(SteveWatson) – Over 90 academics, practitioners and public interest organizations from six continents have collectively warned that a secretive global treaty, currently being negotiated by governments of the world’s largest economies would see tight controls placed on the internet and would threaten other fundamental rights and freedoms.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has received fleeting public attention, yet it has been quietly evolving for a number of years.

On it’s face ACTA is described as a countermeasure directed at the rise of counterfeit goods, medicines and pirated copyright protected material, including “piracy over the Internet”.

If officially ratified, however, ACTA would mark the formation of a major new global legal infrastructure with relation to standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. Read the rest of this entry »

(Alternet) – Negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) resumed last week in Wellington, New Zealand, with Canada, the United States, the European Union, and a handful of other countries launching the eighth round of talks. While even the most optimistic ACTA supporters do not expect to conclude an agreement before the end of the year, the next five days may prove to be a pivotal point in the negotiations since over the past several weeks, there have been two major leaks that could dramatically alter the still-secret discussions.

The first leak was an internal Dutch government document chronicling the positions of each ACTA participant on treaty transparency. The level of ACTA secrecy is highly unusual for an agreement focused on intellectual property issues, leading to a steady stream of parliamentary resolutions and political demands for transparency coming from around the globe. Read entire article

Although there is a need for Canada to expand its trade horizons, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) currently being negotiated with the European Union (EU) appears to be based on the flawed NAFTA model. Many view it as an opportunity to decrease its trade reliance on the U.S., but it could serve to accelerate the corporate takeover of the country. The deal would exceed NAFTA in its scope and with the third round of negotiations scheduled for April 19-23 in Ottawa, there are lingering concerns regarding its lack of transparency. A Canada-EU CETA could be used to expand NAFTA, strengthen U.S.-EU economic relations and further advance the transatlantic agenda. Read the rest of this entry »

(TheComingDepression) – A small group of U.S. lawmakers planned to offer legislation Thursday to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement in the latest sign of congressional disillusionment with free-trade deals. Read the rest of this entry »

A communiqué released by the Association of Indigenous Councils of Antioquia claims that in the early morning of January 30, after flyovers and shootings from an airplane, bombs were dropped from a helicopter, one of which hit a house occupied by five people in the town of Alto Guayabal. Four people were injured, including a 20-day-old baby. Read the rest of this entry »

(LifeSiteNews) – In a brief video released on the Internet, Lord Christopher Monkton is seen giving a speech today in Copenhagen warning that President Obama will try to use his Executive Authority to sign an agreement, rather than a treaty, to commit the United States to undertake measures against climate change that will seriously damage the freedoms and prosperity of America. Read the rest of this entry »

Although some may have viewed President Barack Obama’s recent Asian trip as uneventful and perhaps unsuccessful, he appears to have recommitted to the principles of globalization as the answer to the world’s economic woes. Obama declared his intentions for the U.S. to be fully engaged in Asia economically, politically, and in areas of security. He announced that America would join negotiations for a Trans-Pacific deal. This could be used as an opportunity for the U.S. to reassert its leadership in regards to trade initiatives and might also serve as a stepping stone for a larger free trade agreement. Read the rest of this entry »

(RawStory) – Leaked details of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated in secret by most of the world’s largest economies suggest Internet file-sharers could be blocked from accessing the Internet if they are repeatedly accused of sharing copyrighted material, say media and digital-rights watchdogs. Read the rest of this entry »

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad. It says: Read the rest of this entry »

The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad. It says: Read the rest of this entry »

The latest news report that Russia will sign an agreement with the Bolivian government to explore and produce natural gas is a significant setback for US domination of its traditional Latin American sphere of influence. Read the rest of this entry »

According to the CDC, the following states have implemented legal actions in response to the H1N1 virus: Read the rest of this entry »

The vast majority of German Jews “vehemently rejected Zionism as an enemy from within.” They were Germans. Eighty thousand had fought in the trenches and 12,000 had died. “Nowhere was the opposition of Jews [to Zionism] so widespread, principled, and fierce as in Germany,” a Zionist historian wrote. (168) Read the rest of this entry »

(NaturalNews) – Your right to eat healthy food and use supplements of your choice is rapidly vanishing, but every effort has been made to keep you in the dark about the coming nutricide. Codex Alimentarius is scheduled for full global implementation on December 31, 2009, and not a word has been spoken in main stream media about this threat to humanity. Read the rest of this entry »

President Obama will attend the controversial Security and Prosperity Partnership meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper next month, it has been revealed. Read the rest of this entry »

The Iraqi government has moved to sharply restrict the movement and activities of U.S. forces in a new reading of a six-month-old U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that has startled American commanders and raised concerns about the safety of their troops. Read the rest of this entry »

“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
- George Orwell
On July 4 in Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden, who campaigned with Barack Obama on a platform of ending the occupation of Iraq, found himself in one of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s lavish buildings, the Al-Faw Palace. Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. Dow AgroSciences has gone ahead with a threatened suit against the federal government under the North American Free Trade Agreement, seeking a repeal of Quebec’s ban on lawn pesticides containing 2,4-D and at least $2 million in damages. Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. Dow AgroSciences has gone ahead with a threatened suit against the federal government under the North American Free Trade Agreement, seeking a repeal of Quebec’s ban on lawn pesticides containing 2,4-D and at least $2 million in damages. Read the rest of this entry »

President Obama is concerned that Iran has sought nuclear weapons and its leaders “allegedly” deny the Holocaust and threaten Israel. [1] Read the rest of this entry »

The Syrian President has ruled out the normalization of ties with Israel unless Tel Aviv ‘ends its aggression against Palestinians’. Read the rest of this entry »

“The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves before the Americans, if it is sealed,” Read the rest of this entry »