Recently in Environment Category

New fight for Congo's riches. Nick Mathiason. Guardian/UK. 6/29/2008.

Scores of lucrative mining concessions handed out by President Joseph Kabila are in doubt after a report questioned their legality. Will a programme of renegotiation finally allow a beleaguered nation to exploit its huge mineral wealth?

'Everyone's starving' in Ethiopia, aid worker says. CNN. 6/09/2008.

SHASHAMANE, Ethiopia (AP) -- Like so many other victims of Ethiopia's hunger crisis, Usheto Beriso weighs just half what he should. He is always cold and swaddled in a blanket. His limbs are stick-thin.

$40bn shortfall in Africa aid endangers 5 million lives. Tracy McVeigh. Guardian/UK. 6/15/2008.

Watchdog proposes a special tax as the foot-dragging by G8 nations undermines a decade of progress

Monsanto Seeks Big Increase in Crop Yields. Andrew Pollack, NY Times. 6/05/2008.

Monsanto, the leader in agricultural biotechnology, pledged Wednesday to develop seeds that would double the yields of corn, soybeans and cotton by 2030 and would require 30 percent less water, land and energy to grow.

Boeing, Dow Chemical Fined 926 Million Over Nuclear Pollution. Agence France Presse. 6/04/2008.

LOS ANGELES - A Denver, Colorado court has fined Dow Chemical Co. and Boeing Co. a combined 926 million dollars for property damages caused by plutonium contamination from a nuclear weapons plant.

In Burma (Myanmar), how many cyclone orphans?. Christian Science Monitor. 6/09/08.

Aid groups are trying to curb child labor and reconnect families - without the help of surnames.

Experts see no early end to world's food crisis. Renee Schoof. McClatchy. 5/14/2008.

WASHINGTON -- The world's deep hunger crisis could go on for years, and in the long run it'll take a new scientific agricultural revolution to help farmers in the poorest countries produce enough food, experts said Wednesday at congressional hearings.

World's Wildlife and Environment Already Hit by Climate Change, Major Study Shows. Ian Sample. Guardian/UK. 5/15/2008.

Global warming is disrupting wildlife and the environment on every continent, according to an unprecedented study that reveals the extent to which climate change is already affecting the world's ecosystems.

Nigeria power shortage to persist. BBC. 5/30/2008.

Nigeria will not be able to generate enough electricity for its population until at least 2015, President Umaru Yar'Adua has said.

Q&A: 'Biofuels Must Include the Poor'. Interview with Ali Mchumo. IPS. 5/30/2008.

ROME, May 30 (IPS) - Biofuels are being criticised for contributing to the rise in commodity prices, but their energy potential can be developed too, on condition "that the poor are part of the production chain."

By Rowan Wolf. February 2004.

There is an interesting article in the February 9, 2004 edition of Fortune Magazine - CLIMATE COLLAPSE - The Pentagon's Weather Nightmare (UTJ Permalink - by David Stipp. The Pentagon is apparently taking "climate change" seriously even if the White House is not. The Pentagon called in Andrew Marshall, who has been the Defense Department's "sage" for over thirty years, to look at the scenarios.

BIODIVERSITY: Indigenous Peoples Fight Theft. Julio Godoy. Inter Press Service. 5/24/2008.

BONN, May 24 (IPS) - Amongst the suits in the luxurious hotel hall, Sebastian Haji immediately catches the eye. He is small, dark-skinned, and wears a crown of feathers on his head.

Family Seed Business Takes On Goliath of Genetic Modification. Marian Scott. The Edmonton Journal (Canada). 5/25/2008.

Heather Meek leafs through the seed catalogue she wrote on the family computer, on winter nights after the kids went to bed.There are Kahnawake Mohawk beans and Painted Mountain corn; Tante Alice cucumber and 40 varieties of heritage tomatoes.

Oil: A Global Crisis. Geoffrey Lean. Independent/UK. 5/25/2008.

The invasion of Iraq by Britain and the US has trebled the price of oil, according to a leading expert, costing the world a staggering $6 trillion in higher energy prices alone.

Chemical Weapons Come Home. Stan Cox. Chronogram. 4/25/2008.

