WTO Protests in Seattle, 1999
Summary:
In November 1999, the WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle was cast against the backdrop of massive anti-globalization protests. At the end of November 1999, Seattle saw major governments meet at a WTO ministerial meeting to discuss various trading rules. Seattle also saw free speech cracked down on in the name of free trade. Enormous public protests ensued. There were many differences in the perspectives of developing and industrialized nations on the current reality of free trade and how it affected them. It resulted in a WTO failure to agree on many issues, without adopting any resolutions. Various anti-capitalist groups, labor movements and radical environmentalists made up the crowd, with at least 40,000 protesters lining the streets in total.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/46/wto-protests-in-seattle-1999
Commentary:
The world trade organization protests have gone down as of the ten Greatest Protests of the 20th Century. Activities ranged from peaceful protest, to occupation, to more extreme acts of direct action such as vandalism. Police were criticized for their harsh approach to dealing with the protesters, though much of the media coverage was negative. Once more, the mainstream media coverage in the US about such a major event was very much lacking. It was pretty much corporate led and therefore concentrating on the sensationalism of the violent aspects of the protests, without really looking at the real issues, such as the corporate domination with lack of accountability. In the end the real issue was globalization, and its consequences. Globalism has its good and bad qualities but in the end globalism is just the modern way of saying imperialism. It seems like the world continuously experiences this never-ending cycle of global oppression.
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Summary:
Children as young as 4 work six and seven days a week in quarries near Lusaka, Zambia, breaking stones into gravel sold at roadside stalls. Across the globe, the number of children forced to work is in sharp decline. But sub-Saharan Africa is the exception. Here, more than one in four children below age 14 works, whether full time or for a few hours a week, nearly the same percentage as the worldwide average in 1960. It is by far the greatest proportion of working children in the world. Their tasks are not merely the housework and garden-tending common to most developing societies. They are prostitutes, miners, construction workers, pesticide sprayers, haulers, street vendors, full-time servants, and they are not necessarily even paid for their labor. Some are as young as 5 and 6 years old. Their numbers in Africa grow even as the ranks of child laborers are dropping by the millions in every other region of the world. Child labor declines with prosperity, and so the region’s economic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/24/world/africa/24zambia.html?pagewanted=all
Commentary:
The reason for this atrocious rise in child labor not only has to do with the regions economic decline but also its staggering H.I.V. rate, which has created millions of orphans who must work to survive, and has forced millions more to work to support dying parents. The region’s population explosion is also a major reason for the rise in child labor. It’s really disheartening to see what a horrible state these children are living in. I can understand their situation and I can sympathize with them because not too long ago I also lived in Africa, in Sierra Leone, the poorest country in the world. I am very lucky to have been blessed with good living conditions and the opportunity to come to America. When reading this article I can’t help but feel a sting of annoyance, at the fact that these children are repeatedly patronized by the people writing these articles. They are not actually publicizing how to help these children and how to make their situations better. It’s not enough to just talk about how bad something is, why not do something as well. Actions are louder than words.
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NAFTA’s Unfinished Business
Summary:
President Obama has decided to restart a pilot program that will allow Mexican trucks to carry goods across the United States which puts an end to Washington’s breach of its obligations under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Nafta promised to open shipping between the United States and Mexico to carriers from both countries. The Teamsters union immediately objected that Mexican trucks are unsafe. Mexico retaliated with $2.4 billion in punitive tariffs on American exports. The deal announced by President Obama states Mexican carriers whose trucks and drivers meet certain safety requirements will be allowed to transport goods from Mexico across the United States. But the two countries are still working to define exact safety criteria.The performance of Mexican truckers should be monitored. But if their good record continues, the United States must do what it promised 17 years ago and open American highways to all approved Mexican trucks.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/opinion/12sat4.html?_r=1&ref=northamericanfreetradeagreement
Commentary:
“In 2007, President George W. Bush finally started a pilot program to allow some Mexican truckers through and monitor their performance. The Transportation Department found that Mexican trucks and drivers operating here had fewer safety violations than their American counterparts.” It would make sense restrictions to be placed on Mexican trucks if they were unsafe, but if they have few safety violations than American trucks then we should really clean up our act. There are different reasons why we should be worrying about the trucks, and I’m not talking about safety. The illegal drug trade is what politicians fear most. Behind all this political “jargen” these tariff wars and such, it the true fear, illegal drug trade. I am in support of free trade and I think we should do our best to make it work by having precautions and regulations in order to avoid tension.
