|
|
|
|
Watchdog Group Cites Most-Censored Stories of 1998 'Project Censored' at Sonoma State University in California announced the 25 most-censored news stories of 1998. Their top pick focused on the little-known Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Start Date: 4/10/99 Every year since 1976, a group of socially conscious writers, news editors and college professors has gathered under the banner of "Project Censored" to identify the most censored, or under-reported, stories of the year. The stories they care about are those with potentially huge implications for human society and planet Earth, but which somehow get ignored by most of the mainstream media. Indeed, these stories often are reported only in fringe or ideologically-suspect journals, so that ignoring them is easy. But Project Censored, headquartered at Sonoma State University in Northern California, is determined that these stories should not be so easily dismissed. Recently, Project Censored published their 25 most-censored stories of 1998. The full list with commentary is posted on the web at http://www.sonoma.edu/ProjectCensored/t2599.html. The following text reproduces only their top pick, the Number One most-censored story of 1998. Here at GSReport, we confess we'd never heard of this story before -- and, we dare say, most of our readers will not have heard of it either -- thus the term "censored." But we can hardly deny its huge implications: SECRET INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENT UNDERMINES THE SOVEREIGNTY OF NATIONS Some developments in the course of History have such potential to impact nations and humans that it would be irresponsible to ignore them. Yet few mainstream news organizations have reported on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), which would set in place a vast series of protections for foreign investment. According to reports in the alternative press, the MAI would threaten national sovereignty by giving corporations near equal rights to nations. This agreement has the potential to place profits ahead of human rights and social justice, and that is why our judges named this story the No.1 censored or under-reported story of 1998. MAI would thrust the world economy much closer to a system where international corporate capital would hold free reign over the democratic values and socioeconomic needs of people. The MAI will also have devastating effects on a nation's legal, environmental and cultural sovereignty. It will force countries to relax or nullify human, environmental and labor protection to attract investment and trade. Necessary measures such as food subsidies, control of land speculation, agrarian reform and health and environmental standards can be challenged as "illegal" under the MAI. This same illegality is extended to community control of forests, local bans on use of pesticides, clean air standards, limits on mineral, gas and oil extraction, and bans on toxic dumping. Project Censored cites as their main sources for this story: IN THESE TIMES, "Building the Global Economy," January 11, 1998, by Joel Bleifuss; DEMOCRATIC LEFT, "MAI Ties," Spring 1998, by Bill Dixon; TRIBUNE DES DRIOTS HUMAINS, "Human Rights or Corporate Rights?" April 1998, Volume 5, No.s 1-2, "Giving The World Away" by Elaine Weinreb, Vol 27, No 11 'ECONEWS' December 1997. UPDATE: Some quick web-surfing by GSReport reveals that the MAI is, or was, a project of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and that as of December 1998, negotiations toward completion of the Agreement were on hold, in large measure due to widespread protest. However, the Agreement, or its main provisions, may soon be revived in another venue such as the World Trade Organization. According to a watchdog group called Public Citizen (http://www.citizen.org/pctrade/Shell_Game/Cover.htm): "More than three years after the beginning of negotiations to establish an immensely powerful and comprehensive Multilateral Agreement on Investment, the MAI is hardly a household phrase. Negotiators did their best to keep the negotiations a secret. For more than two years the MAI went unreported in major news media in the United States. Then, starting in 1997, campaigns in OECD countries against the MAI by citizens' groups succeeded in forcing some sunshine on the MAI. MAI was finally given some scrutiny by lawmakers, citizens' groups, environmental groups, and labor unions in numerous countries. This attention resulted in broad concern about the sweeping impact the proposed treaty could have on national and local governments' ability to pursue policies in support of decent living standards, environmental protection, and human rights. "The fact that citizens' groups succeeded in creating a debate, forcing public interest considerations to be answered, and thus stalling the planned 1997 completion of the MAI was grounds for celebration; [and] the December 1998 announcement by the OECD that it has ceased negotiations on an MAI was a victory that proved that citizen activism can still beat the transnational corporate agenda. Yet before champagne could be chilled to celebrate the MAI's demise, its corporate and governmental supporters were seeking to revive the MAI's agenda of constraining government ability to regulate international capital. "In a January 1999 press release, the European Union (EU) and Japan announced that they will push for MAI-like investment negotiations in the World Trade Organization (WTO). Indeed, the MAI principles are at the core of a multifaceted effort by speculators and footloose multinational corporations to remove public interest regulation on their activity. There are many venues in which they are simultaneously pursuing this agenda. These include the WTO, the proposed NAFTA expansion Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the TransAtlantic Economic Partnership (TEP), and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum." For comprehensive information on this important, ongoing and still under-reported story, see http://www.preamble.org/mai/maihome.html. [GSReport thanks Deborah Lindemann and Doug Gibbens for bringing this story to our attention.]
Built by Frontier on a Macintosh on 6/17/00; 12:03:02 PM. Web Comments  -
Produced by Larry LoweServed 1533 times since 4/10/99. |
|