The "vomiting virus" now sweeping across Britain may be spreading. At the same time, San Francisco is being hit with a new strain of the nasty bacterium known as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)--this one responsible for "flesh-eating pneumonia."

Global Problems, Local Solutions. Wendell Berry. Resurgence. 2006.

If governments fail to protect their citizens, then those citizens must protect themselves by developing local economies.

LET US BEGIN by assuming what appears to be true: that the so-called "environmental crisis" is now pretty well established as a fact of our age. The problems of pollution, species extinction, loss of wilderness, loss of farmland, loss of topsoil may still be ignored or scoffed at, but they are not denied. Concern for these problems has acquired a certain standing, a measure of discussability, in the media and in some scientific, academic, and religious institutions.

ENERGY-AFRICA: From Kerosene to the LED, O-HUB and O-BOX. Stephen Leahy. Inter Press Service. 5/08/2008.

ACCRA, May 8 (IPS) - In many of Africa's towns and villages, smoky kerosene lamps are all that keeps the darkness at bay after sunset. However, kerosene is a dangerous and increasingly expensive source of light for Africans who do not have access to electricity -- about three-quarters of those living on the continent, according to the World Bank.

ENVIRONMENT-BRAZIL: Controversy Over Indigenous Land and Biofuels. Mario Osava. Inter Press Service. 5/08/2008.

BRASILIA, May 8 (IPS) - The legal status of an indigenous territory in the far north of Brazil, and biofuels, are two hot potatoes at the Third National Conference on the Environment being held in the capital city, which is focusing on climate change.

CHINA: Buying Farmland Abroad, Ensuring Food Security. Antoaneta Bezlova. Inter Press Service. 5/09/2008.

BEIJING, May 9 (IPS) - Rattled by rapidly rising global grain prices, China is looking at strategies to ensure long-term food security for its 1.3 billion people such as procuring farmland overseas and opposing the formation of any international grain price- fixing monopolies.

US Urged to Reform Foreign Aid. Ida Wahlstrom. One World. 5/09/2008.

WASHINGTON, May 8 (OneWorld) - More than 800 development and human rights activists are gathering here this week, developing and calling on Congress to implement new strategies to tackle world poverty and hunger.

World's Giants to Alter Food Equation. Evan Osnos & Laurie Goering. Chicago Tribune. 5/11/2008.

As China and India Rise, Diets Change and Demands Soar.

BEIJING - Nothing about the lunch rush at a McDonald's in China would feel out of place in America: Students huddled around video games and fries; a computer salesman scarfing a chicken sandwich; a teacher lingering over a hamburger and coffee. And in that all-American scene lies the next great challenge to the world's food supply.

Tornado might sound death knell for Oklahoma town. Kevin Murphy. KC Star. 5/12/2008.

PICHER, Okla. | A tornado did what the federal government could not.

Ellis Jones had been a holdout in the government's quest to pay everyone to leave Picher, contaminated from its long-closed lead mines.

The Green Machine: Monsanto Co's Transgenic Products Tightens Their Control of Seed Market. Jennifer Kahn. Resugence Magazine. 1999.

This letter, sent by the agrochemical company Monsanto to 30,000 farmers last fall to warn them that saving and replanting seeds from genetically engineered crops constitute "piracy," appears to be the act of a company on the defensive. But, in truth, it's a display of corporate sovereignty, Monsanto's way of staking the flag of empire upon the land. Thanks to advances in transgenics--inserting a gene from one species into an unrelated organism's DNA--seeds are now considered "intellectual property." According to the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), more than one third of the world's commercial-seed sales are controlled by a handful of corporations. Among them, Monsanto--the world's third-largest agrochemical and second-largest seed company (with a majority of the U.S. cotton, corn, and soybean markets)--is the most aggressive.

"Transgenic Seed Companies Lie and Bribe". Interview with Jesús León Santos, Winner of Goldman Prize. Inter Press Service. 4/24/2008.

MEXICO CITY, Apr 24 (Tierramérica) - Biotech corporations that developed genetically modified seeds are bribing authorities and carrying out costly advertising campaigns "plagued with lies in order to create monsters that attack life," says Jesús León Santos, an indigenous man who is one of this year's winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World. Elizabeth Rosenthal. NY Times. 4/26/2008.

