a guide to Poverty by OneWorld. The other is an impressive web site primarily about poverty in the Philippines but also how it compares to other regions in the world. It has been created by high school students but has some detailed information and is an entry for an annual international contest ThinkQuest. Go There! - Related Section(s): Trade Related Issues / The Causes of Poverty One type of ecosystem that perhaps is neglected more than any other is perhaps also the richest in biodiversity -- the Coral Reefs. Reefs provide natural protection from the impact of waves and storms as well as providing people with food and medicine. Yet scientists fear that a lot of the coral reefs will be gone in a couple of decades, partly due to climate change. Go There! - Related Section(s): Biodiversity / Global Warming / Animal and Nature Conservation Sulphur emitted from ships are thought to contribute a fair bit to climate change. It is thought that it increases cloud formation and that ship sulphur emissions is almost the same as that of natural sulphur from oceans into the atmosphere in many areas. Go There! - Related Section(s): Biodiversity / Human Population
August 15, 1999	In Angola, 500,000 people have been killed due to the internal conflict since 1989. Interests in the vast source of diamonds and also the offshore oil has pitted transnational corporations, various internal factions and other governments around the world against each other to gain access to these riches, while not really thinking about the people who live there. Go There! - Related Section(s): Geopolitics / Trade Related Issues / Corporations and Fair Trade Some more information about the African conflicts have been added. These are from the BBC. The BBC is one of the few mainstream media sources providing information about the conflicts in Africa. Go There! - Related Section(s): Geopolitics / Mainstream Media Womens reproductive rights should be a human right. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than one woman dies every minute of every day - 585,000 a year - due to preventable complications of pregnancy, childbirth or unsafe abortion. A number of sources of information has also been added to the end of this section. Go There! - Related Section(s): Womens Rights / Human Rights / Human Population / Causes of Poverty Infant deaths in Iraq has increased. It has doubled in the last ten years, according to a new UNICEF study. In autonomous areas where aid has been possible, the rate has decreased a little bit. Sanctions are part of the problem. Go There! - Related Section(s): Foreign Policy / Population An additional source of information on foreign policy has been added. This one is a collection of documentaries called Foreign Policy, International Affairs and Intervention, by the Center for Defence Information, an independent military monitor. Go There! - Related Section(s): Foreign Policy / Arms Trade / Trade Related Issues A source of more information on globalization has been added. This one is a thorough report from the Panos Institute on the effects of globalization, positive and negative, especially on employment. Very objective and detailed. Worth checking out! Go There! - Related Section(s): Trade Related Issues / Corporations and Fair Trade / Multilateral Agreement on Investment / Causes of Poverty / Structural Adjustment A link to more information on global issues has been added. This one is from the Panos Institute, an organization devoted to communicating ideas on sustainable development. They have a lot of good information on a variety of issues. Go There!
