In The News

Security Above All

July 2, 2004
With the coming into force of a United Nations-initiated shipping code a new barrier has been erected in global trading. The International Ships and Port Facility Security Code which was adopted by the UN members in 2002 requires countries to undertake security measures to prevent terrorist use of international shipping. This editorial in a South African newspaper echoes the mixed reaction the...

Alternative Globalization

Bharat Jhunjhunwala July 2, 2004
The author of this editorial in the Ethiopian newspaper questions the wisdom of developing countries staying within the WTO and letting themselves be squeezed by the developed countries. He says that the basic inconsistency of the WTO is that it provides protection to the monopolistic control of technologies but prohibits the monopolistic pricing of natural resources. He argues that the...

China Seeks Low-Cost Drugs for AIDS Patients

Jason Leow June 30, 2004
HIV-AIDS in China has now infected almost a million people, according to official statistics. With at least 80,000 suffering from full-blown AIDS, the Chinese government is trying to find cheaper ways to treat them. Patented drugs from global pharmaceutical companies can cost up to 40,000 yuan a year – many times the average annual income in China. Under the rules of the World Trade...

Fake Medicine Lurks on Consumer Shelves

Rambabu Garikipati June 29, 2004
If you get sick in South Korea, make sure the medication you buy is the real thing. In a recent raid on 123 pharmacies in Seoul, police seized millions of won in counterfeit pharmaceuticals. Local authorities and global drug companies say that fake drugs are easily available in Korea, but questions remain as to whether most are locally produced or smuggled in from China. Although customs...

Death Knell for Cross-Border Leasing Deals

Heidi Sylvester June 25, 2004
When the US Congress voted to close a tax law loophole this month, some German city governments began to worry. Over the past seven years Germany municipalities have signed more than 150 cross-border leasing agreements with US investors. Under the agreements, Americans leased German infrastructure facilities – sewage plants, waste water facilities, etc. – and wrote off the lump-sum cost from...

Can Corporations Safeguard Labor and Human Rights?

Susan Ariel Aaronson June 24, 2004
Recent scandals over US mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan have badly tarnished America’s human rights record. Grave as the abuses are, says globalization scholar Susan Ariel Aaronson, the Bush administration can help restore at least a measure of goodwill by promoting human rights and labor protections in the factories of US-based multinational corporations. The anti-...

Key Cocaine Routes Closed, Feds Say

Jay Weaver June 24, 2004
US officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration have arrested another 50 cocaine smugglers, cutting the total supply of cocaine entering the US by 10 percent over five years. Colombia has long been the main source of cocaine for the American market, but smugglers have had to take a circuitous route through the Caribbean island nations to get to their drop off points in southern Florida....