Cod caught off Norway is shipped to China to be turned into filets, then shipped back to Norway for sale. Argentine lemons fill supermarket shelves on the Citrus Coast of Spain, as local lemons rot on the ground. Half of Europe's peas are grown and packaged in Kenya.

Punjab reaps a poisoned harvest. David Loyn. BBC. 4/26/2008.

The governments of many poor nations are alarmed at the rise in food prices. There are even problems in the Indian region of Punjab, where science once seemed to have found answers for a hungry world.

Warming 'affecting poor children'. BBC. 4/29/2008.

Climate change is already affecting the prospects for children in the world's poorer countries, according to Unicef.

UN: Biofuel Production 'Criminal Path' to Global Food Crisis. Environmental News Service. 4/29/2008.

GENEVA, Switzerland - The United States and the European Union have taken a "criminal path" by contributing to an explosive rise in global food prices through using food crops to produce biofuels, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food said today.At a press conference in Geneva, Jean Ziegler of Switzerland said that fuel policies pursued by the U.S. and the EU were one of the main causes of the current worldwide food crisis.

Chevron Complicit in Abuses in Burma - Rights Lobby. Marwaan Macan-Markar. Inter Press Services. 4/20/2008.

BANGKOK - An environmental group is warning U.S. energy giant Chevron to clean up its act in Burma or face legal proceedings where the multinational's links to gross human rights violations in the military-ruled country could be exposed.

Oxygen-poor ocean zones are growing. Kenneth Weiss. LA Times. 5/02/2008.

Linked to global warming, these areas of the Pacific and Atlantic cannot sustain most marine life, a new study warns.

Small-town residents living on deadly ground. Ronnie Greene. Miami Herald. 5/03/2008.

Residents of Tallevast blame toxins that leaked into the ground and their water supply as a factor in the 80 cancers of family members and neighbors over the years, and they want someone held accountable.

Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World. Josh Gerstein. NY Sun. 4/21/2008.

Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

Load Up the Pantry. Brett Arends. Wall Street Journal. 4/21/2008.

I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food.

No, this is not a drill.

Biofuels starving our people, leaders tell UN. Allegra Stratton. Guardian/UK. 4/28/2008.

The leaders of Bolivia and Peru have attacked the use of biofuels, saying they have made food too expensive for the poor.

Scientists: Smog contributes to premature death. AP. 4/22/2008. Link to report summary

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Short-term exposure to smog, or ozone, is clearly linked to premature deaths that should be taken into account when measuring the health benefits of reducing air pollution, a National Academy of Sciences review concludes.

DEVELOPMENT: Reinventing Agriculture. Stephen Leahy. IPS. 4/15/2008.

JOHANNESBURG, Apr 15 (IPS) - The results of a painstaking examination of global agriculture are being formally presented Tuesday with the release of the final report for the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

Exposed: The Great GM Crops Myth. Geoffrey Lean. Independent/UK. 4/20/2008.

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

DEVELOPMENT: Reinventing Agriculture. Stephen Leahy. International Press Service. 4/15/2008.

The results of a painstaking examination of global agriculture are being formally presented Tuesday with the release of the final report for the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).

As income gap widens, recession fears grow. Tami Luhby. CNN. 4/09/2008

Incomes fell for poor and stagnated for middle-class families since late 1990s, making it tougher for them to weather economic downturn.

The World Bank's Carbon Deals. Janet Redman. Foreign Policy In Focus. 4/10/2008.

It was the first day in a long week of the consultations, PowerPoint presentations and high-level cocktail parties that accompany the World Bank's Spring Meetings in Washington, D.C. Already tensions were running high in a tightly-packed conference room downtown. Bank staff huddled on one side and non-profit groups on the other. The topic that drew so much attention first thing Monday morning: Climate change and the Bank's plans for plunging its fingers deeper into the expanding multi-billion-dollar carbon-trading pie.

Food Price Rises Threaten Global Security - UN. David Adam. Independent/UK. 4/09/2008.

