Globalization/Anti-globalization

On the 8th of December, TPP or Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks opened in DC. As the talks began activsts outside staged a sit-in on the steps of the USTR or United States Trade Representatives office, the location of the meetings. Two attempts to deliver a letter demanding release of the proposed TPP text were rebuffed, with one activst dragged out of the building after the second attempt.

A few hours later, hundreds more protesters marched around the USTR building, including both labor and environmental activists.

Video of activists trying to deliver letter, being dragged out of USTR

Video-hundreds march around USTR against "secret" TPP trade talks and "fast track"

On the 16th of October, Wikileaks published the updated "Intellectual property" chapter of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP, current as of May 16th, 2014 after the so-called Ho Chi Minh round of TPP negotiations. The 20th "secret" TPP meeting was held in Ho Chi Minh City.
Download the entire May 16th Intellectual Property chapter of the proposed TPP here

On the 10th of October, Rev Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir led a funeral march on the Fall Meetings of the IMF and World Bank, The march went to a delegate entrance checkpoint to the World Bank, where a mock funeral for the Bank was staged as people from South Asia and Africa reminded those inside just how much damage the Bank's programs had done to their countries.

Video Highlights of World Vs Bank march and street theater

The International Capital Market Association (ICMA), a group of banks and investors, will call Friday for reforms aimed at preventing repeats of the Argentina/NML Capital debt dispute. The ICMA's plan would reduce the ability of hold-out creditors to litigate and undermine debt restructuring, in part by using contract clauses to bind all bond-holders to debt restructuring that 75% of all holders agree on.