‘The Road We’ve Traveled’: GOP Releases Mock Poster For Obama Documentary
Summary:
Ahead of the release of President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated re-election campaign documentary on Thursday, Republicans crafted a visual response. The Republican National Committee created a mock poster criticizing “The Road We’ve Traveled,” a 17-minute campaign promo directed by Oscar-winning Davis Guggenheim aimed at highlighting the president’s successes in office. The GOP image also renames the movie “The Road We’ve Traveled (wasn’t shovel-ready and it wasn’t even paid for)” and says it is “not starring 13 million unemployed Americans, three record deficits and a coherent energy policy.” Republicans have been giving the video bad reviews since the Obama campaign began dropping trailers a couple of weeks ago. The movie will be narrated by Tom Hanks and appears to be focused on how the president responded to the financial crises he inherited, near-collapse of the auto industry and his political struggle to pass his health care mandate. A segment will also be dedicated to the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/314705/20120315/road-ve-traveled-republicans-mock-obama-documentary.htm
Commentary:
Wait….. this must be a joke. Are the republicans serious? Really? Are they five year olds? It’s ridiculous to even visualize a bunch a grown men and women creating a “mock” poster that makes fun of a documentary about our current president. These are the buffoons leading our nation? How childish, spiteful, and immature. It’s crazy how much freedom we have in America to blatantly diss (for lack of a better word) our own president, and it’s even crazier how the political parties are the people abusing this right. If we lived in any other country or time period, this poster would be borderline treason. As far as the overall reaction from the republicans towards this video, it’s really sad how these republicans, who are supposed to be Americans first, can’t acknowledge the president’s success in dealing with the economic catastrophe he was handed by Bush. They won’t even admit that the economy has gotten better, and they completely ignore all of Obama’s accomplishments. It’s okay to disagree, but give credit where it’s due and acknowledge the truth, at least. I am sick and tired of the GOP playing “victim” and pissing and moaning about President Obama while forgetting that one of their own drove us into a very deep ditch. President Obama deserves to and will be re-elected in November.
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Cisco challenges Microsoft, Skype merger in EU
Summary:
Networking company Cisco is challenging Microsoft’s $8.5 billion takeover of Skype at the European Union’s top court to ensure Microsoft won’t block other video conferencing services. The European Commission, the EU’s competition regulator, cleared the takeover in July and the merger was completed in October. Microsoft Corp. hopes that owning Skype will allow it to better compete across platforms with other tech giants like Apple Inc. or Google Inc. But for Cisco Systems Inc., the world’s largest maker of computer networking equipment, the Skype deal creates a serious challenger to its WebEx service, one of the most popular teleconferencing platforms. Cisco does not oppose the merger, but believes the European Commission should have placed conditions that would ensure greater standards-based interoperability. Cisco wants the General Court of the EU to check whether the Commission was right in clearing the Skype takeover without any concessions. It argues that the Commission should have required Microsoft to guarantee open standards for video conferencing. Such standards would eventually allow WebEx users to make calls to users of Skype and other services like Google Voice. Without these standards, Microsoft could “seek to control the future of video communications.”
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-02-16/news/31067021_1_skype-deal-video-conferencing-cisco-systems
Commentary:
Skype is by far the most popular voice-over-Internet service. But Cisco fears that Microsoft will end up blocking Skype for users of other services, especially if it starts charging businesses for teleconferencing. “Today, however, you can’t make seamless video calls from one platform to another, much to the frustration of consumers and business users alike.” I can totally understand why Cisco is frustrated with this merger; it could not only directly affect their company, but also anyone who wants to make a video call. Of course Cisco may oppose this because of selfish reasons but it could affect all of us as well. Nothing is more frustrating or inconvenient that not being able to contact someone because they’re on a different network, even when it’s the exact same mode of communication. It would be really distressing if Microsoft blocked Skype from users of other services and it would be even worse to have to pay for it. It’s like having a Mac and having to pay to use a program that’s only on Windows. There needs to be more flexibility within all this technology. It’s also quite interesting, and daunting to see how easily these big companies continually take over smaller companies. It’s survival of the fittest and only the big companies can survive while the little ones are feasted on.
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