By Ivan Lim, Philipp Kauppert, FES Jakarta, March 2010 By signing a Free Trade Agreement with China, ASEAN expects to strengthen its bargaining position for international trade. Being one of the key members of ASEAN,
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By: Martin Manurung* Facing the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA), workers and employers stand on the same position. This is an unusual phenomenon. Both are screaming for help facing tremendous consequences of the implementation of
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by: Fawaz Abd Aziz Roots and Spread of Financial Crisis After the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US first burst into the headlines of mainstream newspapers in June 2007[1], there have been two general categories of the many discussions that have taken place regarding the roots of the global financial – and now, economic –
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By: Walden Bello and Mara Baviera (Monthly Review, 8 July 2009) In 2006–08, food shortages became a global reality, with the prices of commodities spiraling beyond the reach of vast numbers of people. International agencies were caught flatfooted, with the World Food Program warning that its rapidly diminishing food stocks might not be able to
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by Ivan Hadar (published in Jakarta Globe, July 29, 2009) In 2007, the SBY-JK administration proclaimed its “1,000 Towers” plan, the provision of one million high-rise apartments, mostly in Jakarta and other large cities in Java, to address a growing housing crisis. According to official estimates, the demand for housing in Indonesia has reached at
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by: Ivan Hadar (published in Jakarta Post, July 25, 2009) Globally, every seven seconds a child under ten years old dies from hunger. Meanwhile, according to research released by the UN in 2008, some 826 million people around the world are permanently suffering severe malnutrition. In Indonesia, news of malnutrition and deaths caused by starvation
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(from FES Occasional Paper No. 42) Four principles guide the social democratic response: Solutions must be consistent with basic values of social justice and social solidarity as well as basic notions of fairness The bonds of social solidarity cross national boundaries; we cannot take actions to help ourselves at the expense of those in the
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Another Trade Union source on the issue: Financial Crisis Unions’ Watch, a webpage hosted by the ITUC that presents the reactions of trade unions on the global economic and financial crisis: http://www.ituc-csi.org/financialcrisis.
Election and Economic Depression by Martin Manurung One month prior to the legislative election in Indonesia, the world is officially declared to be in an economic recession. Global economic growth for 2009 which was predicted to be only 0.5 percent, in just 2 months was corrected by the Intenational Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World
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Another comprehensive access to information on the financial crisis can be accessed under: http://www.rethinkingfinance.org/ : The following institutions are behind this new website: Bretton Woods Project, Casino Crash, Debtonation, Eurodad, Focus on the Global South, Choike.org The website intends to: “forward alternative ideas and analyses, provides information about and comments on latest events, and gives
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