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18 Dec 08 SpicaBooks.Com/Globalize_This.html
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Oxfam Takes Aim At Pharmaceuticals February 11, 2001 by CHRIS FONTAINE, Associated Press Writer LONDON (AP) - The relief agency Oxfam is taking aim at the pharmaceutical industry and governments of developed nations, accusing them of keeping lifesaving medicines beyond the reach of the world's poor. In the latest chapter in a growing campaign to broaden access to essential medicines, Oxfam said Monday that drug companies and wealthy nations are "conducting an undeclared drug war against the world's poorest countries." Oxfam urged the World Trade Organization to change its patent rules to allow developing countries to produce low-cost versions of drugs that fight major killers such as AIDS, respiratory tract infections and childhood diarrhea. The Oxford, England-based agency released two reports on the pharmaceutical industry and called for a $5 billion international fund to assist disease research and subsidize drug distribution in poor countries. The high cost of medicines whose patents are held by multinational pharmaceutical companies has become a major complaint in many developing nations in recent years. The issue frequently arises in connection with drugs used to treat symptoms and side effects of AIDS, which poses an enormous economic burden on poor countries. Oxfam accused Western nations and pharmaceutical companies of using threats and legal actions to stop developing countries' efforts to produce cheap medicines. "This is the shadowy side of globalization," said Oxfam's director of policy, Justin Forsyth, describing lawsuits and trade-sanction threats against South Africa, Brazil, Thailand and other countries. "We know that making lifesaving drugs more affordable isn't the whole answer. However, the balance has skewed too far toward corporate wealth rather than public health," Forsyth said. Oxfam singled out British-based giant GlaxoSmithKline, which has major U.S. operations, urging it to set an example for the industry by abandoning legal battles and forgoing patent privileges in the developing world. The company responded by saying that Oxfam's reports ignore its work in developing countries, including initiatives to reduce prices on HIV-related drugs and a donation program for malaria medicine. The company said Oxfam does not recognize "the complexities involved in tackling the problem which requires a shared responsibility by all sectors of society," including governments, nongovernment organizations, the World Bank and the United Nations. Current WTO rules give 20-year protection to patents. Oxfam said safeguards exist to allow governments to maintain cheap supplies of medicines, but charged that those exceptions are being steadily eroded by "the threat of U.S. trade sanctions and corporate bullying." Thailand has been at the forefront of developing nations' fight to provide their people with affordable medicines. In January, Thailand changed its drug regulations to allow locally produced generic drugs to be distributed at the same time as higher-priced imported equivalents, rather than after a two-year testing period. A South African AIDS activists' group, the Treatment Action Campaign, imports cheaply made Thai drugs despite protests from the South African government, which is negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for cut-price AIDS drugs. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning relief agency Doctors Without Borders, a leading campaigner for better access to essential medicines, applauded Oxfam's decision "to put its weight behind this crucial issue." An Indian drug company, Cipla Ltd., offered earlier this month to supply Doctors Without Borders with an anti-retroviral AIDS cocktail for 3.5 percent of its cost in Western countries. The Paris-based organization said it was seriously studying the proposal. | ||
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Police Face World Forum Protesters January 27, 2001 by NAOMI KOPPEL, Associated Press Writer DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) - Police fired water cannons, tear gas and rubber pellets Saturday at activists protesting a meeting of world economic leaders in this Alpine resort, and angry protesters turned back from Davos rioted in Zurich, burning cars and smashing windows. Police surrounded several hundred protesters in Davos, where local authorities had banned demonstrations during the annual World Economic Forum. After issuing warnings over loudspeakers, police opened up with a water cannon on demonstrators who tried to get around a fence erected across the main street. In Landquart, where police stopped hundreds on their way to Davos, protesters blocked roads and police said they fired tear gas and rubber pellets after demonstrators attacked security personnel with sticks. One person was reportedly injured. As evening fell, some 400 demonstrators sent back to Zurich on a special train from Landquart rioted, breaking windows, burning cars and overturning trash containers and burning cars, authorities said. Police fired water cannons and rubber pellets. The demonstrators said police had met their train "with tear gas guns drawn." Police in Zurich said the damage from the worst violence in recent years in the Swiss financial capital was "massive," but they had no immediate estimate of its cost. The protesters claim increasing liberalization of world trade and investment leads to improved living standards for the rich and higher profits for business at the expense of the poor and the environment. Demonstrators said that despite the protest ban - and heavy snowfall - they were determined to deliver their message against spreading globalization to the corporate bosses and other financial leaders meeting in Davos. "We have to fight for the right to freedom of expression," said Kees Hudig, who came from Amsterdam. He called the police response an overreaction. The forum opened Thursday, and authorities had tightened the seal around Davos, Europe's highest city in elevation, but numerous demonstrators said they managed to slip in anyway. "It is a right I have to move freely in my country any time I want," said a woman from Zurich who gave only her first name, Carmen. "Until today I didn't realize I lived in a police state." Hundreds of demonstrators were stopped at Landquart, about 25 miles from Davos, where they blocked a major rail line between Zurich and many of eastern Switzerland's ski resorts. With helicopters buzzing overhead and barbed wire fences erected at strategic points, the country's winter tourist heartland resembled a battle zone rather than an Alpine paradise. Davos itself was almost cut off from the outside world. Most stores closed for the afternoon and McDonald's, which had its windows smashed last year, disappeared behind protective boards. Elsewhere in Switzerland, a group of some 200 protesters spray-painted slogans on the walls of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization but did not manage to break into the lakeside building. Scuffles were also reported in Klosters, a nearby ski resort, and police used water cannons in Chiasso, on the Italian border, to disperse protesters trying to enter Switzerland. Most Swiss newspapers and many residents criticized the security operation as excessive. Tourist officials were dismayed by a U.S. State Department warning to Americans that visiting Davos could be dangerous during the forum. | ||
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by Jeremy Brecher & Tim Costello.
