Few people know that the European member states taken as a whole is one of the biggest arms exporters in the world. On the international stage Europe likes to present itself as a continent that stands for democracy and peace, but this façade does not correspond to reality.
Did you know that the EU wants to allocate more than 40 billion euros to the research, development and procurement of new arms? That the arms industry is trying to hijack the European Defence policy? Read all about it on this page.
Swets files for bankruptcy 23.09.14 | Bookseller staff 51 20 398 Netherlands-based information services provider Swets is insolvent and has filed for bankruptcy, according to German book trade magazine Börsenblatt. Swets, based in Lieden, describes itself as "the global market leader in content management services for libraries and publishers." Founded in 1901, it has local offices in 27 countries, including the UK.
Devinder Sharma, NEW DELHI, Nov 28 2013 : "India, a country which lived in the shadows of a ship-to-mouth existence when food would go directly from the ship to hungry mouths has over the years emerged self-sufficient in food production. This historic turnaround was possible only because India had adopted the two planks of what I call a remarkable famine-avoidance strategy: providing farmers with an assured price support for their produce, and introducing a food procurement system that provided for a guaranteed market and at the same time helped get food to the poor in the deficit regions through a network of ration shops. Withdrawing the price support for farmers or freezing it at the de-minimis level of 10 percent as applicable under the Agreement on Agriculture will make farmers vulnerable to the vagaries of the market."
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) has obtained from Wikileaks a complete copy of the consolidated negotiating text for the IP Chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). (Copy here, and on the Wikileaks site here: https://wikileaks.org/tpp/) The leaked text was distributed among the Chief Negotiators by the USTR after the 19th Round of Negotiations at Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, in August 27th, 2013.
by Martin Khor In the recent public debate surrounding the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), an issue that seems to stands out is the investor-state dispute settlement system (ISDS).
World trade growth has not returned to its pre-crisis rate; it fell to just 2% in 2012, and Unctad points out that imports to developed regions, including the US and Europe, are still below 2007 levels. It suggests this downward trend "highlights the vulnerabilities developing countries continue to face at a time of lacklustre growth in developed countries".