What Happened When China Joined the WTO?

Video: OMC español

Economically, the United States saw some benefits and some downsides.

  • Consumers broadly benefited from China’s WTO entry because they could buy goods from China at lower prices.
  • Corporations profited from increased access to China’s massive market. In 2017, for example, China accounted for about 20 percent of Apple’s sales, and since 2001, the value of U.S. agricultural exports to China increased by 1,000 percent.
  • However, labor unions in manufacturing and factory work opposed a WTO accession deal, certain that cheaper labor in China would cost jobs in the United States. And they were right: between 1999 and 2011, almost 6 million U.S. manufacturing jobs were lost. A landmark study attributed nearly 1 million of those manufacturing job losses, and 2.4 million total job losses, to competition from China. But because major technological advances such as automation occurred in that same time frame, economists disagree about exactly how responsible Chinese competition was for job losses in manufacturing.

Meanwhile, for China, the economic impact has been remarkably positive:

  • Since 1999, more than four hundred million Chinese people have been lifted from extreme poverty (living on less than $1.90 a day).
  • China’s economy is eight times larger than it was in 2001.
  • Trade in goods between the United States and China increased more than thirty times, from less than $8 billion in 1986 to over $578 billion in 2016. China surpassed Germany to become the world’s largest exporter of goods in 2009.

Source: https://world101.cfr.org/global-era-issues/trade/what-happened-when-china-joined-wto

Video: CNN Chile

Video: teleSUR tv

Lea la Carta de Renuncia del Secretario de Defensa de los Estados Unidos, James Mattis

El presidente de los Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, anunció el jueves que el secretario de Defensa James Mattis se retirará en febrero de 2019. La carta completa de Mattis aquí:

He tenido el privilegio de desempeñarme como el vigésimo sexto Secretario de Defensa de nuestro país, lo que me ha permitido servir junto a nuestros hombres y mujeres del DoD en defensa de nuestros ciudadanos e ideales.

Estoy orgulloso del progreso que se ha logrado en los últimos dos años en algunos de los objetivos clave articulados en nuestra Estrategia de Defensa Nacional: poner al Departamento en una base presupuestaria más sólida, mejorar la preparación y la letalidad de nuestras fuerzas y reformar sus prácticas institucionales para un mayor rendimiento. Nuestras tropas continúan brindando las aptitudes necesarias para prevalecer en el conflicto y mantener una fuerte influencia global de los EE. UU.

Una convicción que siempre he sostenido es que nuestra fortaleza como nación está indisolublemente unida a la fortaleza de nuestro sistema único y completo de alianzas y asociaciones. Si bien los EE. UU. Siguen siendo la nación indispensable en el mundo libre, no podemos proteger nuestros intereses ni desempeñar ese papel de manera efectiva sin mantener alianzas sólidas y mostrar respeto hacia esos aliados. Al igual que usted, he dicho desde el principio que las fuerzas armadas de los Estados Unidos no deberían ser el policía del mundo. En su lugar, debemos usar todas las herramientas del poder estadounidense para brindar una defensa común, incluido el liderazgo efectivo para nuestras alianzas. Las 29 democracias de la OTAN demostraron esa fuerza en su compromiso de luchar junto a nosotros después del ataque del 11 de septiembre contra los Estados Unidos. La coalición para derrotar a ISIS conformada por 74 naciones es una prueba más de ello.

De manera similar, creo que debemos ser decididos y no ambiguos en nuestro enfoque hacia aquellos países cuyos intereses estratégicos están cada vez más en tensión con los nuestros. Está claro que China y Rusia, por ejemplo, quieren conformar un mundo coherente con su modelo autoritario, que gana autoridad de veto sobre las decisiones económicas, diplomáticas y de seguridad de otras naciones, para promover sus propios intereses a expensas de sus vecinos, los Estados Unidos y nuestros aliados. Es por eso que debemos usar todas las herramientas del poder estadounidense para proporcionar una defensa común.

Mi perspectiva sobre tratar a los aliados con respeto y también a tener en cuenta tanto a los actores malignos como a los competidores estratégicos están fuertemente respaldadas e informadas por más de cuatro décadas de experiencia en estos temas. Debemos hacer todo lo posible para promover un orden internacional que sea más propicio para nuestra seguridad, prosperidad y valores, para que seamos fortalecidos en este esfuerzo por la solidaridad de nuestras alianzas.

Debido a que usted tiene derecho a contar con un Secretario de Defensa cuyas opiniones estén mejor alineadas con las suyas sobre estos y otros temas, creo que es correcto que renuncie a mi posición.

