Alternative Visions – Analyzing the TPP Agreement Terms & Conditions, Part 1 – 11.13.15

Jack Rasmus undertakes the first of a two part deep examination of the terms and conditions of the actual TPP agreement recently concluded. The origins and true functions of free trade agreements is explained, beginning with the 1944 Bretton Woods international monetary system, the IMF, and World Bank established by the US, the role of trade in US global dominance to the 1970s, the restructuring of trade and money flows in the 1970s, and the advent of Neoliberalism in the 1980s under Reagan and Thatcher. How free trade became the international lynchpin of US neoliberal policies, beginning in the 1980s and expanding ever since under both Democrat and Republican administrations. Obama as the biggest advocate of Free Trade thus far is explained. Jack then begins a section by section analysis of the 30 chapters of the TPP, with an overview of provisions associated with ‘goods’ trade, investment, financial services, intellectual property and Pharmaceuticals, and the Disputes Settlement/Corporate Global Courts system section that will undermine domestic democracy and sovereignty and lead to a new drive for global corporate supra-political institutions. In Part 2 next week, further details of the 30 chapters, and reactions by labor, environmental advocates, food safety groups, and others will be reviewed—as well as reports by organizers of the Nov. 18 national US protests against the TPP.

Thomas C. Mountain – Climate Disaster Hammers Ethiopia

This year the rains failed in southern Ethiopia and some 25% of a country of 90 million people are facing acute food shortages in the coming months. This climate disaster, brought on mainly by western industries damage to the environment, has left the Ethiopian government quietly begging the international community for a preliminary food aid package worth $500 million, desperately …

Nafeez Ahmed – UN plan to save Earth is “fig leaf” for Big Business: insiders

UN records reveal that the intergovernmental body has already marginalised the very groups it claims to be rescuing from poverty, hunger and climate disaster. At the end of this month, the UN will launch its new 2030 Sustainable Development agenda for “people, planet and prosperity” in New York, where it will be formally adopted by over 150 world leaders. The …

Zaid Jilani – The Number of Americans Living on Less Than $2 a Day Is Skyrocketing

The World Bank and other global institutions use a very specific measure to record global poverty rates. They gather data designed to record the number of people in a country who live on less than $2 a day, and then use the information to make a “poverty headcount ratio”— the percentage of people in a country who live under this …

Devon Douglas-Bowers – The Truth About BRICS

Following is a transcript of a recent interview with independent journalist James Corbett, where we discussed BRICS, the popular view that the organization is a resistance force, and how we can fight back against the powers that be. hat are BRICS and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AAIB) really about? Many people argue that it is these countries challenging the dominant US-based …

Jake Anderson – US Military Uses IMF and World Bank to Launder 85% of Its Black Budget

Though transparency was a cause he championed when campaigning for the presidency, President Obama has largely avoided making certain defense costs known to the public. However, when it comes to military appropriations for government spy agencies, we know from Freedom of Information Act requests that the so-called “black budget” is an increasingly massive expenditure subsidized by American taxpayers. The CIA …

Sarah Lazare – USA: The Global Superpower That Once Again Fails Infant Mortality Test

Federal data released Thursday shows that the infant mortality rate in the United States remains one of the worst in the developed world, at three times the rate of Japan, Norway, and Sweden and double that of Ireland. The report from the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that 5.96 out of every …

BRICS Bank Opens for Business By Stephen Lendman

Its Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) represents the beginning of a significant challenge to predatory Western financial institutions – the IMF, World Bank and other loan shark lenders of last resort. The IMF was established to stabilize exchange rates linked to the dollar and bridge temporary payment imbalances. The World Bank’s mandate was to provide credit to war-torn developing countries. …

The US Dollar and Bretton Woods are Finished: The BRICS/SCO Summits in Ufa Mark the Start of a “Silk World Order” By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Get ready for ground shattering geopolitical changes. At the crossroads of Asia and Europe, it has been decided that the Russian city of Ufa will be the point of convergence for all the initiatives and projects of the Silk World Order of trade and integration that China and Russia are spearheading. Ufa, which is the capital of Russia’s Bashkortostan, is …

Greece – Risk of False-flagging Greece into Submission and Chaos? By Peter Koenig

As we move closer to the 5 July referendum, it becomes clearer every day – Brussels, Washington and Berlin are waging an open “class war” against Greece, because the Greek people, the citizens of a sovereign country – the first democracy in Europe, the country that gave Europe her name – these people have had the audacity to democratically elect …