Rising food prices could spark worldwide unrest and threaten political stability, the UN's top humanitarian official warned yesterday after two days of rioting in Egypt over the doubling of prices of basic foods in a year and protests in other parts of the world.

How much will it cost to fix the climate? The numbers vary. Brad Knickerbocker. Christian Science Monitor. 3/27/2008.

One of the biggest questions about climate change is: What will it cost to fix? Figuring that out is a huge challenge.

Asian rice crisis starts to bite. Hannah Belcher. Al Jazeera. 3/29/2008.

Cambodia has become the latest Asian country to impose restrictions on exports of rice - the staple food for half the world's population.

High Rice Cost Creating Fears of Asia Unrest. Keith Bradsher. NY Times. 3/29/2008.

HANOI -- Rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world's largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export.

Time runs out for islanders on global warming's front line. Douglass McDougall. Guardian/UK. 3/30/2008.

Rising sea levels threaten to flood many of the islands in the fertile Ganges delta, leading to an environmental disaster and a refugee crisis for India and Bangladesh

The Military-Petroleum Complex. Nick Turse. Foreign Policy In Focus. 3/24/2008.

In November 2002, before the invasion of Iraq, then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld told Steve Kroft of CBS that U.S. saber-rattling toward Iraq had "nothing to do with oil, literally nothing to do with oil." In 2003, Rumsfeld called the assertion that the United States had invaded Iraq to get at its oil "utter nonsense." ("We don't take our forces and go around the world and try to take other people's . . . resources, their oil. That's just not what the United States does.") In 2005, speaking to American troops in Fallujah, Rumsfeld reiterated the point: "The United States, as you all know better than any, did not come to Iraq for oil." Strong denials for sure, but were they true?

Mining forces out thousands in SA. BBC. 3/25/2008.

Nearly 20,000 South Africans have been displaced by mining giant Anglo American in its search for platinum, a BBC File on 4 investigation has found.

Scorned trash pickers become global environmental force. Jack Chang. McClatchy. 3/24/2008.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- As the world scrambles to save dwindling resources and halt global warming, a long-scorned population is becoming the latest hope in the environmental battle.

'Last wave' for wild golden frog. BBC. 2/02/2008.

A BBC film crew has captured footage of a rare frog waving, wrestling and courting for the first time.

The Panamanian golden frog communicates with other frogs by semaphore in the form of gentle hand waves.

Population Growth Is a Threat. But It Pales Against the Greed of the Rich. George Monbiot. Guardian/UK. 1/29/2008.

It's easy to blame the poor for growing pressure on the world's resources. But still the wealthy West takes the lion's share.

    I cannot avoid the subject any longer. Almost every day I receive a clutch of emails about it, asking the same question. A frightening new report has just pushed it up the political agenda: for the first time the World Food Programme is struggling to find the supplies it needs for emergency famine relief. So why, like most environmentalists, won't I mention the p-word? According to its most vociferous proponents (Paul and Anne Ehrlich), population is "our number one environmental problem". But most greens will not discuss it.

Urbanization threatens Namibia's traditional Himba culture. Stephanie Hanes. Christian Science Monitor. 2/05/2008.

Where an ancient tribe and modern Africa meet, bare-breasted women in animal-skin skirts and men with spears join the urban flow of traffic, supermarkets, and pool halls.

Opuwo, Namibia - As the sun drops behind the dusty main street here, the crowd at the informal market behind the OK Grocer gets bigger. Twenty-somethings in Western clothes slap hands in greeting, older men sit in the red dust drinking home-brewed beer out of plastic buckets, women haggle with stall merchants for the last best price on tomatoes and T-shirts

Ban Ki-moon Warns That Water Shortages Are Increasingly Driving Conflicts. UN News Centre. 2/06/2008.

Many of today's conflicts around the world are being fuelled or exacerbated by water shortages and climate change is only making the situation worse, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly today.

True scale of C0₂emissions from shipping revealed. John Vidal. Guardian/UK. 2/13/2008.

Leaked UN report says pollution three times higher than previously thought.

The true scale of climate change emissions from shipping is almost three times higher than previously believed, according to a leaked UN study seen by the Guardian.