La fecha del termino de mi mandato es el 28 de febrero de 2019, una fecha que debe permitir tiempo suficiente para que se nombre y se confirme a un sucesor, así como para garantizar que los intereses del Departamento se articulen y protejan adecuadamente en los próximos eventos para incluir audiencias para toma de posición en el Congreso y el encuentro ministerial de defensa de la OTAN en febrero. Asimismo, la transición completa a un nuevo Secretario de Defensa ocurre mucho antes de la transición del Presidente del Estado Mayor Conjunto en septiembre de manera que se asegura la estabilidad dentro del Departamento.

Prometo todo mi esfuerzo para lograr una transición sin problemas que garantice las necesidades e intereses de los 2.15 millones de Miembros del Servicio y 732,079 servidores civiles del Departamento de Defensa que reciban atención del Departamento en todo momento para que puedan cumplir con su misión crítica de proteger permanentemente al pueblo americano.

Aprecio mucho esta oportunidad de servir a la nación y a los hombres y mujeres que visten nuestro uniforme.

Traducido de: USAToday

Puede leer también: Trump: Mattis is ‘sort of a Democrat,’ ‘don’t know’ if he plans to leave admin

Many Native IDs Won’t Be Accepted At North Dakota Polling Places

By: Camila Domonoske

Image: This June, instructions wre posted at an early voting precinct in Bismarck, N.D. In that primary election, tribal IDs that did not show residential addresses were accepted as voter ID. But those same IDs will not be accepted in the general election.
James MacPherson/AP.

Native American groups in North Dakota are scrambling to help members acquire new addresses, and new IDs, in the few weeks remaining before Election Day — the only way that some residents will be able to vote.

This week, the Supreme Court declined to overturn North Dakota’s controversial voter ID law, which requires residents to show identification with a current street address. A P.O. box does not qualify.

Many Native American reservations, however, do not use physical street addresses. Native Americans are also overrepresented in the homeless population, according to the Urban Institute. As a result, Native residents often use P.O. boxes for their mailing addresses, and may rely on tribal identification that doesn’t list an address.

Those IDs used to be accepted at polling places — including in this year’s primary election — but will not be valid for the general election. And that decision became final less than a month before Election Day, after years of confusing court battles and alterations to the requirements.

Tens of thousands of North Dakotans, including Native and non-Native residents, do not have residential addresses on their IDs and will now find it harder to vote.

They will have the option of proving their residency with “supplemental documentation,” like utility bills, instead of their IDs, but according to court records, about 18,000 North Dakotans don’t have those documents, either.

And in North Dakota, unlike other states, every resident is eligible to vote without advance voter registration — so people might not discover the problem until they show up to cast their ballot.

North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat, is trailing her Republican opponent in her race for re-election. Native Americans tend to vote for Democrats.

The Republican-controlled state government says the voter ID requirement is necessary to connect voters with the correct ballot, and to prevent non-North Dakotans from signing up for North Dakota P.O. boxes and traveling to the state to vote fraudulently. In 2016, a judge overturning the law noted that voter fraud in North Dakota is “virtually non-existent.”

The state government says that residents without a street ID should contact their county’s 911 coordinator, to sign up for a free street address and request a letter confirming that address.

A group called Native Vote ND has been sharing those official instructions on Facebook.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is telling members to get in touch if they need help obtaining a residential address and updating their tribal ID. The tribe also says it will be sending drivers to take voters to the polls on Election Day.

“Native Americans can live on the reservations without an address. They’re living in accordance with the law and treaties, but now all of a sudden they can’t vote,” Standing Rock chairman Mike Faith said in a statement. “Our voices should be heard and they should be heard fairly at the polls just like all other Americans.”

Meanwhile, the Bismarck Tribune reports that a Native American organization is working to come up with a last-minute solution for voters who would otherwise be turned away:

“Bret Healy, a consultant for Four Directions, which is led by members of South Dakota’s Rosebud Sioux Tribe, said the organization believes it has a common-sense solution.

“The group is working with tribal leaders in North Dakota to have a tribal government official available at every polling place on reservations to issue a tribal voting letter that includes the eligible voter’s name, date of birth and residential address.”

A state official told tribal leaders that such letters will be accepted as proof of residency, the Tribune reports.

Heitkamp called the ID law “burdensome” and once again called for a law to protect the voting rights of Native Americans. She and other legislators have introduced such a bill year after year, unsuccessfully.

“Given the number of Native Americans who have served, fought, and died for this country, it is appalling that some people would still try and erect barriers to suppress their ability to vote,” Heitkamp said in a statement. “Native Americans served in the military before they were even allowed to vote, and they continue to serve at the highest rate of any population in this country.”

The ACLU said the Supreme Court’s decision “enables mass disenfranchisement.” “In an election that may wind up being decided by just a few thousand votes, the court’s decision could be deeply consequential for the country, not just those who live in North Dakota,” staff reporter Ashoka Mukpo wrote on Friday.

