Analysis
European Parliament wants measures against tax evasion
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- Written by Ales Marriage
(from Global Financial Integrity)
The European Parliament voted through a resolution calling for measures against tax evasion. The resolution was passed with an overwhelming 538 votes in favour, and only 73 against and 32 abstentions. The resolution of 19 April goes far in echoing Eurodad’s demand in calling for Automatic Information Exchange (AIE), Country-By-Country Reporting (CBCR), a mandatory Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCBT) amongst other useful suggestions.
Read more: European Parliament wants measures against tax evasion
Rio+20: Right to water confirmed
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- Written by Andre Abreu
Right to water is affirmed in the Rio +20 text, but social rights and Rio principles are still under threat in the definitions of the green economy.
A few weeks ago, the civil society groups involved in the UNCSD Rio +20 negotiations shared their deep concern about the threat against human and social rights in the draft text for the Conference, as well as the threat over other important collective principles established in 1992. During the past session of the UN negotiations in March, we had seen with surprise and disappointment a group of few member states in the offensive to bracket and delete any reference to human rights, including the right to water, in the draft text to be presented in June to the heads of state in Rio. At that time several NGOs, human rights experts, unions and social movements have mobilized to denounce the attack on the rights and over principles born in the Rio 92 earth summit.
UN seized by corporate power
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- Written by Social Watch
In the eve of Rio2012, civil society organizations all over the world are warning against the “growing influence of major corporations and business lobby groups within the UN”. Those concerns became also apparent in the thirteenth session of the UNCTAD in Doha, where the rich countries were trying to minimize the role of that agency, whose reports have consistently criticized the politics of deregulation, liberalization and privatization that benefit the private sector.
The beginning of the end of development?
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- Written by Nancy Birdsall
In this paper, written as the introduction to New Ideas on Development after the Financial Crisis (JHU Press, 2011), Nancy Birdsall discusses two themes. The first is the pre-crisis subtle shift in the prevailing model of capitalism in developing countries—away from orthodoxy or so-called market fundamentalism—that the crisis is likely to reinforce
May Day: The Return of the Trade-Unions?
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- Written by Immanuel Wallerstein
Organizing trade unions was a quite radical idea as late as the first half of the nineteenth century. They were illegal almost everywhere. So when the laws prohibiting them were repealed in some European countries, North America, and Australia in the second half of the nineteenth century, it was intended as a concession to the pressures of the workers, actually the urban workers, in the hope and expectation that the working classes would then be less radical in their demands.
1 May 2012
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Last year, on 1 May, I was walking around in Rome after an interesting conference on the Common Good of Humanity. It was the day the former pope, the Polish John Paul II, was being beatified. The city was full of Polish people, many of them walking around with a red scarf around their neck and a red rose in their hands. An alliance between the Church and labour?
UN and Corporate power
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- Written by Social Watch
In the eve of Rio2012, civil society organizations all over the world are warning against the “growing influence of major corporations and business lobby groups within the UN”. Those concerns became also apparent in the thirteenth session of the UNCTAD in Doha, where the rich countries were trying to minimize the role of that agency, whose reports have consistently criticized the politics of deregulation, liberalization and privatization that benefit the private sector.
World Bank Oversees Global Land Grab
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(From UN TerraViva)
(IPS) - The World Bank continues to facilitate land-grabbing in poor and developing countries around the world, according to new research released here on Monday.
The report by Friends of the Earth, an international watchdog, is part of a host of initiatives taking place ahead of the start of the Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty, which runs for the next four days.
Friends of the Earth says that anywhere from 80 to 227 million hectares of rural, often agrarian land, typically in poorer countries hungry for foreign investment, have been taken over by private and corporate interests in recent years.
Switzerland and Austria sign deal protecting bank secrecy
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- Written by Alex Marriage
(From Global Financial Integrity)
Switzerland has just signed a ‘Rubik’ deal with Austria which protects banks secrecy in return for an anonymous tax being returned to Austria. This is similar to the ruinous Rubik deals made with Britain and Germany. This deal, which must be ratified by both countries’ parliaments, makes public a covert Swiss-Austrian alliance to block EU cooperation against tax dodgers and prevent automatic exchange of tax information between European governments.
Read more: Switzerland and Austria sign deal protecting bank secrecy
UNCTAD maintains its “clear mandate” to analyze the global economic crisis
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- Written by Social Watch