Drug Traces Common in Tap Water. AP. 3/10/2008.

A vast array of pharmaceuticals -- including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones -- have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Carbon Output Must Near Zero To Avert Danger, New Studies Say. Juliet Eilperin. Washington Post. 3/10/2008.

The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.

Overwhelmingly White, the Green Movement is Reaching For The Rainbow. Paula Bock. 3/10/2008. Seattle Times.

"What's a nice black guy like me doing in a movement like this?"Van Jones strides the stage at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center, a charismatic lawyer who grew up in rural Tennessee, graduated from Yale Law, and founded the Ella Baker Center for jobs and justice in Oakland.

Grain Farmer Claims Moral Victory in Seed Battle Against Monsanto. Matt Hartley. Globe & Mail (Canada), 3/20/2008.

Percy Schmeiser's decade-long legal odyssey has finally come to an end - and he's got a cheque for $660 to prove it.

Peru Tribe Battles Oil Giant Over Pollution. Peter Collyns, BBC. 3/24/2008.

It is a familiar story. Big business moves into a pristine wilderness and starts destroying the environment and by turn the livelihoods of the indigenous people who live there.

Americas Slave Labor. Christopher Moraff. In These Times. 1/17/2008.

Inmates are being forced to work in toxic 'e-waste' sweatshops.

U.S. prisoners working for a computer-recycling operation run by Federal Prison Industries (FPI) are being exposed to a toxic cocktail of hazardous chemicals through their prison jobs while efforts by some prison officials to protect them have been met with stonewalling and subterfuge.

The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. Maude Barlow. Foreign Policy in Focus. 2/25/2008.

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt of Chapter 5 in Maude Barlow's latest book, Blue Covenant. She is touring with her book across the country; see Food and Water Watch for her full schedule.

The Future of Water

The three water crises - dwindling freshwater supplies, inequitable access to water and the corporate control of water - pose the greatest threat of our time to the planet and to our survival. Together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, the water crises impose some life-or-death decisions on us all. Unless we collectively change our behavior, we are heading toward a world of deepening conflict and potential wars over the dwindling supplies of freshwater - between nations, between rich and poor, between the public and the private interest, between rural and urban populations, and between the competing needs of the natural world and industrialized humans.

Sex-Changing Chemicals Make Male Starlings Sing Sweet Songs. Brandon Keim. Wired News. 2/29/2008.

Pollutants that turn male fish into females have an unexpected effect on starlings: they cause the guys to sing sweet songs that lady starlings find irresistible.

Solar Energy Firms Leave Waste Behind in China. Ariana Eunjung Cha. Washington Post. 3/09/2008.

GAOLONG, China -- The first time Li Gengxuan saw the dump trucks from the nearby factory pull into his village, he couldn't believe what happened. Stopping between the cornfields and the primary school playground, the workers dumped buckets of bubbling white liquid onto the ground. Then they turned around and drove right back through the gates of their compound without a word.

"You Can See the Whole Hemisphere Breathing". An Interview with Dr. Ralph Keeling. IPS. 2/08/2008.

Dr. Ralph Keeling is a climate change expert who explores how rises in carbon dioxide influence global oxygen levels.

Ban Ki-moon Warns That Water Shortages Are Increasingly Driving Conflicts. UN News Center. 2/06/2008.

 Many of today's conflicts around the world are being fuelled or exacerbated by water shortages and climate change is only making the situation worse, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the General Assembly today.

Pantanal Indians Threatened by Deforestation. Mario Osava. IPS. 2/09/2008.

CAMPO GRANDE, Brazil, Feb 9 (Tierramérica) - The indigenous peoples of the central-western Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul do not look like the tribes portrayed in film, decked out in colourful clothing and adornments and depending on their natural surroundings to survive in the Amazon jungle. But some of their problems are similar to their Amazonian counterparts, and in some cases even more serious.

Environmental quality low in London's deprived areas. Environmental Data Interactive Exchange (EDIE). 2.04.2008.

The quality of the environment in the most deprived areas of London is much worse than in the city's affluent areas, Government statistics have revealed.

The Dire Side of Rising Food Prices. Michael Nizza. NY Times. 1/30/2008.

