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On March 16, 2007, Philippine police arrested veteran journalist, activist, former political prisoner and torture victim, Congressman Satur Ocampo, on the steps of the Philippine Supreme Court. One day earlier, in Washington DC, California Senator Barbara Boxer opened hearings on the mounting death squad executions and kidnappings in the Philippines. Nearly a thousand union leaders, clergy members, lawyers, human rights activists, peasants and elected officials of the social action party lists led by Representative Ocampo have been victimized.
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 14th March 07 - Walden Bello, Foreign Policy in Focus It was unexpected. At the Seventh World Social Forum (WSF), held in Nairobi, Kenya, in late January, the most controversial topic was not HIV-AIDS, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, or neoliberalism. The topic that generated the most heat was China’s relations with Africa. At a packed panel discussion organized by a semi-official Chinese NGO, the discussion was candid and angry. “First, Europe and America took over our big businesses. Now China is driving our small and medium entrepreneurs to bankruptcy,” Humphrey Pole-Pole of the Tanzanian Social Forum told the Chinese speakers. “You don’t even contribute to employment because you bring in your own labor.” |
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26th Feb 07 - Nita Bhalla, Reuters India has higher levels of malnourished children than Sub-Saharan Africa, despite the Asian giant having more funds and better infrastructure to tackle the problem, the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday February 21, 2007. |
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It is time for India and China to move beyond a history of conflicts and start cooperating politically, economically and technologically for mutual benefits, writes Dr Aqueil Ahmad.
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29th Jan 07 - Pankaj Mishra, The New York Times Magazine One day earlier this year I met Wang Hui at the Thinker's Cafe near Tsinghua University in Beijing, where he teaches. ... Co-editor of China's leading intellectual journal, Dushu (Reading), and the author of a four-volume history of Chinese thought, Wang ... has emerged as a central figure among a group of writers and academics known collectively as the New Left. New Left intellectuals advocate a "Chinese alternative" to the neoliberal market economy, one that will guarantee the welfare of the country's 800 million peasants left behind by recent changes. And unlike much of China's dissident class, which grew out of the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 ..., Wang and the New Left view the Communist leadership as a likely force for change. Recent events - the purge of party leaders on anticorruption charges late last month and continuing efforts to curb market excesses - suggest that this view is neither utopian nor paradoxical. Though New Leftists have never directed government policy, their concerns are increasingly amplified by the central leadership. |
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 15th Jan 07 - Gaoming Jiang & Jixi Gao, China Dialogue Rapid development has brought great gains to China. But pollution, the loss of land and the destruction of ecosystems will hold back the country’s future growth, write Gaoming Jiang and Jixi Gao. China has seen rapid economic growth since the start of the reform era in 1979. Annual GDP growth averaged 9.6% between 1979 and 2004. In 2004, GDP growth reached 10.1%, an achievement that attracted global attention. Over this period the population has grown sharply; huge quantities of resources have been consumed; environmental pollution has worsened; ecosystems have been wrecked; and vast areas of land have been lost. This has given rise to all manner of environmental problems. The economy has grown, but the environment has suffered. Over the past 27 years, China has adhered to an economic model characterised by high levels of pollution, emissions and power consumption, combined with low levels of efficiency. It has repeated the “pollute first, clean up later” model that Western nations adhered to during their early stages of capital accumulation. |
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14th Jan 07 - Associated Press Asian giants China, India strive to keep ahead of problems Poverty, water shortages, environmental crises: Asia’s booming giants, China and India, confront daunting challenges as they strive to keep their economies expanding fast enough to raise growing numbers of their 2.3 billion people out of poverty. |
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