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News Release Archive | Asia | Accuracy.Org

Obama and Romney Both Backing Secret Job-Killing Deal?

July 12, 2012

As the campaigns of President Obama and Mitt Romney trade attacks while claiming each is a friend to workers, a secretive trade deal of the type backed by both campaigns is emerging in international talks.

Romney claims he is representing “job creators” whose dealings will benefit society as a whole while Obama claims that his vision is opposed to “top-down economics” and will grow “the middle class.”

AP reports: “Negotiators from the United States and eight other Pacific Rim countries concluded a round of talks Tuesday on one of the most ambitious trade agreements in decades, as pressure mounted on Japan to decide if it wants to join Mexico and Canada as the newest members of the pact. The administration of President Barack Obama notified Congress this week that Mexico and Canada were joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership, triggering a 90-day waiting period before those two countries can enter talks later this year. … It has met stiff opposition in the U.S. Congress, largely from Democrats and allies of organized labor who complain the talks have been shrouded in secrecy.”

LORI WALLACH, Arden Manning, amanning at citizen.org
Wallach director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, which put out a recent statement: “A text of the TPP’s investment chapter that leaked last month shows that it includes an expanded version of the rules in NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement] that incentivize investment and job offshoring by eliminating the risks of relocating to lower-wage countries and guaranteeing preferential treatment for relocated firms.

“During last week’s secretive TPP talks in San Diego, state legislative leaders from all 50 states sent a letter to President Barack Obama’s senior trade official, warning that they will oppose the deal unless the administration alters its current approach. “The lack of transparency of the treaty negotiation process, and the failure of negotiators to meaningfully consult with states on the far-reaching impact of trade agreements on state and local laws, even when binding on our states, is of grave concern to us,” the legislators wrote in their July 5 letter.

Wallach said: “U.S. negotiators have tried to keep TPP negotiations totally below the radar, but even so, opposition to the current ‘NAFTA-on-steroids-with-Asia’ approach is escalating, which is good news for the public but a serious complication for the Obama campaign’s attack on Romney as a U.S. job offshorer.”

See Public Citizen’s Trans-Pacific Partnership webpage, which includes information about sections of the trade deal that were recently leaked.

See Wallach’s recent piece “NAFTA on Steroids“

Filed Under: Tagged With: Asia, economy, Lori Wallach, TPP,

Fukushima Disaster “Man-Made” — Has the Nuclear Industry Captured the Regulators?

July 5, 2012

Bloomberg BusinessWeek is reporting: “The Fukushima nuclear disaster was the result of ‘man-made’ failures before and after last year’s earthquake, according to a report from an independent parliamentary investigation.”

ARNIE GUNDERSEN, contact at fairewinds.org
Gundersen is a former nuclear industry insider and now an independent consultant, chief engineer with Fairewinds Consulting. He said today: “I am not surprised by the Diet Committee’s conclusion and have been saying the same thing for almost a year. I’ve always felt uncomfortable calling it an accident — it’s a man-mad disaster, a catastrophe. This report confirms that. I applaud the Diet for being so forthright. I met with them while in Japan and they seemed to genuinely want to get to the bottom of things.

“However, beyond the shores of Japan, some people will try to misuse this report to say it can’t happen here. The fact is that it can. Here in the U.S., the industry basically forced out Gregory Jaczko as chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And of course, the International Atomic Energy Agency was in Japan. It’s a world-wide problem: the nuclear industry has taken control of the regulators.” See Fairewinds video entitled “Nuclear Oversight Lacking Worldwide”

In February 2012, under contract with Greenpeace, Fairewinds wrote a report titled “The Echo Chamber: Regulatory Capture and the Fukushima Daiichi Disaster.”

KARL GROSSMAN, kgrossman at hamptons.com
Professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, Grossman is author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He said today: “The Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe was a ‘man-made disaster’ directly attributable to ‘collusion between the government, the regulators and Tepco, and the lack of governance by said parties,’ concludes the 10-member Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigations Commission of the National Diet of Japan.

“This sort of collusion between supposed nuclear regulators and those they are supposed to regulate is a worldwide pattern. The nuclear foxes aren’t guarding the nuclear hen house. Regulation is a myth. That’s been the situation in Japan, the U.S. — indeed, in nations all over the globe. The International Atomic Energy Agency, set up to both promote and somehow regulate nuclear power at the same time, represents this atomic dysfunction internationally.”

AILEEN MIOKO SMITH, amsmith at gol.com
Aileen Mioko Smith is executive director of Green Action, a Japanese environmental group. She has been scrutinizing Japanese government claims since the earthquake. In March 1995 she wrote “On Shaky Ground: Will Japan’s Nuke Plants Be Next?”

See executive summary of the Diet report in English.

Tagged With: Aileen Mioko Smith, Arnie Gundersen, Asia, enviroment, Fukushima, Japan, Kral Grossman, nuclear,

Tensions Soar as Korean Women Try to Stop Destruction of “Wonder of Nature” for Military Base

March 8, 2012

Police Attempt to Arrest Student Activists

Today is International Women’s Day and women are leading protests in South Korea. CNN is reporting: “Tensions soared on the South Korean island of Jeju on Thursday as hundreds of residents, activists and priests protest against the building of a naval base. About 500 supporters of the project also arrived Thursday on the second day of key construction work.