by Richard Barnet & John Cavanagh.
by
Harry Shutt. by
Robin Hahnel. by David C. Korten.
by Joshua Karliner. | ||
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February 13, 2000 - by Dirk Beveridge
The weeklong U.N. Conference on Trade and Development, which started Saturday, was being touted as a place for trade officials to redeem December's debacle in Seattle, where street protests turned violent and World Trade Organization ministers failed to launch a new round of global commerce talks. But security issues plagued the Bangkok meeting as well, with an American anti-free trade activist dodging a cordon around the conference to throw a pie in the face of International Monetary Fund chief Michel Camdessus. Following the embarrassing incident, Camdessus went ahead with a speech, his last before stepping down as IMF chief. He used the occasion to counter claims that his organization has ignored the concerns of ordinary people.
Camdessus said foreign investment in the Third World has enormous potential to close the income gap, while information technology has given poor nations access to knowledge that was once the preserve of the rich. The U.N. meeting, held every four years, focuses more on the developing world and a feeling among many of its leaders that they cannot access wealth created by a global system centered on high technology and increased power by multinational corporations.
"While we welcome their collaboration with our local companies, we fear if they are allowed into our countries unconditionally, they may swallow up all our businesses," said Mahathir, long a vocal critic of the West. "I am worried and frightened at the preparations being made by corporations in certain industries and business activities in order to take advantage of liberalization and globalization." Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said Saturday that his country, the richest in Asia, would agree to open its market to most goods from the poorest countries - but only if the United States and Europe go along. The Europeans have given the idea a warmer response than the Americans, Japanese officials said privately. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a "Global New Deal," with rich nations extending a helping hand to their poor neighbors. "The downsides of globalization are indeed painful," said Philippine President Joseph Estrada, whose nation lags many of its neighbors economically. "But taking the bigger pills against its ills is superior to living inside a sterile bubble." After the pie-throwing incident, Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai ordered stepped-up security at the convention center and hotels where delegates from some 190 nations are gathered. Shortly after the order was issued, 500 protesters outfoxed hundreds of officers and set themselves up directly in front of the main gates. Police in riot shields surrounded the demonstrators, who sat down and refused to be moved. No violence was reported. After an hour, the demonstrators on their own cleared the area. While the U.N. meeting is essentially a forum for developing nations and not a place where policy is set - like the WTO - organizers have promoted this session as a chance to rebuild confidence in global trade after the debacle in Seattle. WTO Director - General Mike Moore is huddling here with trade officials from various nations for that purpose. UNCTAD is meeting in the capital where Asia's economic crisis began July 2, 1997, with the devaluation of Thailand's currency. That devaluation revealed major cracks in the developing world's efforts to boost its economies quickly. Thailand announced this week it would be leaving the IMF's rescue program, a symbol that Asia is bouncing back, with regional growth expected to average 4 percent this year. Critics of the IMF's bailout packages of Asian countries during the recent regional economic crisis see the Washington-based fund as a symbol of how globalization has benefitted rich countries at the expense of the poor. In Thailand, which will leave its IMF-brokered $17.2 billion economic bailout package in June, many people claim the fund's insistence on high interest rates to restore financial stability deepened recession, leading to heavy job losses. | ||
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In which sectors do German businesses set the standard? Road vehicles, electrotechnology and mechanical engineering are the sectors that generate the largest share of German exports. This is where Germans have a leading position on the world market. What will Germany's key industries be in the 21st century? Business locations are developing differently as a result of globalization. In Germany we are seeing a trend towards a decline in industrial employment. We should set ourselves the goal of securing a leading position in international services in the 21st century. I'm thinking here of planning and consultancy, Internet companies, and engineering firms. When people refer to the German economy, a distinction has to be made between east and west. When will business and industry in the new federal states reach the levels achieved in the old federal states? The development of a strong economy takes time. Overall, I don't see the east German economy reaching the west German level in the next ten years. There are, however, individual regions, industries and companies that equal and sometimes even surpass west German competitors in terms of productivity and performance. The important thing now is for businesses to convert their market successes into lasting successes. Which regions or industries are these? The regions around Dresden, Potsdam, Halle/Leipzig and Erfurt have a special dynamism. These are the centres of growth. However, my experience of east Germany is actually rather different. Development is less a question of regions and sectors, and much more a question of successful entrepreneurs. We are now also finding successful entrepreneurs in sectors that I would have previously thought rather unlikely in east Germany. Over the last few decades, a globally unique system of social partnership has developed in Germany. Will this system be able to survive? I would like to keep this system fit for the future, because social partnership is a precious asset. Economic processes tend to have a centrifugal effect. Those who participate become increasingly better off, those who do not increasingly worse off. Social partnership is needed to moderate this. In future, however, social partnership will have to involve a more equitable share of the risks. What does that mean in concrete terms? Until now, social partnership meant that employees had rights to protection and employers bore the risks. This distribution of risks will have to be equalized; employees will have to take on more risks in the coming decades. At first glance, that would seem to represent a deterioration in the employees' position, but it is good for overall developments and creates greater dynamism, which then benefits everyone. Is our education system prepared for the challenges of the information age? We are up-to-date when it comes to content. But we must instill more characteristics like the readiness to take risks, team spirit and mobility. The 1990s have been marked by globalization. Will this process continue?
Globalization already began 100 years ago and has now attained a special dynamism
because it is becoming increasingly easier and cheaper to exchange information
around the world. In fact, we already have a global business location.
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