|
|
home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
|
PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS ON HOW THE 'FREE TRADE' CASE FOR OFFSHORING AMERICA'S JOBS HAS COME UNGLUED Roberts on the sensational exposure of the faked "gains" and phantom stats of the free traders. Who was America's most anti-imperialist president? Try Grover Cleveland! JoAnn Wypijewski on the unlikely hero of Hawai'i's restoration movement. Alexander Cockburn reports on evangelical Christians in crisis amid fresh onslaughts by forces of darkness. The Warbler's Parable: Rosa Miriam Elizalde on the black-masked visitors to Cuba defying the US economic blockade.
|
|
Today's Stories June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh June 20, 2007 Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn George Ciccariello-Maher Saul Landau Robert Fisk Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Ward Boston Conn Hallinan Leonard Peltier Lawrence Davidson John Ross Kate Allan Fred Gardner Stephen Fleischman Monica Benderman Geoff Bailey Missy Beattie Patrick Dyer Tim Lengerich James Irani
Gary Leupp Michael Tillery Michael Simmons Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Joshua Frank Lance Selfa Dave Lindorff Lawrence Ferlinghetti Website of the Day
Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day 
Subscribe Online
|
June 21, 2007 Fuel Crisis Sparks Mass ProtestsPain at the Pump in HaitiBy JEB SPRAGUE Port-au-Prince. On Jun. 12 and 13, transport workers shut off their engines, leaving residents of Port-au-Prince and other urban centres largely without the services of taxis or the colourful buses and pick-up trucks known as tap-taps. A spokesperson for the Initiative de Secteur de Transport, an ad hoc strike committee representing 18 transport unions, Benissoit Duclos, said the action was driven by three pressing issues. First, the government "has increased traffic fines so that what was a 50-gourde fine is now 1,000 gourdes and what was a 500 gourd fine is now 10,000 gourdes," he said. "Second, over the last three to four years, the government has not charged for nor distributed registration stickers for vehicles. They are now distributing these but ordering a lump sum payment of 4,000 gourdes for all the years that these were not distributed," Duclos told IPS. Lastly, the price of gasoline has become unaffordable for most drivers, rising by 34 gourdes to 207 gourdes per gallon this month. Many workers, with a salary that hovers around 70 gourdes a day, must spend 20 to 40 gourdes on transportation (35.4 gourdes equal one U.S. dollar). The striking workers drive cars and buses, which the working poor depend on for transportation. While some drivers use company cars, many cars are independently owned. "Poor people, the majority working in the informal economy or assembly industry, cannot afford the higher costs of transportation that these measures would force upon us," said Changeux Méhu, president of ATCH, a union of bus drivers. "The people don't feel they have a say in government policy," he told IPS. The strikers appear to enjoy broad national support with a coalition including the Fédération des Transporteurs du Nord, the Fédération des Transporteurs de l'Artibonite and the south based Association des Propriétaires de Conducteurs du Haïti. On the first day of the strike, Rétes Réjouis, a coordinator of the Fédération des Transporteurs Publics Haïtiens, a well organised transport co-op, declared support for the strike. "It is a nationwide strike from the grassroots," one transport worker told IPS. A roster of the unions does not include the numerous small but heavily foreign donor-backed labour groups often held up in the international media as "independent". Haiti's Minister for Social Affairs and Work, Gerald German, voiced surprise that the workers would launch a strike. But Duclos argues that the Rene Preval government has become too close with big business and "the people that supported the de facto government and 2004 coup" -- referring to the overthrow of the elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide government and the creation of an interim government. Interim appointees backed by the United States, including President Boniface Alexander and Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, discharged Haiti's large businesses from paying many of their taxes. Trade unionists interviewed noted with irony that poor vehicle owners are now being forced to pay back registration fees. Interim authorities also launched the Cadre de Coopération Intérimaire (CCI), a macro-economic adjustment programme largely formulated by international donor institutions and the local groups they back. Thousands of public sector workers were laid off and government ministries were placed under foreign financial supervision. Mark Schueller at the University of California, Santa Barbara who has studied the CCI, says that it also "promoted high-value crops for exports, benefiting few Haitian farmers" while strengthening the "importation of subsidised or monetised rice, draining Haitian peasants' productive capacity to feed Haiti." In 2006, after a heated election, René Garcia Préval won the presidency with wide popular support. More than a year later, appointees from the interim government remain in numerous high-level posts and a large U.N. force is deployed in the country. With the fanfare surrounding Preval's inauguration and good relations with Venezuela, many believed that Haiti's entry into PetroCaribe, a Venezuelan-backed programme offering oil at preferential rates to Caribbean countries, would alleviate high gasoline costs. Rather than selling oil directly to the companies active in Haiti, such as Esso/Exxon Mobil, Chevron-Texaco, Total and Dynasa, Venezuela's state oil corporation, PdVSA, will sell it to the Preval government, which will in turn sell to the companies at the same price. The government profits by purchasing a large part on credit with low interest rates and a long grace period. Preval has indicated that the government will then bank the money, gathering interest. This is especially helpful as Haiti's government has long been susceptible to foreign pressure through its financial dependency on donors. Haiti's meagre tax revenues have left it unable to fund its own national investment budget. A symbolic shipment of oil from Venezuela arrived on Preval's inauguration in May 2006, but in recent months, PetroCaribe has stalled. Terms were signed on Mar. 12, 2007 during Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's visit to Haiti, and shipments were supposed to begin in July. But the two large U.S. oil companies that export to Haiti are said to have stonewalled negotiations. Leaders of the transport unions told IPS that they hoped PetroCaribe would directly benefit the poor, lowering prices at the pump. But under the Preval government's plan, this will not happen. PetroCaribe has nothing to do with the cost of fuel, Preval says, insisting he will not subsidise the cost of fuel, which is determined by market prices. Hyppolite Pierre, a Haitian author and a professor at the Community College of Baltimore County in Maryland, observes that "international lenders such as the IMF, the World Bank and the IDB [Inter-American Development Bank] consider such subsidies as a waste and therefore strongly discourage those practices." The influential U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince has long pushed for a non-subsidised floating fuel price. In 2002, a document purported to have originated from the U.S. government or international financial institutions threatened that major petroleum companies would cut off their exports to Haiti if the government did not end its subsidisation of oil. Haiti, with no alternative source of petroleum, was pressured to comply. But Haiti's Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis insists that even with PetroCaribe in place, "The government cannot subsidise the price of oil, because Haiti does not produce oil." Transport workers, now in talks with the government, say it is essential the government subsidise fuel or they will simply be unable to operate. For many workers in the informal economy and garment sector, half their wages are spent on transportation. Dozens of community schools and a slew of literacy centres, once subsidised by the Aristide government, are now cut off from government funds and suffering from rising fuel prices, since they often rely on generators for electricity. In the Petion-ville district of Port-au-Prince, one community school, SOPUDEP, has come under pressure. The mayor of Petion-ville has attempted to get the school closed down, say school employees. Rea Dol, head of SOPUDEP, said, "The situation requires prompt intervention by the state. After all people went through to vote for President Preval, he must respond to the population." Because of this, "we support the strike," she said, "so that it puts pressure on the government to see that people are suffering." Jeb Sprague is a graduate student and freelance
journalist.
 |
CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
