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Date of Update
Description
July 26, 2001
Food dumping on poorer nations in the name of aid increases hunger and is continuing today. As mentioned before on this web site, food dumping has increased world hunger because the dumping of the surplus production for free or nearly no cost to poorer nations means that the farmers from such countries cannot compete and are driven out of jobs, further slanting the market share of the larger producers such as the US and Europe. Such concentration leads to abundant food while people cannot often afford to purchase it. Genetically engineered food export and research are also being subsidized through U.S. aid programs (and hence by U.S. tax payers), subsidizing corporate research, but without labeling, as revealed by the Institute for Food and Development Policy. Additionally, an example on the effect on Haiti of this food dumping has been added. Find Out More »
- Related Section(s): Poverty and Hunger / Causes of Poverty
A UN conference on the illicit trade in small arms caused a stir. Possibly confusing, or targeting fears of domestic gun control, with the international trade in small arms, the United States, objected quite vehemently to control in the trade of small arms. Russia, China, India and other arms producing nations were also against effective universal criteria against arms export. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Oxfam and others feared that the conference would end without much substance, as with so many other conferences. Unfortunately they were right. The International Action Network on Small Arms said that the UN Conference "squandered" an opportunity to deal with small arms issues. In modern conflicts, 90% of civilian casualties are caused by small arms. Find Out More »
- Related Section(s): Arms Trade / Geopolitics
The G8 Summit in Genoa saw further protests at the current forms of globalization and the effects of odious debt on the poor nations. The G8 protests this year were met with very violent crackdown by police, even resulting in the death of a protestor. However, as with other protests at various forms of globalization, the media representation on the issues was not very broad, and concentrated more on the sensationalism and violence. The issues of debt relief still remain. As with previous G8 summits, meaningful debt relief is still lacking. Updates on this site's sections on debt as well as protests around the world at issues relating to globalization have been updated. Public Protests Around the World » Public Pressure on Debt Relief »
- Related Section(s): Debt / Free Trade and Globalization
July 20th marked three years of the global issues web site! Unfortunately I do not have complete statistics and usage logs. However, from what I have, in the last eleven months or so, there have been over a million page views and the average per month is generally rising. (A note on this statistic: last year I reported something like a million hits. I realized a few weeks ago that the stats tool I used didn't differentiate page views and hits; hits can include requests for images etc. In that respect, in terms of hits, the last eleven months saw something like 3 million hits. While I cannot currently get numbers for previous years, last year must have had about half a million to three quarters of a million page views. I apologize for that confusion! I now use an updated stats tool!) As with last year, the site continues to be developed in my spare time and is still growing without any underwriting and sponsorship, other than what comes out of my pocket! Thank you so much for your continued support and please do tell your friends about the global issues web site. To email a friend or colleague about this site, you can also use this link.
July 4, 2001
Some of the hidden costs of mobile phones, computers, stereos and VCRs lie in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Numerous countries from Africa, Europe and N. America have been involved directly, or indirectly in the conflict in the DRC that has seen over a million people killed. Resources such as diamonds, copper etc are known to be at the heart of this conflict. So too is the less commonly heard mineral, Columbite-tantalite, or coltan for short, from which comes Tantalum, a key part of modern computer-based technologies. Additional information has been added as well as additional links to reports and news articles. Find Out More »
- Related Section(s): Conflicts in Africa / Geopolitics / Trade, Poverty and Economic Issues /
Sustainable Forests or Sustainable Profits? We hear a fair bit these days about how sustainable forests are able to provide a way to replace logged trees. However, the actual trees of choice by many large logging companies are water-thirsty Eucalyptus and other such trees. These grow quickly but take up a lot of water from neighboring areas, impacting the surrounding ecosystem. If profits are the goal, such short cuts may be the result. If real development is the aim, then forest management has the potential to be more positive. Find Out More »
- Related Section(s): Biodiversity / Environmental Issues
The International Undertaking (IU) to protect genetic resources results in a weak treaty. The IU was part of a long process intended to help protect genetic resources that underpin food security. However, the weakened text allows seeds and genetic resources to continue to be patented risking further concentration of ownership to the world's basic resources. This in turn can lead to food security issues, by using food as a foreign policy tool for leverage, as we have seen in past decades through other means such as food dumping. Find Out More »
- Related Section(s): Genetically Engineered Food / Food Dumping
Emissions trading versus emissions reduction. While emissions trading has started in some areas and hopes to contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions, other more political issues need to be addressed, such as richer nations using the land of poor countries for so-called clean development mechanisms to help develop carbon sinks etc, while not actually reducing emissions per se, that much. Find Out More »
- Related Section(s): Global Warming / Environmental Issues
Global Issues