“Crews have blown up rocky areas with dynamite to prepare for a caisson and other structures that will help with the construction of the docks. Protests against the building of the naval base started seven years ago over fears of damage to the environment and nature on the island. Protesters say it would also threaten the peace on the island, parts of which are UNESCO world heritage sites, and affect tourism.”

CHRISTINE AHN, christineahn at mac.com, @christineahn
Ahn is executive director of the Korea Policy Institute and can connect media to people on the ground and policy analysts. She said today: “Mayhem has broken out as government forces are arresting activist, there are members of parliament protesting as well.”

The group released a statement: “Despite an official appeal from Jeju Governor Woo to the South Korean Navy to halt the blast of the sacred Gureombi volcanic coastline on Jeju Island, the Navy and Samsung Corporation have proceeded to detonate 800 kilograms of explosives near the seashore. The blasting is estimated to last for five months using 43 tons of explosives.

“The Gureombi coastline is a continuous volcanic rock formation along Gangjeong village, along the southern part of Jeju Island, which is approximately 50 miles south of the Korean peninsula. Yesterday, Governor Woo issued an emergency written appeal to Seoul citing concern about the environmental destruction and likely clashes between village protestors and police. Several members of South Korean Parliament and opposition party leaders are now in Gangjeong village after submitting a bill to immediately halt construction.

“An intense standoff is now underway between Gangjeong villagers and hundreds of police in riot gear who were shipped from the Korean mainland to suppress the peaceful protests. Already dozens of arrests have been made, mostly of women who chained themselves to trucks and other barricades to block Samsung vehicles transporting the explosives. Activists have also boarded kayaks to block Daelim ships from dredging the coastline, which is home to … endangered marine life, such as the red-footed crab and soft coral reef.

“The police have erected double layers of three-meter-high razor wire fences around the construction site to prevent people from entering,’ said Benjamin Monnet, a French peace activist who was in the kayak in the early morning. ‘There were 17 ships, including three equipped with a radar system. It looked like they were ready for war.’ …

“‘Jeju isn’t just any island,’ explains American actor Robert Redford. ‘It has just been selected as one of the “Seven Wonders of Nature” for its breathtaking beauty, unique traditions and sacred groves. Of the world’s 66 UNESCO Global Geoparks, nine are on Jeju Island.’

“For the past five years, Gangjeong villagers have been waging a nonviolent campaign against the construction of the naval base. In a referendum, 94 percent of the villagers voted against the base. Despite these and other democratic efforts, the South Korean government has arrested 350, fined and beaten nonviolent protestors for “obstructing business.”

“Many international arms experts suspect that the naval base will be in the service of the U.S. missile defense system as part of the U.S. pivot towards the Asia Pacific in its efforts to contain China. Villagers say they are the unfortunate target of an arms race between the U.S. and China.”

For more information, see: http://www.savejejuisland.org and https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23savejejuisland

Gureombi Rocks

Protesters at Gureombi Rocks

Video of arrests

Tagged With: Asia, Christine Ahn, Jeju, South Korea,

iEmpire: Apple’s Labor in China Even Worse than NYT Reports?

February 9, 2012


ARUN GUPTA, ebrowniess at yahoo.com
Gupta just wrote the piece “iEmpire: Apple’s Sordid Business Practices Are Even Worse Than You Think,” which states: “Behind the sleek face of the iPad is an ugly backstory that has revealed once more the horrors of globalization. The buzz about Apple’s sordid business practices is courtesy of the New York Times series on the iEconomy. In some ways it’s well reported but adds little new to what critics of the Taiwan-based Foxconn, the world’s largest electronics manufacturer, have been saying for years. The series’ biggest impact may be discomfiting Apple fanatics who as they read the articles realize that the iPad they are holding is assembled from child labor, toxic shop floors, involuntary overtime, suicidal working conditions, and preventable accidents that kill and maim workers.

“It turns out the story is much worse. Researchers with the Hong Kong-based Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) that legions of vocational and university students, some as young as 16, are forced to take months’-long ‘internships’ in Foxconn’s mainland China factories assembling Apple products. The details of the internship program paint a far more disturbing picture than the Times does of how Foxconn, ‘the Chinese hell factory,’ treats its workers, relying on public humiliation, military discipline, forced labor and physical abuse as management tools to hold down costs and extract maximum profits for Apple.

“To supply enough employees for Foxconn, the 60th largest corporation globally, government officials are serving as lead recruiters at the cost of pushing teenage students into harsh work environments. The scale is astonishing with the Henan provincial government having announced in both 2010 and 2011 that it would send 100,000 vocational and university students to work at Foxconn, according to SACOM.

Gupta is a founding editor of the New York City based Indypendent and also helped found the Occupied Wall Street Journal.

Tagged With: Arun Gupta, Asia, china, corporations, economy,