In 2016, the Harvard Law Review found that Native Americans “routinely face hurdles in exercising the right to vote and securing representation,” and that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was only a partial solution to the problem.

In: npr

New Myanmar Law Regulates Interfaith Marriage

[This] “law is one of four ‘protection laws’ that would affect religious conversion, interfaith marriage, polygamy and population control. These bills, collectively known as the ‘protection of race and religion laws,’ were proposed in 2013 by Ma Ba Tha, a group of nationalistic Buddhist monks.” (washingtonpost.com)

by Anna K. Poole
Posted 7/15/15, 11:48 am

Image: (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe) – https://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/myanmar_pariah_muslims.jpg

Human rights groups are blasting a new law adopted last week in Myanmar, also known as Burma, requiring women to register their intent to marry outside their faith. The legislation gives the government power to halt the marriage of a Buddhist woman to a non-Buddhist man if someone raises objections to the union.

“It’s shocking that Burma’s parliament has passed yet another incredibly dangerous law, this time legislating clearly discriminatory provisions targeting the rights of religious minority men and Buddhist women to marry who they wish without interference,” said Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division.

Myanmar’s new marriage law is the second of a four-part series of bills known as the Protection of Race and Religion Laws, drafted by hardliner Buddhist monks with a staunch anti-Muslim agenda.

In May, President Thein Sein enacted the first of these laws, a population control bill mandating a 36-month gap between children for certain mothers and giving regional authorities the power to implement birth spacing in overcrowded areas. Some argue the legislation is aimed at curbing high birth rates in the Muslim community. The population bill is vague about the penalty for unauthorized births less than three years apart, but it could include coerced contraception, forced sterilization, or abortion.

For a non-Buddhist man in Myanmar, stepping into an interfaith marriage could prove ruinous. According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, the marriage legislation prohibits husbands from “committing deliberate and malicious acts, such as writing, or speaking, or behaving, or gesturing with intent to outrage feelings of Buddhists.” Noncompliance is considered a divorce-worthy offense, sweeping away the man’s land and child custody rights, and punishable with a prison stint of up to four years.

In November, when Sein first sent a draft of the bill to Parliament, The Myanmar Times reported some women’s disapproval.

“We already have restrictions on marriage because we need to marry in the same faith and caste,” said one Burmese woman, who requested anonymity. “I’m curious how this law will actually protect Buddhist women.”

The marriage act changes little for Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims, one of the most severely oppressed minority groups in the world. Denied citizenship within Burmese borders, the Rohingya are essentially stateless and already face tight restrictions on the right to register marriages, births, and deaths. Since 2012, heavy persecution of minority Rohingya Muslims by radical Buddhist groups has sparked a maritime mass exodus and regional refugee crisis.

By signing the interfaith marriage bill into law, “the [Myanmar] government and ruling party lawmakers are playing with fire,” Robertson said. With the landscape of this Buddhist-majority nation increasingly stained by sectarian violence, legislators risk much by proposing such inflammatory restrictions. The marriage bill, like the population control bill before it, will only add fuel to Myanmar’s simmering religious tension.

The pending half of Myanmar’s Protection of Race and Religion Laws include a monogamy bill criminalizing extramarital affairs and a bill requiring government registration and approval prior to religious conversion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In: world

Video: Al Jazeera English

Video: Kachin Australia

Read also:

