Developing Countries Losing Out To Digital Giants

By Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Anis Chowdhury
Originally posted at Inter Press Service.
A new United Nations report warns that the potential benefits to developing countries of digital technologies are likely to be lost to a small number of successful first movers who have established digital monopolies.
According to the Trade and Development Report 2018 (TDR 2018), subtitled ‘Power, Platforms and the Free Trade Delusion’, while developing countries need to invest more in digital infrastructure, they must also address the ownership and control of data and their use.
Developing countries will need to protect, and extend, available policy space to successfully integrate into the global digital economy. Stronger competition and regulatory frameworks will also require multilateral cooperation.

‘This Is Life or Death for Us’: Mexico’s Farm Movement Rejects New NAFTA Agreement

By Timothy A. Wise

This article was published in September at Common Dreams, before Canada’s negotiators signed onto the “new NAFTA” (officially, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA). The agreement still needs to be ratified by the legislatures of each country, and opposition by Mexico’s farm movement could induce the new president, López Obrador, to oppose it. –Eds.

The smooth ride to a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may have just hit the bumpy roads of rural Mexico. On Tuesday, leaders of Mexico’s farm movement strongly condemned the new agreement announced between the United States and Mexico, calling on the new president they supported in recent elections to get involved and slow the race to the new agreement.

“We need to push our new president to stop the signing of this agreement,” said farm leader Gerónimo Jacobo in an interview. “This is life or death for us. With NAFTA it will be a slow death. Our national sovereignty is at stake here!”

On August 27, U.S. President Donald Trump announced he had reached a deal with the Mexican government on a new version of the NAFTA. In a garbled televised phone call, the president congratulated lame duck Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, claiming he had fulfilled his campaign promise to “replace NAFTA” and christening the new deal “The U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement.” For his part, Peña Nieto, whose party was trounced in July 1 elections, claimed the agreement as his legacy.

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Can Big Internet Security Problems Be Fixed Retroactively? (2/2)

Via the Real News Network; Pt. 2 of a series, “US Policy Toward Global Internet Governance Is Misguided Says Richard Hill.”

Transcript:

LYNN FRIES: It’s The Real News. I’m Lynn Fries. We are continuing our discussion with Internet governance expert Richard Hill. Richard Hill is president of the Association for Proper Internet Governance and a former official at the International Telecommunication Union. Welcome back, Richard.

RICHARD HILL: Thank you.

LYNN FRIES: Let’s pick up where we left off in Part 1. Your concluding point was that there should be no discussion of free flow of data at the World Trade Organization until certain preconditions are met; notably, global agreement on antitrust regulation and on data privacy protections. Talk now about the background to this. Talk more about this U.S.-led push.

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