Suprabha Seshan has lived and worked for twenty-two years at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary in the Western Ghat mountains of India. The Sanctuary is a centre for plant conservation, habitat restoration and environmental education and also a community. In 2006, on behalf of the Sanctuary she won the Whitley Award, UK’s top prize for nature conservation. She is an Ashoka Fellow. Her current focus is the restoration of one of India’s most endangered ecosystems: the high elevation shola grasslands.
Alternative Visions – Transpacific Partnership Free Trade Analysis – 10.09.15
Jack takes a look at the leaks concerning provisions of the TPP trade agreement signed this past week. Why the TPP will mean loss of jobs with little or no job creation in the US in return. Why it means reduction in wages will continue. The phony statements by Obama and pundits about its effects, and the verbal maneuverings by Clinton and Republicans. Jack explains how China is not the currency manipulator, but Japan and now the other Asian members of TPP. Special focus on the treaty’s effects on pharmaceutical and health, autos, agriculture, manufacturing, Boeing Corp., and other sectors in the US. Negotiation maneuvers between the US, Australia, Japan and others. Why a vote next year, during election cycle, is more likely to pass rather than less likely. Why Congress will talk the talk, but then pass it. How TPP and free trade is really about US corporations’ foreign direct investment and less about goods exchanges between countries. Jack concludes explaining that the global trade recession now beginning will result in currency declines accelerating in the other countries that will more than offset the tariff cuts. The net result will be no gains for the US and big losses as a result of currency manipulation by other members of the treaty.
Letting Corporations Sue Governments Protecting the Environment is No Way to Solve the Water Crisis – Maude Barlow, Meera Karunananthan
As the world looks for innovative solutions to solve the rapidly worsening water crisis, two Salvadoran experts toured Canada this month to promote a simple strategy that could save the public billions of dollars. Yanira Cortez, Deputy Attorney for the Environment for El Salvador’s Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office and Marcos Gálvez, President of the Association for the Development of …
‘Disturbing’ Reports of Civilian Deaths in Yemen, Warn International Aid Groups
International aid organizations as well as the United Nations are sounding the alarm over “disturbing” reports of civilian casualties in Yemen as a Saudi-led coalition continued its bombing campaign for a sixth day. A reported 93 civilians have been killed since the start of the airstrikes, which are allegedly targeting locations held by Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels. An additional 364 Yemenis have …