Greek farmers protest reforms ahead of general strike

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Several key highways and border crossings have been blocked by Greeks who disagree with proposed pension reforms. The blockades come ahead of a general strike to protest government reforms sought by Greece’s creditors.

TPP: Lessons from New Zealand | Inter Press Service

Asia-Pacific, Featured, Food & Agriculture, Globalisation, Headlines, Trade & InvestmentTPP: Lessons from New ZealandBy Jomo Kwame SundaramReprint |      | Print | Send by email |En españolJomo Kwame Sundaram was an Assistant Secretary-General responsible for analysis of economic development in the United Nations system during 2005-2015, and received the 2007 Wassily Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb 2 2016 (IPS) – A new paper* on the implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement for New Zealand examines key economic issues likely to be impacted by this trade agreement. It is remarkable how little TPP brings to the table. NZ’s gross domestic product will grow by 47 per cent by 2030 without the TPP, or by 47.9 per cent with the TPP. Even that small benefit is an exaggeration, as the modelling makes dubious assumptions, and the real benefits will be even smaller. If the full costs are included, net economic benefits to the NZ economy are doubtful. The gains from tariff reductions are less than a quarter of the projected benefits according to official NZ government modelling. Although most of the projected benefits result from reducing non-tariff barriers (NTBs), the projections rely on inadequate and dubious information that does not even identify the NTBs that would be reduced by the TPP!Jomo Kwame Sundaram. Credit: FAOAgricultureThe main beneficiaries in NZ will be agricultural exporters, but modest tariff reductions of 1.3 per cent on average by 2030 are small compared to ongoing commodity price and exchange rate volatility. Extensive trade barriers to agricultural exports in the Japanese, Canadian and US food markets remain, and will be locked in under TPP. TPP has also failed to tackle agricultural subsidies that are a major trade distortion. Significant tariff barriers remain in some sectors in Japan, Canada and the US likely to be ‘locked in’ under the TPP that are almost impossible to remove in the future. TPP’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures limits on labelling may also restrict opportunities for food exporters to build high quality, differentiated niche market positions.TPP has also been used to undermine negotiations in the World Trade Organization, the only forum for removing such trade distorting subsidies.ISDSTPP’s investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions and restrictions on state-owned enterprises will deter future NZ governments from regulations and policies in the public interest, for fear of litigation by corporate interests. The threat, if not actual repercussions, are good enough to ‘discipline’ governments by causing ‘regulatory chill’. TPP is very much a charter for incumbent businesses, especially US transnational corporations. Thus, it inadvertently holds back the economic transformation the world needs. The agreement’s TPP’s benefits are likely to be asymmetric as it is more favourable to big US business practices and will deepen the disadvantages of small size and remoteness. Potential ISDS compensation payments or settlements could far outweigh the limited economic benefits of TPP. Even when cases are successfully defended, the legal costs will be very high.Value-additionTPP can both help and hinder ambitions to add value to raw materials and commodities, and to progress up value chains. However, it is likely to reinforce NZ’s position as a commodity producer and thus hinder progress up the value chain where greater economic prosperity lies. More analysis based on the actual agreement is required to ascertain the conditions for and likelihood of such progress. TPP will limit government’s ability to innovate and address national challenges and is likely to worsen rapidly escalating problems such as environmental degradation and climate change.Furthermore, TPP is projected to reduce employment and increase income inequality in NZ. In its analysis, the government has not considered the likely costs, which are probably going to be very significant, and may well outweigh economic benefits.TPP thus falls well short of being “a trade agreement for the 21st century”, as its cheerleaders claim. A more comprehensive, balanced and objective cost-benefit analysis on the basis of the October 2015 deal should be completed before ratifying the TPP.

Source: TPP: Lessons from New Zealand | Inter Press Service

Here Lies the Abyss: Xenophobia and Gender After the Cologne Assaults

Yet, as one might expect, such people project a fantasy onto us, ignoring the fact that this crime has sparked ample condemnation from feminists around the world. Local German feminists took to the streets of Cologne to highlight not only the police’s lackadaisical protection of women that night, but the larger plague of sexual violence (committed by white German men as well as non-white) throughout the country, refusing to scapegoat refugees and immigrants for a wider social problem. It was, after all, the city police (hardly in the thrall of poor refugees) who suggested a “code of conduct” for women who wished to avoid being raped.As two German feminists, Stefanie Lohaus and Anne Wizroek wrote in Vice recently:“Sexual assaults and even rape happen every year at big events like Oktoberfest. ‘The way to the toilet alone is like running the gauntlet: within 50 feet, you can be sure to tally three hugs from drunken strangers, two pats on the ass, someone looking up your dirndl and some beer purposely splashed right down your cleavage,’ wrote Karoline Beisel and Beate Wild in 2011, in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. An average of 10 reported rapes take place each year at Oktoberfest. The estimated number of unreported cases is 200.”

Source: Here Lies the Abyss: Xenophobia and Gender After the Cologne Assaults

“In Iran I was working as a model and I went to an…

“In Iran I was working as a model and I went to an international high school. Because of the rough political situation my brother and I decided to leave. We imagined Europe to be a safe haven. Our final destination is and has always been Britain. We have family there. We left when I was 18 and now I’m 20. We have done most of our journey by foot and it has been extremely rough. We experienced terrible things on the road. We have been kept in prison in Macedonia for 20 days with barely any food. Also the Belgium police have arrested us because we tried to get to Britain by truck. When they found us they drove us 68 kilometers from this camp and dropped us in the woods. They took away our money, our two cellphones and our coats and sweaters. It was raining and we couldn’t stop shivering from the cold. We just kept on walking until we found our way back to this camp. I have many more stories but I’m saving them. One day I will write a book about all of this.”

Source: “In Iran I was working as a model and I went to an…

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