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Globalisation
Includes The Global Financial System, 'outsourcing labour', World Bank, IMF, other aspects of the globalisation of capital and manufacturing, as well as changing global geo-politics and the global Financial Crisis. See also Privatisation, G8, EU, Supermarkets/Food Production...

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21st May 2010 | Issue 723 - ALL THAT ROMAINS... - Welcome to the age of austerity. Romania has erupted in protests as harsh measures continue to grow and waves of discontent flood Europe.

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24th April 2009 | Issue 673 - SUMMIT OF THE UN-AMERICAS - Leaders from countries across the Americas – excluding Cuba – meet in Trinidad, in a gathering which produces absolutely nothing. Barack Obama is met with strong criticism from Latin American leaders about the continued US imperialism.

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27th March 2009 | Issue 670 - APOCALYPSE WOW - The G20 Summit in London kicks off next week as the G20 Dogs hit town.

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27th March 2009 | Issue 670 - IN THE BROWN STUFF - The decision to bail out the banking system amounts to a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich on an unprecedented scale.

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28th November 2008 | Issue 657- FROZEN ASSETS - The streets of Reykjavik hot up as financial meltdown hits Iceland.

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10th October 2008 | Issue 650 - END OF WORLD IS NIGH - So what is the financial crash going to mean?

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3rd October 2008 | Issue 649- DEBTS THE WAY TO DO IT - "Blimey... you spend 15 years struggling against global capitalism and then the bloody thing collapses of its own accord."

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19th September 2008 | Issue 647- BAIL OF THE CENTURY - Football shirt sponsers go bust! - as the government hands out 'welfare for big business'.

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15th August 2008 | Issue 642 - GAME, OSSETIA, MATCH - Georgia, the West-friendly state in the Caucuses, is invaded by Russia. The geo-politics of the oil-rich former Soviet states is not the walk-over which US and Western think it is, as Russia re-asserts it's position in the area...

14th July 2006 | Issue 551 - BI-POLAR DISORDER - In the lead up to the G8 summit in Russia, we look at the rising power of China, Russia and others, and ask - whatever happened to the neo-con plans for a 'new American century'? And who are the 'Shanghai Five?

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2nd June 2006 | Issue 546 - FEVER PITCH - With the World Cup about to start again, so begins the marketing frenzy with England fans wearing £40 replica kits made in China by workers on 40p a day, and all the other pigs at the trough including Coke, Gillette, McDonalds and the rest

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16th Dec 2005 | Issue 525 - INSIDE JOB - Companies are using UK prisoners as cheap, ununionised labour as another option for cheap workers rather than outsourcing. ASDA, Sainsbury’s and Tesco and Argos are all companies in on the act...

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9th December 2005 | Issue 524 - HONG KONG PHOOEY - WTO Ministerial Conference Circus Hits Hong Kong

“The rhetoric of the WTO may be free trade, but its key agreements promote corporate monopoly.” - Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South

29th July 2005 | Issue 506 - LOOK CAFTA NUMBER ONE - "For us the free trade agreement has many consequences; we already have much poverty, and it is the rich that will be the beneficiaries at the cost of the poor. We will have to find new ways of bringing bread to our tables." - Floricelda, Guatemala.

Last Thursday, US Congress approved the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) by 217 votes to 215. (Another overwhelming majority then.)

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4th March 2005 | Issue 487 - EBAY FRENZY - Go mad bidding with a range of natural resources going out for silling prices online...

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11th Feb 2005 | Issue 484 - CLOBBER - the clothes brand made from 100% sweat

2nd July 2004 | Issue 461 - SHUT YOUR CAKE-HOLE - “The new global order has condemned people to death. They don’t care if people live or die.” - Joseph Stiglitz, The World Bank’s former Chief Economist

Sixty years ago this month, Western leaders got together at Bretton Woods to redesign the world’s financial systems, creating the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. But while they lend cash to ‘developing’ countries to help them run construction projects and meet budget deficits, their real role is to ensure that the international economy is geared to boosting the profits of Western corporations.

8th August 2003 | Issue 417 - MAI EYE! - It was hailed by the economists as the organisation that would bring about global prosperity - where the weakest nations of the world would be put on the same footing as the most powerful. But the WTO’s rulings have produced a ‘race to the bottom’ with every environmental, health or safety policy it has had to rule on deemed an illegal barrier to trade. Now with its fifth Ministerial meeting approaching next month in Cancun, Mexico, the World Trade Organization is in crisis and heading for deadlock.

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23rd March 2001 | Issue 298 - TRADE JAZZ -
- “The World Trade Organisation’s position at present amounts to asking poor nations to trust them as honest brokers. Given their record, this is a bit like the big bad wolf telling Little Red Riding Hood, ‘Sorry about your granny. Why don’t you pop over for lunch?’” - Gary Younge

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9th February 2001 | Issue 292 - FISTFUL OF DOLLARS - Ecuador is currently under a state of emergency after thousands of protestors took to the streets to demand the government withdraw sweeping price rises across the country. Thanks to yet another one of those structural adjustment programmes so beloved by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the price of cooking fuel has doubled, petrol prices have risen sharply and bus fares have increased by 75%. However, the government has stated that their economic policy was not negotiatable “as it constitutes the fundamental backbone of the stabilisation plan for dollarisation and the predictions of growth”, as agreed with the IMF.