18 Oct 2017: Burma Shows Us What a ‘Muslim Ban’ Really Looks Like: Apartheid

06 Jul 2016: New govt to defend ‘race and religion’ laws at UN meeting

07 Nov 2015: ‘Muslims are dangerous’: Myanmar Buddhist monks threaten democracy with support for anti-Muslim laws

22 Aug 2015: Discriminatory ‘Race and Religion’ bills threaten tensions ahead of elections: APHR

14 Jul 2015: Myanmar law restricting marriage of Buddhist women blasted by EU, rights groups

09 Jul 2015: A trap law for married men and women

18 Dec 2014: Myanmar women object to proposed restrictions on interfaith marriage

28 Jul 2014: Women unite against ethnic and gender discrimination in Myanmar

09 Jul 2015: Burma: Reject Discriminatory Marriage Bill

14 Jul 2014: WHRDs in Burma under threat for opposing Interfaith Marriage Bill

07 Jul 2014: Myanmar’s Parliament Approves Controversial Interfaith Marriage Law

16 Jun 2014: Myanmar President Thein Sein and Speaker of Pyithu Hluttaw Thura Shwe Mann: No Interfaith Marriage Bill

12 Jun 2014: U.S. opposes Burma’s plan to restrict interfaith marriage

05 Jun 2014: Nearly 100 Myanmar Groups Slam Move to Restrict Interfaith Marriages

04 Jun 2014: Fears of new unrest as Myanmar ponders monk-backed interfaith marriage ban

06 May 2014: Women of Burma speak out against Interfaith Marriage Act

27 Mar 2014: Burma’s Muslims Are Facing Incredibly Harsh Curbs on Marriage, Childbirth and Religion

25 Mar 2014: Human Rights Watch calls Myanmar to scrap proposed restrictions on interfaith marriages

25 Mar 2014: Rights Group Slams Proposed Curbs on Interfaith Marriage in Myanmar

28 Feb 2014: Myanmar to mull interfaith marriage law

09 Jan 2014: Wirathu to Discuss Interfaith Marriage Restrictions at Monks’ Conference

17 Jul 2013: Controversial Myanmar Marriage Proposal Gains Two Million Signatures

20 Jun 2013: Suu Kyi Blasts Proposed Law on Marriage Restrictions

Corte Internacional de Justicia – CIJ emite veredicto sobre demanda marítima de Bolivia contra Chile

Imagen: HispanTV

Chile gana en la CIJ: Con 12 votos contra 3, la Corte de La Haya rechaza argumentos de Bolivia en su reclamo por el acceso al mar. Chile no tiene la obligación de negociar la salida soberana de Bolivia al Océano Pacifico. Bolivia había perdido el acceso al mar después de la llamada “Guerra del Pacífico” (1879-1884) en contra de Chile.

Video: T13

CRONOLOGÍA – Demanda de Bolivia contra Chile por salida al mar en corte internacional

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – La Corte Internacional de Justicia de La Haya (CIJ) informará el lunes su decisión sobre la demanda de Bolivia que busca obligar a Chile a negociar una salida soberana al mar.

A continuación una cronología de los hechos más relevantes que han marcado este proceso.

2013:

24 de abril – Bolivia presenta ante la Corte Internacional de Justicia de La Haya la demanda contra Chile por una salida soberana al Océano Pacífico.

18 de junio – La Corte fija plazo hasta el 17 de abril de 2014 para que Bolivia presente su memoria sobre el caso, y otros 10 meses -18 de febrero del 2015- para que Chile presente su contramemoria.

2014:

15 de abril – El Gobierno del presidente Evo Morales presenta su memoria de más de 200 páginas ante la Corte Internacional de la Haya. El plazo vencía el 17 de abril.

15 de julio – Chile impugna la competencia de La Haya en el caso a través de objeciones preliminares, solicitando al tribunal que se declare carente de jurisdicción.

7 de noviembre – Bolivia presenta por escrito su respuesta ante las objeciones preliminares expuestas por Chile.

2015:

16 de febrero – La Corte Internacional decide que los alegatos orales se realizarán entre el 4 y 8 de mayo de 2015 para la revisión de las objeciones preliminares expuestas por Chile.

4 al 8 de mayo – Bolivia y Chile exponen sus alegatos orales acerca de las objeciones preliminares. Chile impugna la competencia de la corte alegando que en 1904 ambos países firmaron un tratado limítrofe, que rige mucho antes del acuerdo que otorga jurisdicción a La Haya para este tipo de disputas.

24 de septiembre – Por amplia mayoría, la CIJ rechaza la impugnación de Chile y se declara competente para seguir con el juicio. El juicio seguirá adelante por al menos un par de años.

25 de septiembre – La corte informa que Chile tendrá hasta el 25 de julio del 2016 para entregar su defensa escrita o contramemoria.

23 de noviembre – La presidenta chilena, Michelle Bachelet, nombra al exjefe de la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) José Miguel Insulza como nuevo agente ante la corte, quien ocupa el puesto durante un año y es reemplazado por el jurista Claudio Grossman.

2016:

28 de marzo – Chile admite que no descarta estudiar su salida del tratado de solución de controversias entre países de América conocido como Pacto de Bogotá, lo que implicaría desconocer futuros fallos de la corte internacional de La Haya.

6 de junio – Chile demanda a Bolivia en La Haya por una controversia sobre el uso de las aguas del río fronterizo Silala. Bolivia había anunciado en marzo de ese año que acusaría a Chile ante el tribunal internacional por una supuesta utilización indebida del caudal de ese río.

2017:

3 de julio – Chile presenta la memoria de su demanda contra Bolivia en la CIJ por una controversia sobre el uso de las aguas del Silala.

2018:

19 de marzo – Bolivia abre alegatos orales en La Haya por su demanda para obligar a Chile a negociar una salida soberana al mar y “cerrar una herida”.

28 de marzo – Concluyen los argumentos orales del caso. Los jueces tienen varios meses para deliberar antes de emitir un dictamen.

31 de agosto – Bolivia entrega a la CIJ la contramemoria de un litigio con Chile por las aguas del río Silala.

1 de octubre – La CIJ leerá su sentencia sobre la demanda boliviana para obtener una salida soberana al mar.

Reportes de Fabián Andrés Cambero y Natalia Ramos

Fuente: reuters

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