The global rush to grab land and other resources

[The basic law of capitalism is “expand or die” — and quickly so, as the threat of being crushed or swallowed by competing exploiters also grows without a break.  Maximizing profits through ruthless exploitation of labor, manipulation of trade, and wholesale plunder of resources, all drive at immediate returns, and threaten and cause the destruction of the long-term survival of peoples across the planet. The article below details how the inherent malevolence of the capitalist-imperialist system, is driving billions of people in despair and into struggle against it.  — Frontlines ed.]

25 February 2013. A World to Win News Service. The planet is facing a serious food crisis. The unsustainable use of resources, from the land to the sea, due to the violent rush for profit, poses a great threat to humanity and the planet. But rivalry for control of food production and distribution under the profit-driven capitalist system is still sharpening, taking new forms and causing greater misery for the world’s people. The land-grab going on in Africa and other parts of the world is part of this trend.

Africa, whose people were kidnapped by the millions for the slave trade and ground down and bled under colonialism and since, a continent whose resources has been sacked for centuries and which has suffered so much from wars spurred by big-power rivalry, faces a new form of looting today. Corporations, private banks, pension funds and many multinational companies have grabbed fertile land all over the continent. With the connivance of corrupt and client governments dependent on foreign investment, they have secured long leases by paying as little as half a U.S. dollar per hectare per year.

Although this kind of land acquisition is far from new, there has been a spectacular jump since 2008. In the following year, investors bought or leased more than 56 million hectares in Asia, Latin America and especially Africa, roughly 15 times more land that the yearly average in the preceding half century. (Farah Stockman, Boston Globe, 24 February 2013)

Bangladesh factory fire kills 112 in Dhaka

Blaze broke out at the seven-storey factory on Saturday and firefighters recovered more than 100 bodies on Sunday morning

Associated Press in Dhaka

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 25 November 2012

A firefighter tries to control a fire at a garment factory in Savar on the outskirts of Dhaka Photograph: ANDREW BIRAJ/REUTERS

At least 112 people have been killed in a fire that raced through a multi-storey garment factory just outside of Bangladesh‘s capital, Dhaka.

The blaze broke out at the seven-storey factory operated by Tazreen Fashions late on Saturday. By Sunday morning, firefighters had recovered 100 bodies, fire department operations director major Mohammad Mahbub said.

He said another 12 people who had suffered injuries after jumping from the building to escape the fire later died at hospitals.

Why are Indians resisting economic reforms?

As the government tries again to push for foreign direct investment, we ask what is spurring massive social resistance.

Inside Story, al Jazeera, 21 September 2012

India’s coalition government is once again facing political turmoil over new economic reforms approved last week.The plan includes opening up the country’s aviation and lucrative retail sectors to international investors.

The reform plan has sparked nationwide strikes supported by opposition parties and trade unions who say the move is a “betrayal of democracy”.Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, has justified the decision to allow foreign direct investment (FDI) in multi-brand retailers. He said: “I believe that these steps will help strengthen our growth process and generate employment in these difficult times… I urge all segments of public opinion to support the steps we have taken in the national interest.” India has taken a number of steps to curb its rising budget deficit, starting with efforts to reform the retail sector. The government wants to allow foreign investment in retail trade, allowing chain-stores like Tesco and Walmart to open megastores.

When India and China Scramble for Africa, Who Wins?

Chinese foreman, African workers

By Jemima Pierre, Black Agenda Report editor and columnist

June 15, 2011China and Indian have both boosted their trade and investment in Africa in recent years, but “South-South” solidarity is not all it’s cracked up to be. The continent’s relationship with the Asian giants is lopsided. “Africa is quickly becoming the largest market for both countries to dump their cheap commodities.” Both countries are focused on “land and resource extraction, and new markets for manufactured products.”

“While both countries argue that their engagement with the continent is non-ideological and has no imperialist goals, the new relations of trade look much like the old.”

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s attendance at the Second Africa-India Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia this past May marked his fourth visit to the continent in his eight years in office. For Singh, such summits are designed to “respond to the needs and priorities of Africa and for India.” The relationship between Africa and India is one “based on equality, mutual trust and a consultative and transparent approach,” he continued. “It is a living embodiment of South-South cooperation.” For the Indian state, it also signifies the triumphant success of its “bilateral” relationship with Africa, one that has granted lucrative access to Africa’s vast resources while cultivating influence with Africa’s political elite. Other Indian and international commentators, however, hail these summits as India’s challenge [4] to China’s oversized [5] role on the continent. Meanwhile, the ever-compromised African Union seem to follow Robert Mugabe’s assertion [6] that Africa has “turned east, where the sun rises, and given [its] back to the west, where the sun sets.”

US imperialism’s growing investment in Vietnam

[As unrestrained foreign investment grows in formerly socialist countries, the class struggle has intensified and taken many forms.-ed]

A Taiwanese-owned Nike shoe factory in Vietnam went on strike in April

Vietnam-US relations grow fast, says Vietnamese diplomat

Tuesday, 13/07/2010

Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Le Cong Phung made the remark in an interview granted to Washington-based Vietnamese reporters on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the normalisation of the two countries’ diplomatic relations (July 12).

While assessing the bilateral ties over the past 15 years, Phụng said that these are special relations.

“The two countries experienced a period of ups and downs, especially the war heritages, and it is unimaginable that the bilateral ties have developed so well,” Phung said.

The Ambassador noted that the US leaders are all determined to boost ties with Vietnam, referring to Vietnam policies of the two former administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and the current administration of Barack Obama.

Protest at Chinese iPad maker Foxconn after 11th suicide attempt this year

Protestors made traditional Chinese funeral offerings to the dead at the headquarters of Foxconn, the manufacturer of Apple’s iPad, after the 11th suicide attempt at the company’s factories so far this year

Protestors from SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour) burn effigies of Apple products during a demonstration near the offices of Foxconn in Hong Kong over the deaths of 11 workers. Photo: Getty

By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai
Published: 3:53PM BST 25 May 2010

A recruiter from Foxconn, where 11 Chinese workers have died in the past year, talks to job applicants outside the factory in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province. Foxconn Photo: AP

Li Hai, a 19-year-old man from the central province of Hunan, fell to his death from the roof of a dormitory building at Foxconn‘s Longhua factory on Tuesday morning, leaving the world’s largest electronics manufacturer in crisis.

A spate of recent suicides at Foxconn has highlighted the concerns over working conditions inside the giant Longhua factory, where 300,000 workers assemble goods for clients including Apple, Sony, Nintendo, Dell and Nokia. The deaths comes as Apple prepares to launch the iPad in the UK at the end of this week. Yesterday, Apple declined to comment on the situation.

The Longhua factory is the biggest in the world and is responsible for over 20pc of the annual exports emerging from Shenzhen, the one-time fishing village that has become one of the capitals of the world’s manufacturing industry.

In the lobby of Foxconn’s headquarters in Hong Kong, a group of around two dozen protestors laid mannequins to rest and conducted funeral rites. “We are staging the protest because of the high death rate [at Foxconn], with an abnormal number of workers committing suicide in the past five months,” said Debby Chan, a spokesman for the Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour group.