TNI in the news

TNI fellows, staff and consultants who are quoted, interviewed, featured or published in other media outlets. Please note that as many of our network also work for other organisations, we do not assume to take credit for all of these media "hits."

Study investment provisions before an FTA says advocacy group
BusinessWorld Online (Philippines)

The country should carefully study investment provisions before entering into foreign trade agreements (FTAs) as these may infringe on government’s regulatory power on foreign firms, an advocacy group on Friday said.

April 2012
At Summit, Drug Talk likely to be Hot but Hidden
The Miami Herald

The Summit of the Americas is focused on roads and ports. But behind closed doors, leaders will discuss drug policies. 

April 2012
Nu begint het moeilijke werk
Trouw

De oppositie in Burma behaalde op 1 april een klinkende verkiezingsoverwinning. De verwachtingen zijn hoog gespannen. Te hoog?


April 2012
Burma's misguided Drug War
The Diplomat

Keen to impress the West and get sanctions lifted, Burma is cracking down on opium production. But hundreds of thousands may be left in poverty.

April 2012
Guatemalan president leads drug legalization debate
CNN.com

"Even if the United States is not willing at this point to go along, there is space for Latin American countries to take certain steps," said Martin Jelsma, a political scientist who specializes in Latin America and international drugs policy at the Transnational Institute. "Of course, politically, that will be one of the questions. How much pressure will the United States put on Latin America to prevent this?"

March 2012
No single course for providing water
The Guardian

Two new books seek to challenge the claims that anti-privatisation activists present infinite criticisms but few alternatives.

March 2012
Public Water Management Services Need "Committed Citizens"
IPSnews

BERLIN, Mar. 14, 2012 (IPS) - The trend of privatisation and commercialisation of water services, which set in in the 1980s and continued throughout the 1990s, has come to a halt due to the process’ own failures, and has given rise to a return of those services into efficient public management, according to a new book.

March 2012
Spanish Village Leases Out City Land for Pot Farm
Spanish Village Leases Out City Land for Pot Farm

Rasquera, a village of 900 near Barcelona, Spain, feeling the crunch of Euro-austerity measures and heavy debt, voted 4-3 on Wednesday to let a nearby cannabis association use a stretch of city land to grow marijuana for its 5000 members.

March 2012
INCB Attacks Bolivia on Coca Stance
INCB Attacks Bolivia on Coca Stance

In its 2011 Annual Report, the International Narcotics Control Board, which monitors the implementation of international drug control treaties, has attacked Bolivia over that country's effort to defend the traditional uses of the coca plant.

March 2012
UN Report Enforces Orthodox Drug Strategy
In Sight - Organized Crime in the Americas

In a joint press release with the Washington Office on Latin America, the Transnational Institute’s Martin Jelsma said that the INCB’s response to Bolivia is a “clear sign that the UN drug control regime is under strain,” and that the INCB “is in distress and no longer capable of responding to challenges in a rational manner.”

March 2012
South American prison deaths tied to overcrowding, official says
LA Times

"The implementation of harsh drug laws has fueled rising incarceration rates and has contributed to severe prison overcrowding," the Washington Office on Latin America and the Transnational Institute wrote in a study two years ago.

February 2012
World at Risk without Climate Justice
Deccan Chronicle

Praful Bidwai’s book The Politics of Climate Change and the Global Crisis: Mortgaging Our Future is unique for combining rigorous details of the climate crisis and international negotiations with robust arguments for climate justice and ecological democracy.

February 2012
Colombia Takes Step Towards Drug Decriminalization
In Sight - Organized Crime in the Americas

The rate of overcrowding in Colombia's prisons reached nearly 39 percent in 2009, much of it due to the excess number of small-time drug offenders, according to the WOLA and TNI report.

September 2011
Drugged out
Time Magazine

Even after proven to be uneffective, drug policies in South East Asia are still focussed on window dressing and not actually solving problems. 

May 2011
Bolivia Steps Up Campaign at U.N. to Legalise Coca Leaf
IPS News

Is coca a dangerous drug that should be tightly regulated, or an essential part of Andean indigenous people's cultural and medicinal heritage? Or perhaps both?

May 2011
Book Review of “Whose Crisis, Whose Future?” by Susan George
The Broker

Susan George, (2010), “Whose Crisis, Whose Future? Towards a Greener, Fairer, Richer World”, Polity Press, Cambridge. The book is published as well in French and Spanish, see details below.

Here is a book that attempts to explain how high finances direct the economy and how they bring about the enormously unequal world we live in. As I read, I had the feeling I was invited to a party, a party for well-meaning adults with a clear sense of social responsibility.

March 2011
Bolivia right to reject Cancun climate farce
Green Left

Bolivia alone stood up to the world at December’s UN climate conference in Cancun, Mexico; daring to reject the flawed agreement endorsed by 191 other nations.

February 2011
Bolivia energises campaign to legalise coca leaf
The Guardian

Bolivia and the US are set for more battles over the coca leaf as Evo Morales attempts to overturn the legality of the indigenous plant.

January 2011
A model country with double standards
Radio Nederland Wereldomroep

The Dutch government oversight on transshipments of arms is not as strict as international rules require.

January 2011
US objects to Bolivia bid for licit coca-chewing
Associated Press

The United States will file a formal objection to Bolivia's proposal to end the ban on coca leaf-chewing specified by a half-century-old U.N. treaty.

January 2011