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Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Army Sergeant Travis Decker Murdered His Three Children After Being Denied Mental Health Care at JBL... Sat Jun 07, 2025 04:52 | JBLM Whistleblowers
A corrupt military police force and incompetent Commander who denied emergency mental health care and crisis counseling to an American service member resulted in the murder of the sergeant's three young daughters

offsite link Gaza doctor grieves her nine children killed in Israeli strike Sun May 25, 2025 20:00 | imc
Israeli regime continues it's slaughter
'The children were completely charred'

Paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar was treating victims of Israeli attacks when her children were killed by an Israeli strike on their home

offsite link British doctors working in Gaza describe territory as a ?slaughterhouse? Sat May 24, 2025 00:23 | imc
There?s no food getting in so people are starving,? surgeon Tom Potokar says
British doctors working in Gaza have described the territory as a ?slaughterhouse,? where the patients they are treating are severely malnourished.

Plastic surgeons and orthopedic specialists from the UK are based at the Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon specializing in burn injuries, has worked in Gaza 16 times but said this mission had revealed a level of destruction far greater than his last visit in 2023,

offsite link It is time to talk about the Out of Control Immigration. Mon Mar 31, 2025 22:12 | imc
For the last few years since the CV19 scamdemic undocumented immigration into Ireland has surged. No one is allowed discuss it because they do not want any rational debate about it. If you do you are labelled an extremist. However this out of control immigration is fully facilitated by the Irish government and the EU and the shady figure behind the Neo Con movement pushing for endless war, wokeism and globalist agenda.

offsite link [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End Israeli Apartheid & Genocide Thu Mar 06, 2025 22:35 | ipsc
Sat, 22 March 2025, 13:00 Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by over 150 Irish civil society organisations, has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 22nd March.

The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the D?il on Molesworth Street/Kildare Street to bring our demands to the Irish government?s doorstep.

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Thu Jul 31, 2025 00:51 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Migration Adds 707,000 People to the Population of England and Wales in Just a YEAR ? The Second Lar... Wed Jul 30, 2025 19:00 | Richard Eldred
707,000 people have been added to the population of England and Wales in just one year ? 98% of them due to net migration ? making it the second-biggest rise in more than 75 years.
The post Migration Adds 707,000 People to the Population of England and Wales in Just a YEAR ? The Second Largest Jump Since 1945 appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Masking Our Schoolchildren Was Child Abuse ? A Rare Chance to Stop It Returning Wed Jul 30, 2025 17:00 | Dr Gary Sidley
Thanks to the Declaration of Dumfries, parents now have a real shot at suing councils that unlawfully forced masks on their children ? and at making sure this form of child abuse never happens again, says Gary Sidley.
The post Masking Our Schoolchildren Was Child Abuse ? A Rare Chance to Stop It Returning appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Rotherham Police Sexually Abused Us Too, Say Five Grooming Victims Wed Jul 30, 2025 15:00 | Richard Eldred
Just when you think the rape gang scandal can't get worse, five Rotherham victims say police officers abused them too ? claims currently being investigated by South Yorkshire Police itself, sparking fears of a whitewash.
The post Rotherham Police Sexually Abused Us Too, Say Five Grooming Victims appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Online Safety Act is a Censor?s Charter Wed Jul 30, 2025 13:00 | Andrew Doyle
We were assured by Conservative and Labour politicians that the Online Safety Act was designed to protect children. In the last few days, its real, more sinister purpose has become, writes Andrew Doyle.
The post The Online Safety Act is a Censor?s Charter appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Globalisation and the informal economy

category international | worker & community struggles and protests | opinion/analysis author Friday September 22, 2006 02:57author by Paul Baynes Report this post to the editors

During the week of the annual conference of the IMF and the World Bank, some thoughts on the nature of employment in the current phase of globalisation.

More and more, workers throughout the so-called developing world are relying on low paid, unstable employment in the informal economy.
Protests in Singapore
Protests in Singapore

This week saw the annual conference of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Singapore. The meeting was addressed by the Director-General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Juan Somavia.

Somavia’s topic was the nature of employment in the modern world. The current phase of globalisation has meant that a high proportion of jobs in the developing world have now moved to the services sector. While this includes reasonably well paid and stable jobs in financial services, tourism, etc., it also includes jobs in the informal economy. Apart from the low level of income, these jobs are characterised by short-term contracts or no contracts at all, bad working conditions, sexism, casual employment, and unhygienic or dangerous circumstances: the workers are, in a word, vulnerable. This form of employment is unstable and does not address poverty.

Somavia’s remarks are backed up by the research of Irish social scientist Peadar Kirby. In his analysis of the World Bank’s World Development Report of the year 2000, Kirby outlines the shortcomings of the World Bank’s conception of poverty, drawing on the work of Karl Polanyi:
“poverty is not primarily an economic condition, based upon exploitation or low income, but a cultural condition, based on the status and security of the individual as a member of a community” (Kirby, 2002).

The World Bank and IMF take on poverty is that it should be addressed using market mechanisms. Because the market is supposedly the most efficient way to create economic growth, it should follow that market mechanisms are appropriate to ensure that wealth is distributed equally. Therefore, from the point of view of these international financial institutions, the solution is to focus on how market-led economic growth benefits the poor.

However, whether it is creating economic growth or not, it is this focus on the market – and the consequent economic liberalisation and deregulation – that is generating and compounding poverty among the populations of the developing world. Rather than continuing to give primacy to the market, governments should be encouraged to take action to mitigate the negative effects of market reforms. The World Bank and IMF have yet to take this approach to poverty.

ILO Director-General Juan Somavia’s address to the annual conference of these institutions brought the contradictions of globalisation into sharp focus. Despite economic growth, global unemployment has risen. More importantly, the quality of work available has severely lessened. Most are forced to work in the informal economy, which means that income may be sporadic or the job dangerous. Examples of these jobs include petty trading, washing car windows at traffic lights, shining shoes or cleaning houses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_economy

As a solution, the ILO has put forward its four point ‘decent work agenda’. This involves:
- Job creation as an explicit objective of policy (as opposed to as a by-product of increased profits)
- The promotion of employment rights
- The extension of social protection
- The support of institutions responsible for governance of the labour market

The following is a link to an edited version of Somavia’s remarks which gives the core of his argument. This contains a link to his full address to the conference:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/features/0...e.htm

See also ‘The World Bank or Polanyi: Markets, Poverty and Social Well-Being in Latin America’, Peadar Kirby, 2002, New Political Economy, Vol. &, No. 2

I am amazed to learn that this week, none other than Ronan Keating has protested against UK funding of the IMF and World Bank:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5344816.stm

Singapore has clamped down on dissent during the conference:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/78376
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/78386
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/78529

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