CPM chooses a unique way to express its reservation over Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN in Kerala. The party activists formed a 550 km human chain on a rainy Friday evening to register their protest against the pact scheduled to be effective from January, 2010. The party lamented that free trade pact would have adverse [...]

Globalisation implies a greater integration of the international system from the angle of faster communications and information, and greater liberalisation of trade in goods, services, capital and investment flows. However, a recurrent question is to what extent globalisation enables migration to take place in an orderly and balanced manner, with due regard to the rights [...]

Press Statement The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement: On India-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement in Goods The Free Trade Agreement in Goods with the ASEAN signed by the Indian Commerce Minister in Thailand yesterday reflects the misplaced priorities of the Congress led Government at a time of [...]

“The results are not just one way. There are cases where trade has improved the conditions of women, especially by creating new employment opportunities in the formal and informal sector. In other cases, trade liberalisation has had a negative impact by destroying the sectors where women work.” This is one of the assertions made at [...]

The Kenan Institute Asia (K.I.Asia) has begun a 16-month research and communication project to assess the possible impacts in Thailand of the proposed ASEAN-European Union (EU) free trade agreement and to provide a factual basis for the public, business and government to discuss ways to mitigate any adverse impacts. The study, entitled “Thailand-EU SME FTA [...]

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 3 (IPS) – The postponement of a major U.N. General Assembly conference to address the global economic crisis and its impact on development is seen by some civil society groups and analysts as a sign of the conflicting interests between the world’s richest and poorest countries. Although the meeting was ostensibly delayed [...]

The 42nd ADB Board of Governors Annual Meeting was held in Bali from 2 to 5 May 2009. Nearly eighty leaders of PSI and its affiliated unions in Asia and Pacific with other global unions, Building and Wood Workers’ International (BWI) and Union Network International (UNI), attended the meeting and various series of seminars/forums. The [...]

Six years of negotiations have yet to convince India to sign a much-awaited free trade deal with ASEAN, as scheduled last week during the group’s summit. India would only ink a deal after it concludes its April general elections. The delay came as a surprise because the country confirmed early this year it would proceed [...]

International Women’s Day 2009 Statement Committee for Asian Women On 8 March 1857, women working in clothing and textile factories (called ‘garment workers’) in New York City, in the United States, staged a protest. They were fighting against inhumane working conditions and low wages. The police attacked the protestors and dispersed them. Two years later, [...]

A consumers’ group on Saturday urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to turn down the EU-Asean free trade policy on intellectual property rights protection which, if ratified, could affect the Asean agriculture, biodiversity and public health access. The EU-Asean agreement, which is under the process of negotiation, demanded extension of its intellectual property [...]