April 20, 2001
COPS GALORE AS FTAA NEGOTIATORS AND PROTESTERS GO TO WORK
Thousands of citizens from all over the Americas have gathered in Quebec City to counter the Summit of the
Americas, where 34 heads of state are negotiating the Free Trade Area of the Americas or FTAA. Advocates
say the FTAA will spread prosperity by breaking down barriers to trade throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Opponents call it “NAFTA on steroids”, and say that it will lead to lower wages and reduced protections for
the environment and local economic development. Like several major international trade and economic
meetings since the 1999 Battle in Seattle at the World Trade Organization Ministerial, the Summit of the
Americas has become the occasion for tactical maneuvering between thousands of protesters and nearly as
many police. Host Matt Martin has more.
THE PEOPLE HAVE THEIR OWN SUMMIT IN QUEBEC CITY
In the days leading up to the Summit of the Americas, critics of corporate globalization held their own
conference in Quebec City. The Second Peoples’ Summit, put on by the Hemispheric Social Alliance, included
forums on human rights, labor, the environment, indigenous rights, poverty, women’s rights, agriculture and
communications. The Summit was designed, noR just to criticize the FTAA, but to work on building a proposal
to counter it, called “Alternatives for the Americas,” the paper which came out of the First Peoples’ Summit.
Jade Paget-Seekins files this report on the range of views among free trade’s critics in Quebec City:
FTAA PROTEST ON THE US-MEXICO BORDER
This week’s protests against the FTAA will not be limited to Quebec City. Events are planned in seventy-five
cities throughout North, Central, and South America. At the border between the U.S. and Mexico, activists will
converge to protest the expansion of free trade to the entire hemisphere. Siu-Hin Lee is with the Border Action
Committee in Los Angeles and says that, after seven years of NAFTA, Mexicans know well the impact of free
trade. He spoke with host Matt Martin.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT THE U.N.
While trade ministers from throughout the Western hemisphere gather in Quebec to finalize an international
trade deal that critics say will hurt the environment, those same countries environmental ministers are gathering
at the United Nations in New York to set an agenda for sustainable development in future years. As Aaron
Glantz reports from the U.N., President Bush’s decision to pull the United States out of the Kyoto global
warming treaty has taken center stage.
GLOBAL GREEN CONFAB IN CANBERRA
Earlier this week, Australian environment minister Robert Hill indicated that his country will follow the U.S. lead and abandon the Kyoto Protocol. That news came after hundreds of activists and politicians from around the world converged on Canberra for the Global Greens 2001 conference. Rachel Maher was at the meeting and files this report.
AFTER DISASTROUS ENERGY DEREGULATION IN CALIFORNIA, OREGON FOLLOWS SUIT
With California Governor Gray Davis still trying to limit the fallout caused by the state’s disastrous de-regulation
of the energy market, the rest of the country has taken warning. But to the north, Oregon’s deregulation plans are
moving ahead full-steam. The state’s Public Utility Commission argues that although deregulation failed in
California, so-called “restructuring” can succeed in the Northwest. Rob Manning reports from Portland.
