Month: July 2008
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Celebrate, Don’t Mourn, Collapse of WTO Talks
Predictably, the cheerleaders for corporate globalization are bemoaning the collapse of World Trade Organization negotiations. “This is a very painful failure and a real setback for the global economy when we really needed some good news,” said Peter Mandelson, the European Union’s trade commissioner. Even worse, says the corporate globalization rah-rah crowd, the talks’ failure…
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The Scourge of the IMF
Tuberculosis, a treatable disease, kills 1.7 million people a year worldwide. TB incidence, according to the World Health Organization, seems to be correlated to broad social factors, like access to clean water and sanitation, HIV incidence and national health expenditures. A just published study in the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) Medicine investigates the…
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Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil
Last month witnessed the extraordinary contrast of two perspectives on crime, punishment and ExxonMobil. Just two days after leading climate change scientist James Hansen told the U.S. Congress that he believed ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel company CEOs “should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature” for their role in delaying a serious…