The statistics are clear enough that food prices are surging around the world, from a United Nations study’s estimate of a 37 percent jump over the past year to The Economist’s measure of a 75 percent climb since 2005.

Drought Could Force Nuke-Plant Shutdowns. Mitch Weiss. AP. 1/23/2008.

LAKE NORMAN, N.C. (AP) — Nuclear reactors across the Southeast could be forced to throttle back or temporarily shut down later this year because drought is drying up the rivers and lakes that supply power plants with the awesome amounts of cooling water they need to operate.

Prius Designer Says Toyota-Led Industry Must Lose Oil Addiction. John Lippert and Alan Ohnsman. Bloomberg. 1/23/2008.

Bill Reinert, who helped design Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius hybrid, hovers in a helicopter 1,000 feet over Fort McMurray, Alberta. On this clear November morning, he's craning for a look at one of the world's largest petroleum reserves where there's not an oil well in sight.

Oil Wars: Transforming the American Military into a Global Oil-Protection Service. Michael Klare. Tom Dispatch. 4/29/2004.

In the first U.S. combat operation of the war in Iraq, Navy commandos stormed an offshore oil-loading platform. "Swooping silently out of the Persian Gulf night," an overexcited reporter for the New York Times wrote on March 22, "Navy Seals seized two Iraqi oil terminals in bold raids that ended early this morning, overwhelming lightly-armed Iraqi guards and claiming a bloodless victory in the battle for Iraq's vast oil empire."

Climate change may spark conflict between nations. John Reid. Independent. 2/28/2006.

John Reid warns climate change may spark conflict between nations - and says British armed forces must be ready to tackle the violence

Climate scientists issue dire warning. David Adam. Guardian. 2/28/2006.

The Earth's temperature could rise under the impact of global warming to levels far higher than previously predicted, according to the United Nations' team of climate experts.

Arctic summers ice-free 'by 2013'. Jonathan Amos. BBC. 12/12/2007.

Scientists in the US have presented one of the most dramatic forecasts yet for the disappearance of Arctic sea ice.

Food and Fuel Compete for Land Andrew Martin. NY Times, 12/18/07.

Shopping at a Whole Foods Market in suburban Chicago, Meredith Estes said food prices have jumped so much she has resorted to coupons. Charles T. Rodgers Jr., an Arkansas cattle rancher, said normal feed rations so expensive and scarce he is scrambling for alternatives. In Oregon, Jack Joyce, the owner of Rogue Ales, said the cost of barley malt has soared 88 percent this year.

Oregon Chosen for Peak Sun Solar Facility. Oregonian. 11/25/07.

Oregon seems to be a viable spot for solar companies to settle in. Is it because Oregon is so much more cheaper than say California? Peak Sun, a silicon photovoltaic manufacturing company, will choose Millersburg with an $18 million dollar investment.

11/19/07 Russell Gold & Ann Davis, Wall Street Journal, Oil Officials See Limit Looming on Production.

A growing number of oil-industry chieftains are endorsing an idea long deemed fringe: The world is approaching a practical limit to the number of barrels of crude oil that can be pumped every day.

Martin Kohr. 10/99. International Journal of Rural Studies.

Abstract
When confronted with growing joblessness, Americans and Europeans often blame competition from low-wage Third World countries, or the influx of immigrants from those countries. In fact it is more directly the new round of economic colonialism that is the culprit, as it sets into motion the kinds of changes that cause the immigration and also have dire effects on the poorest countries themselves - countries whose economics have fallen under the control of foreign corporations and whose resources are raided and shipped north to the wealthiest industrial nations. The new trade rules leave Third World countries with little ability to resist or protect themselves, or seek alternative economic strategies. In this chapter, Martin Khor presents a summary review of the negative impacts on the environment and social structures.

Formerly a professor of political economy, Khor is now president of the Third World Network in Penang, Malaysia, one of the world's leading voices of opposition to the present globalization pattern, with offices in Asia, Africa, and South America. He has been research director of the Consumer's Association of Penang and vice president of Friends of the Earth-Malaysia. He is editor of Third World Resurgence magazine and author of Malaysian Economy: Structures and Dependence (1983).