August 8, 1999	There is ethnic cleansing going on in the DRC, yet most international effort is concentrated in Kosovo. There are millions of refugees in the various conflicts in Africa, which has been met with a thunderous silence by much of the mainstream press. Go There! - Related Section(s): Kosovo Crisis / Mainstream Media According to Human Rights Watch, 164,000 Serbs refugees have had to leave Kosovo. This has been since the peace deal had been signed. It is not just Serbs that are facing attacks, but also other minority groups like the Roma Gypsies. While the KLA can justify the attacks as revenge for the atrocities committed by the Serbs, some of those Serbs who are now remaining have stayed there because they had helped the Ethnic Albanians during the original brutal crackdown. Go There! - Related Section(s): Racism / Mainstream Media The US House of Representatives voted to withdraw funding from the notorious School of the Americas. The SOA is a US run military training school, which has trained some of the worst human rights violators in Latin America. Go There! - Related Section(s): Human Rights / Arms Trade The US threaten South Africa with trade sanctions because it is trying to produce AIDS drugs much cheaper than pharmaceutical corporations in the US. All while South Africa faces the brunt of the global AIDs epidemic and it tries to do something about it. Go There! - Related Section(s): Fair Trade / Banana Trade War / Causes of Poverty Poverty is the most common cause of child labor, according to the UK Committee for UNICEF. This poverty usually arises from debt, via flawed IMF structural adjustment initiatives and bloated military budgets, leaving little in terms of access to basic services for children. Go There! - Related Section(s): Causes of Poverty / Structural Adjustment / Fair Trade / Arms Trade Structural Adjustment has been a major cause of poverty. By forcing nations to cut back on provisions such as health, education and transportation, while exporting more and more at cheaper prices, developing nations lose out, while Western corporations can profit. Go There! - Related Section(s): Fair Trade / Causes of Poverty / Corporations It is feared that human activity is causing massive extinction in plants and animals. Plants are fundamental for sustainable development. They provide food, medicine for most people, materials for clothes and buildings, and even help naturally protect their ecosystem, yet we are exploiting biodiversity in an unsustainable way. Go There! - Related Section(s): Nature Conservation / Population / Environmental Issues There are a number of food ingredients and plants in India that have been, or has seen attempts to be, patented by various biotech firms. US patent laws may be part of the problem. Go There! - Related Section(s): Genetic Engineering of Food A link to more information has been added. This one is from the National Security Archives, which collects and publishes declassified documents. Go There!
August 1, 1999	The proliferation of small arms has fuelled conflicts in Africa. There are many other complex reasons for these wars too but as much as 90 percent of civilian casualties in modern conflicts in general, have been attributed to small arms. (Some new sources of information have been added too.) Go There! - Related Section(s) on Small Arms: Small Arms The environment in the Balkan region has suffered. One UN report suggests that the environment has been devastated, while another suggests that there is no eco-catastrophe from the NATO bombing. Regardless, it is estimated that it will take 10 years and billions of dollars to restore the region. Go There! - Related Section(s): Environmental Issues / The Need for NATO / Foreign Policy The US mainstream media and US/NATO propaganda have played a major part in the Kosovo war. The biased coverage has missed some vital facts that would have probably affected the opinion and support of the people in this war. Go There! - Related Section(s) on Propaganda and the Media: Mainstream Media The Arms Trade Section has been restructured. Feedback is appreciated! Go There! The US threaten South Africa with trade sanctions because it is trying to produce AIDS drugs much cheaper than pharmaceutical corporations in the US. South Africa are not doing anything illegal, either. Yet another example of corporate influence. Go There! - Related Section(s) on Trade Sanctions: Fair Trade / Banana Trade War / Causes of Poverty The Free Trade of the Americas is coming under scrutiny once more. Given the lessons that should have been learned from the Asian and Latin American financial crisis, perhaps the FTAA should not be so modelled around NAFT and the MAI. Some excellent links on capital markets and the FTAA have been added. Go There! - Related Section(s) on Free Trade: Fair Trade / Multilateral Agreement on Investment / Causes of Poverty The US effectively has veto power at the IMF. This is important when considering the fact that many countries are still in poverty due to harsh IMF Structural Adjustment policies which is all about cut back and debt repayment, rather than poverty reduction and development. Go There! - Related Section(s) on Poverty: Causes of Poverty / Fair Trade A new study says that the healthiest people are not necessarily found in the wealthiest nations. In fact, it turns out to be in societies which have a reduced gap between rich and poor. Go There! - Related Section(s) on Poverty: Causes of Poverty Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) has seen a lot of human rights violations for decades. The pro-democracy movement is strong and ever gaining in strength. Go There! - Related Section(s) on Human Rights: Human Rights Control of media in some way occurs in nearly every country. For example, even in Philippines and Thailand, the freer media in Asia, there are fears of reduced freedom of expression. Go There! - Related Section(s) on Freedom of Expression: Human Rights Scientists report that global warming is a reality and human induced. For some people this might not be something they want to admit, but the study reports otherwise. Go There! - Related Section(s) on the Environment: Environmental Issues

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