Tag Archives: Indonesia

‘Time to Exit ISDS’: Hundreds of Groups Call On US to Ditch Corporate-Friendly Trade Regime

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“The ISDS regime is undemocratic: It was created for and by powerful, well-organized corporations, and has served their interests almost exclusively,” said one critic.

By Julia Conley. Published 11-3-2023 by Common Dreams

Graphic: ISDS Red Carpet Courts

More than 200 civil society groups on Thursday called on the Biden administration to protect climate, health, and other public interest policies across the Americas by dismantling a trade regime that the United States spearheaded nearly three decades ago—giving corporations broad authority to sue governments if they claim their profit margins are harmed by public programs.

Public Citizen, Sierra Club, and the AFL-CIO led hundreds of organizations in sending the letter to President Joe Biden, urging him to take legal action to terminate the Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system within the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP), a trade framework between the U.S. and 11 countries in Central and South America and the Caribbean.

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Hundreds of Thousands March in London Demanding ‘End to War on Gaza’

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The large-scale demonstration in the U.K. occurred as paltry levels of humanitarian aide were finally allowed through the southern border of Gaza, but nowhere near enough given the scale of death and destruction.

By Jon Queally. Published 10-21-2023 by Common Dreams

People take part in a ‘March For Palestine,’ in London on October 21, 2023, to “demand an end to the war on Gaza.” Photo: Hope Worsdale/X

Organizers and participants said hundreds of thousands of people were in the streets of central London on Saturday to demand an immediate cease-fire in Gaza as the Israeli military continued its bombardment of the besieged enclave a full two weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

Organized by a coalition that includes the Solidarity Campaign, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War Coalition, Muslim Association of Britain, Palestinian Forum in Britain, and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the march also called for Israel to “end its occupation of Palestinian land and apartheid rule over the Palestinian people.”

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‘Utterly Absurd’: Rich Nations Spending Climate Dollars on Coal Projects and Chocolate Shops

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“Essentially, whatever they call climate finance is climate finance,” said one developing nation’s lead climate negotiator.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 6-2-2023 by Common Dreams

Activists including members of frontline communities protest Japanese financing of international fossil fuel projects including coal plants in Matarbari, Bangladesh and Indramayu, Indonesia on October 4, 2021 in Tokyo. (Photo: @market_forces/Twitter)

Wealthy nations are spending money under the guise of “climate finance” to fund projects that have little or nothing to do with tackling the climate crisis and—as in the case of three Japanese-backed coal plants—are sometimes fueling the planetary emergency, according to a Reuters investigation published Thursday.

While media outlets including Reuters have recently reported that rich countries are on track—albeit long overdue—to finally meet their 2009 pledge to invest $100 billion annually in climate financing by 2020, the new Reuters investigation shows that governments are funding climate-harming projects and counting the expenditures toward their giving total.

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Global Coal Phaseout Must Speed Up to Avert ‘Climate Chaos’: Analysis

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“The transition away from existing and new coal isn’t happening fast enough,” said one expert. “The more new coal projects come online, the steeper the cuts and commitments need to be in the future.”

By Kenny Stancil.  Published 4-6-2023 by Common Dreams

Xcel Energy’s Sherburne County (Sherco) Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant, near Becker, Minnesota. Photo: Tony Webster/Wikimedia Commons/CC

 To avert the worst consequences of the climate crisis, the world must stop building new coal plants and shut down existing ones at nearly five times the current rate.

That’s according to an analysis published Wednesday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) and nearly a dozen other groups, including Reclaim Finance, the Sierra Club, and the Alliance for Climate Justice and Clean Energy.

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People Fighting Back Against Rising Autocracy Offers Hope, Says Report

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“The level of democracy enjoyed by the average world citizen in 2022 is back to 1986 levels. This means that 72% of the world’s population, 5.7 billion people, live under authoritarian rule,” said V-Dem’s director.

By Jessica Corbett  Published 3-2-2023 by Common Dreams

Lula’s campaign moves through São Paolo, Oct. 2022. Photo credit: Midia Ninja/CC

An annual report released Thursday by researchers in Sweden sounds the alarm about countries that are “undergoing autocratization” but also highlights how people around the world “have reclaimed democracy and stopped negative trends.”

The Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) at the University of Gothenburg produces the world’s largest dataset on democracy, with over 31 million data points for 202 nations from 1789 to 2022. Its new report focuses on the state of countries last year. Continue reading →

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$1 trillion in the shade – the annual profits multinational corporations shift to tax havens continues to climb and climb

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Looks like paradise – especially if you’re a multinational corporation in need of a tax haven.
LeoPatrizi/E+ via Getty Images

 

Ludvig Wier, University of Copenhagen and Gabriel Zucman, University of California, Berkeley

CC BY-NC-ND

 

About a decade ago, the world’s biggest economies agreed to crack down on multinational corporations’ abusive use of tax havens. This resulted in a 15-point action plan that aimed to curb practices that shielded a large chunk of corporate profits from tax authorities.

But, according to our estimates, it hasn’t worked. Instead of reining in the use of tax havens – countries such as the Bahamas and Cayman Islands with very low or no effective tax rates – the problem has only gotten worse. Continue reading →

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Unpatented Shot Dubbed ‘The World’s Covid-19 Vaccine’ Wins Emergency Approval in India

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“This announcement is an important first step in vaccinating the world and halting the pandemic,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, a U.S.-based vaccine scientist.

By Jake Johnson.  Published 12-28-2021 by Common Dreams

Image; ZeeNews

An unpatented Covid-19 vaccine developed by the Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, and the pharmaceutical firm Biological E. Limited received emergency-use authorization from Indian regulators on Tuesday—news that the jab’s creators hailed as a potential turning point in the push to broaden global vaccine access.

“This announcement is an important first step in vaccinating the world and halting the pandemic,” Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor and co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, said in a statement. Continue reading →

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The global implications of the Taliban’s advance in Afghanistan

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The Taliban is expected to take control of Afghanistan within weeks or even days. This would be the most important political development of 2021

By Paul Rogers.  Published 8-13-2021 by openDemocracy

Photo: Jim Roberts/Twitter

Two weeks ago, there was still a belief that the Taliban might take months to take control of Afghanistan and that they might even agree to a peace deal, perhaps viewing one as a useful step on their way to power.

That has now changed dramatically. Last week, the US called a desperate, last-ditch meeting with Taliban negotiators in Doha, the Qatari capital, involving countries in the region, as well as Russia and China. The aim was to convince the Taliban that they would be treated as a pariah state if they seized power by force. In parallel, the Afghan government offered a share of power in return for a ceasefire. Negotiations have since ended with both endeavours failing. Continue reading →

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US and Israel Vote ‘No’ as 184 Nations Condemn American Blockade of Cuba

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“The U.N. vote… on Cuba was a chance for President Biden to show global leadership,” said CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin. “He failed miserably.”

By Brett Wilkins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-23-2021

New York City, April 2021. Photo: The All-Nite Images/flickr/CC

Peace and human rights advocates joined the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday in their annual condemnation of the United States’ disastrous economic embargo against Cuba.

For the 29th straight year, the members of the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution demanding an end to the 60-year U.S. economic blockade on Cuba. This year, 184 nations voted in favor of the resolution, while the U.S. and Israel voted against it. Three nations—Brazil, Colombia, and Ukraine—abstained. Continue reading →

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‘Can Anybody Still Deny That We Are Facing a Dramatic Emergency?’ Asks UN Chief at Climate Summit

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“If we don’t change course,” he warned, “we may be headed for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than 3 degrees this century.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-12-2020

The Orroral Valley Fire viewed from Tuggeranong, Australia on the evening of January 20, 2020. Photo: Nick-D/CC

World leaders aren’t doing enough to address the human-caused climate crisis.

That seemed to be the main message of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ speech on Saturday at the Climate Ambition Summit 2020, hosted by the U.N., the United Kingdom, and France in partnership with Chile and Italy to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris agreement.

“Paris promised to limit temperature rise to as close to 1.5 degrees as possible. But the commitments made in Paris were far from enough to get there. And even those commitments are not being met,” Guterres said. “Carbon dioxide levels are at record highs. Today, we are 1.2 degrees hotter than before the industrial revolution. If we don’t change course, we may be headed for a catastrophic temperature rise of more than 3 degrees this century.” Continue reading →

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