By Baher Kamal & The Like
Credit: Amantha Perera/IPS
Trump has recently emphasised that he will take the US out of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) on his first day of office, and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The Hemicycle of the European Parliament in Strasbourg during a plenary session in 2014.| Author: Diliff | This file was a finalist in Picture of the Year 2014. | Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Wikimedia Commons
This week, the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted by a dubious majority for a cash injection to expand the work of a media watchdog aimed at “debunking Russian propaganda.”
The little-known media group, reportedly comprising 11 “diplomats,” was established a year ago by the all-powerful, but unelected European Commission.
At least 3,740 refugees and migrants have died crossing the Mediterranean in 2016 – why is the route so deadly? Credit: UNHCR
They are so desperate that trusting the promises of human traffickers comes almost naturally to them. After all these human traffickers are the very people who lure them to the ‘promised land.’
Illegal logging in the Brazilian Amazon is vast in scale and scope – impacting both rainforest communities and crucial habitat.
These systems would help them to monitor illegal logging on their lands, as indigenous tribes all too often fall victim to uncontrolled and illegal logging practices.
That same month, a major police crackdown on one of the largest illegal timber trade networks ever made headlines around the world.
The European Union must intensify its efforts in placing the rights of migrants at the centre of its migration policies, a United Nations human rights committee on 16 April 2015 affirmed following the latest maritime tragedy in the Mediterranean Sea which may have claimed hundreds of lives.
Tens of thousands of desperate people are attempting to cross the Mediterranean and reach Europe in dangerous boats like these in Libya. Photo: UNHCR/F. Noy
“States of origin, destination and transit must also address the root causes that lead to smuggling and trafficking in persons,” the UN Committee on the Rights of Migrant Workers (CMW) said in a press release issued earlier this afternoon which added that the continual loss of life in the Mediterranean’s waters transcended the limits of natural calamity and was, in fact, “a human rights tragedy.”
Stockholm, 16 March 2015 (SIPRI)* – The United States has taken a firm lead as the major arms exporter globally, according to new data on international arms transfers published today by Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Overall, the volume of international transfers of major conventional weapons grew by 16 per cent between 2005–2009 and 2010–14.
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Source: International Campain to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
The volume of US exports of major weapons rose by 23 per cent between 2005–2009 and 2010–14.
The USA’s share of the volume of international arms exports was 31 per cent in 2010–14, compared with 27 per cent for Russia.
Russian exports of major weapons increased by 37 per cent between 2005–2009 and 2010–14.
During the same period, Chinese exports of major arms increased by 143 per cent, making it the third largest supplier in 2010–14, however still significantly behind the USA and Russia.
