Archive for November, 2011

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04/11/2011

The “Occupy” Struggle Needs To Build a Multiracial Movement

Human Wrongs Watch

By Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor* – SocialistWorker 

The Occupy struggle needs to represent and involve all of the 99 percent–and that means putting issues affecting people of color at the center of our movement. 

Image: Mrwho00tm | Wikimedia Commons

Occupy Wall Street has sent a bolt of electricity through American society and politics in a way that hasn't happened in decades. It has made the powerful and wealthy of this society the focal point for decades of class rage that has simmered beneath the surface.

The Occupy Movement has forced the mainstream media to report on and discuss poverty, economic inequality, and the corruption and money that pollute the political system in this country. Maybe most important is the way the movement has popularized the notion that there is a basic divide in this society and around the world: the 1 percent versus the 99 percent.

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Posted in Market Lords, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples | Leave a Comment »

02/11/2011

Just Help the Banks, Not the Cooperatives!

Human Wrongs Watch

By Baher Kamal*

While European politicians are spending millions of euro on never-ending summits to seek the best way how to further fund their banks through new re-capitalisation plans, cooperatives silently gather over 800 million people in 100 countries, employing more than 100 million persons worldwide—that’s 20 per cent more than the multinationals, without due political, social or economic attention from politicians.

Credit: UN

And while the major banks have been causing continuos financial and economic problems after leashing the current global crisis, the largest 300 cooperatives in the world had an aggregate turnover of 1.1 trillion US dollars, comparable to the gross domestic product (GDP) of many large economies, according to three UN specialised agencies– FAO, IFAD and WFP.

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Posted in Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Market Lords, Middle East, Mother Earth, Others-USA-Europe-etc., The Peoples | Leave a Comment »

01/11/2011

Small Farmers, Victims of Food Marketing Companies

Human Wrongs Watch

New York – Smallholder farmers, who produce up to 80 per cent of all food in some areas, mainly in Africa, “face the risk of exploitation under contract farming arrangements with processing or marketing companies,” according to UN top “right to food” expert.

Women are the most experienced small farmers | Photo: UN

Contract farming locks farmers into one segment of the food chain, said UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, who presented his annual report to the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee, which focuses on social, humanitarian and cultural affairs.

“It will be very difficult for farmers to move up the value chain into the processing, the packaging, the marketing of their food if all that is expected from them is to produce the crops that then the commodity buyer shall buy, transport, process and sell on the global market”.

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Posted in Market Lords, Mother Earth, The Peoples | 1 Comment »

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