Hightower: Nafta's Broken Promises
Belief:
Do Atheists Have God All Wrong?
Troy Jollimore
Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace:
We're Doing a Heckuva Job Helping Those Devastated by the Economic Meltdown
Karen Dolan, Diana Pearce
DrugReporter:
DEA Forced to Scrub Misleading Info on the American Medical Association's Position on Marijuana
Charmie Gholson
Environment:
The Choice at Copenhagen: Heroism or Collective Suicide
Johann Hari
Food:
The 6 Weirdest, Scariest Processed Foods
Brad Reed
Health and Wellness:
25 Years Since the Bhopal Disaster, We've All Become Victims of the Chemical Industry
Gary Cohen
Immigration:
Italy's Media Wrestle With Immigrant-Bashing
Sandip Roy
Media and Technology:
10 Biggest Sports Sex Scandals of All Time: How Does Tiger Woods Rate?
David Rosen
Movie Mix:
Disney Apocalypse: Why 2012 Sucks
Alexander Zaitchik
Politics:
Memo to Congress: Desperate Times Call for Faster Measures
Paul Starr
Reproductive Justice and Gender:
What Happened When an Anti-Choice Catholic Woman Needed an Abortion at Dr. Tiller's Clinic
Amanda Mueller
Rights and Liberties:
Four Men Leave Guantanamo; Two Face Ill-Defined Trials in Italy
Andy Worthington
Sex and Relationships:
6 Tricks to Sex After a Divorce
Julie Bogart
Take Action:
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Laura Flanders
Water:
Melting Himalayan Glaciers Threaten 1.3 Billion Asians
World:
Over 1,000 Delegates for Peace Will Mark 1st Anniversary of Gaza Invasion, Protest Ongoing Israeli Siege
Medea Benjamin
A Chicago politician once said: "I don't want to cast asparagus at my opponent." Well, I do want to cast some well-deserved aspersions -- asparagus, too, if I had any handy -- at NAFTA, that North American Free Trade rip-off with Mexico. Not only were we promised by Wall Street and Washington that NAFTA would create 200,000 new jobs a year for us, but it was also to lower our consumer prices and clean up the poisoned environment along the Mexican border. Several recent reports have shown that all their talk was jive -- nearly two years into NAFTA; we've actually lost about 300,000 jobs to Mexico. But what about the other two promises? Let's start with consumer prices by checking out a simple product: tomatoes. Under NAFTA, for the first time large US agribusinesses could take over small farms in Mexico, and they have -- tossing hundreds of thousands of Mexicans off the land. Today, exploiting dirt-cheap Mexican workers, new agribusiness plantations are producing and shipping tomatoes into the US cheaper than those grown here. But instead of passing any of their so-called "savings" to you -- they're pocketing them, and tomato prices actually are up. So what about their environmental promises? Well, the bank that created NAFTA to finance the clean-up of the border has yet to make a single loan. Also, NAFTA was supposed to eliminate the "maquiladora" zone along the border where thousands of US companies spew out 164 tons of toxic waste a day. But, two years later, this cesspool of cancer-causing waste continues to flow unabated, and 150 new plants have opened in that zone. It's time to cancel this raw deal. To help us get out of NAFTA, contact Global Trade Watch on 202-546-4996
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The Choice at Copenhagen: Heroism or Collective Suicide Environment: We can make history -- or we can commit suicide. The choice really is that stark. By Johann Hari, Independent UK. December 7, 2009. |
Four Men Leave Guantanamo; Two Face Ill-Defined Trials in Italy Rights and Liberties: Last week, the Obama administration announced that it had transferred four prisoners from Gitmo: one to France, one to Hungary, and two to Italy. By Andy Worthington, AlterNet. December 7, 2009. |
Melting Himalayan Glaciers Threaten 1.3 Billion Asians Environment: Glaciers in the Himalayas provide headwaters for Asia's nine largest rivers, lifelines for the 1.3 billion people who live downstream. AFP. December 7, 2009. |
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