IPS Inter Press Service Subsidies -- Who Really Benefits?
Why Do Subsidies Matter? -- Subsidies -- transfers of public money to private interests -- have profound and long-lasting effects on the economy, the distribution of income in society, and the environment. Holding governments to account for how they allocate resources is important to citizens, not least because the bill goes to the taxpayers. At a global level, the impacts of subsidies are felt across borders, often most acutely in developing countries.
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RSS FEED IDEMS: IPS Inter Press Service Subsidies -- Who Really Benefits?
- Q&A: Car-Centric Urban Growth Fuelled By Subsidies
NEW DELHI, Mar 5 (IPS) - Pollution and road congestion are at crisis proportions in India’s cities. Yet, the government encourages car-centric urban growth, subsidised by public largesse, says Anumita Roychowdhury of the non-governmental Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which is leading a campaign for cleaner air in Delhi. - ENVIRONMENT: Galápagos Islands in Search of Clean Energy
TORONTO, Feb 29 (Tierramérica) - Ecuador has taken the first step towards ending the oil dependence of its Galápagos Islands, in the eastern Pacific Ocean, with the official opening of a 10.8 million dollar wind energy facility on the island of San Cristóbal. - CLIMATE CHANGE: Lula Calls for Flexibility from Rich Countries
BRASILIA, Feb 21 (IPS) - Industrialised nations must live up to their Kyoto Protocol commitments and be flexible in trade negotiations in order for the world to make progress towards solutions to climate change and to prevent the poor from being steeped in poverty for a long time to come, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said Thursday. - CLIMATE CHANGE: Biofuels Worse Than Fossil Fuels, Studies Find
BROOKLIN, Canada, Feb 8 (IPS) - Biofuels are making climate change worse, not better, according to two new studies which found that total greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels are far higher than those from burning gasoline because biofuel production is pushing up food prices and resulting in deforestation and loss of grasslands. - ENVIRONMENT: Record Financing For Biofuels, Not Food
BROOKLIN, Canada, Feb 4 (IPS) - Biofuels have quickly turned from environmental saviour to just another mega-scale get-rich quick scheme. Countries and regions without their own oil reserves to tap now see their farms, peatlands and forests as potential "oil fields" -- shallow but renewable lakes of green oil. - EL SALVADOR: Benefits of Free Trade Deal Still Remote
SAN SALVADOR, Jan 31 (IPS) - The Salvadoran government had proclaimed that from the moment of its entry into force, the free trade agreement with the United States would boost the local economy, creating thousands of jobs, so that even street vendors would be exporting their typical snacks. But nearly two years later, the economic paradise has yet to arrive. - WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM: The Public Eye Is Watching
BERN, Jan 17 (IPS) - Civil society is in Davos, Switzerland once again to keep a watchful eye on events at the World Economic Forum (WEF). The social and environmental behaviour of 1,000 of the world’s most powerful companies will be scutinised at this annual meeting of business leaders, presidents and prime ministers, and free-market economics experts. - INDIA: 'World's Cheapest Car Environmentally Costly'
NEW DELHI, Jan 16 (IPS) - Nothing has generated as much hyperbole in the global automobile industry in recent years as the unveiling, last week, of an ultra-cheap bare-bones car made by the Tatas, India’s steel and engineering giant. - BRAZIL: Land Shortage Provokes Murders of Indigenous People
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 14 (IPS) - At least 76 indigenous people were murdered in Brazil in 2007, 58 percent more than in 2006. The killings increased the most in the west-central state of Mato Grosso do Sul, where the Guaraní people are confined to territories too small for them to maintain their traditional way of life. - ARGENTINA: Dairy Farmers Aggrieved, Despite High Prices
BUENOS AIRES, Jan 10 (IPS) - Dairy farmers in Argentina have led the latest in a long series of protests by agricultural associations, despite the record high prices for farm products. - MEXICO: Is the Freeing Up of Agricultural Trade Really New?
MEXICO CITY, Jan 4 (IPS) - The elimination of all barriers to imported maize under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will ruin Mexico’s rural areas, according to activists and small farmers who are demanding that the measure be revoked. But the free market which opened on Jan. 1 has in fact been in effect for the past nine years. - CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Cuban Economy in Need of Nourishment
HAVANA, Jan 4 (IPS) - Increasing food production is the main challenge to be faced by the Cuban economy this year, to improve people’s quality of life. It was one of the recurrent themes raised at the popular debates convened on the government’s initiative in the second half of 2007. - EU-CARIBBEAN: New EPA Sets Timeline For Trade Liberalisation
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Dec 21 (IPS) - Come Jan.1 a new trade and aid pact between fifteen Caribbean nations and the 27 members of the European Union (EU) kicks into force heralding in a new era in relations between the two trade blocs that will be based largely on reciprocity rather than protected trade, as has been the case for centuries. - CHALLENGES 2007-2008: Lowering Mexico’s Drawbridge to US Maize and Beans
MEXICO CITY, Dec 19 (IPS) - On Jan. 1, the Mexican market will be thrown wide open to imports of maize, beans, powdered milk and sugar from the United States, completing a process that began 14 years ago, in which its impoverished rural sector must compete with a powerful and heavily subsidised foreign rival. - ENERGY-SOUTH AFRICA: Food Security Hobbles Biofuel Strategy
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 18 (IPS) - Worried that it may be seen as insensitive to the food needs of Africa, the South African government, which is facing a general election in 2009, has chosen food security in framing a biofuel policy.
