Tuesday, January 06, 2009   04:59 GMT    
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 Latest Subsidy News
VENEZUELA: The Cost of the World’s Cheapest Gasoline
Humberto Márquez
CARACAS - The world’s most inexpensive gasoline is sold in Venezuela, through a longstanding subsidy programme that benefits car owners while depriving the oil industry of a large source of funds for reinvesting.
FINANCE-US: AIG's Offshore Strategies Hide a Scam
Lucy Komisar*
NEW YORK - The company getting the biggest U.S. bailout operated a scam to help clients cheat on U.S. taxes, regulators say. It is AIG, American International Group, the world's largest insurance conglomerate.
FINANCE-US: AIG's Past Could Return To Haunt
Lucy Komisar*
NEW YORK - The U.S. will invest 40 billion dollars in American International Group (AIG), and will provide credit lines that could bring federal funding up to 144 billion dollars. It's the largest subsidy that a U.S. corporation has ever received.
DEVELOPMENT-INDIA: Reclaiming Land and Farmers for Rice Cultivation
K.S. Harikrishnan
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM - After achieving human development indices that approach developed country standards, people living on this verdant strip facing the Arabian sea are attempting a ‘back-to-basics’ return to paddy cultivation.
Q&A: "How Are We Going to Sustain Gender Approaches?"
Terna Gyuse interviews MARY RUSIMBI, gender budgeting consultant
CAPE TOWN - The negative aspects of Africa's experience with structural adjustment programmes beginning in the 1990s have been well-documented -- facing high debt loads, African governments agreed to liberalise their economies, privatise public enterprises, and sharply reduce social spending with often painful effects on the most vulnerable.

Trade - Fair Play for Exports?
> TRADE: Cotton Subsidies Remain Big Hurdle in WTO Doha Round
> DEVELOPMENT: Turning South-South Rhetoric into Action
> AFGHANISTAN: Subsidised Fuel Trail Winds Back to Pakistan
> PAKISTAN: Tax Payers Pay for Subsidised Fuel to Afghanistan
> BULGARIA: Small Farmers Strike for Survival
> TRADE-CHINA: Food Security Prompted Tough Line at Geneva
> TRADE: Realpolitik Takes Over
> DEVELOPMENT: Live With EU's Contradictions
> EUROPE: In a Civil War over Subsidies
> Q&A: Can Save the MDGs Yet

Biofuels, Industry and Food
> VENEZUELA: The Cost of the World’s Cheapest Gasoline
> ARGENTINA: Companies Pocketing Gas Subsidy for the Poor
> WORLD FOOD-DAY-PAKISTAN: Hunger, Poverty Initiatives Suspect
> DEVELOPMENT: Challenging the Bio-fuel-Hunger Paradigm
> ENVIRONMENT-US: Florida Hopes Energy Farm Will Be First of Many
> OBAMA: "Subsidising Big Oil Makes No Sense"
> U.S.: Great Place for the Oil Business
> MALAYSIA: Murum Dam - Public Funds for Corporate Profit?
> MALAYSIA: Power-Surplus Sarawak Funds Another New Dam
> ECONOMY-US: Activists Target Corporate Chiefs' Tax Subsidies

 
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BIOFUELS AND FOOD SECURITY: CONFLICT OR COMPLEMENTARITY?
by Ignacy Sachs
It makes no sense to single out biofuels as the scapegoat for high food costs without considering the effect of the spectacular rise in oil prices, writes Ignacy Sachs, honorary professor, School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences, Paris, and visiting fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Sao Paulo.


BIOFUELS AND CLIMATE CHANGE: A CURE THAT MAKES THE DISEASE WORSE
by Vandana Shiva
False solutions to the climate crisis, like biofuels, will actually aggravate the problem while exacerbating inequality, hunger, and poverty, writes Vandana Shiva, author and international campaigner for women and the environment.


SUBSIDIES DRIVE US CORN ETHANOL BOOM DESPITE MAJOR DRAWBACKS
by Mark Sommer
The fuel source the United States has chosen to start replacing petroleum, corn-based ethanol, is expensive, inefficient, and both environmentally and economically destructive, writes Mark Sommer, who hosts the award-winning, internationally-syndicated radio programme, ''A World of Possibilities''.


BIOFUELS: NO SILVER BULLET AGAINST FOSSIL FUELS
by Vicente Paolo Yu III
While increasing the proportion of biofuels in the fuel mix for motor vehicles is a step in the right direction, it is not the ''silver bullet'' that will break the world's dependence on fossil fuels, writes Vicente Paolo Yu III, coordinator of the Global Governance for Development Programme at the South Centre.


BIOFUELS: MORE BENEFITS THAN JUST ENERGY
by Supachai Panitchpakdi
Many economic, social, and environmental goals could be fulfilled by increased production, use, and international trade of biofuels, writes Supachai Panitchpakdi Secretary General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).


AFRICA, LATIN AMERICA AND THE BIOFUEL REVOLUTION
by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Biofuels should be at the centre of a planetary strategy to preserve the environment and spur sustainable development, writes Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil.


BUSH ALLIANCE WITH BRAZIL FOR CONTROL OF WORLD BIOFUEL MARKET
by Leonardo Boff
Anyone who thinks that President Bush's current tour of Latin America, and especially to Brazil, was inspired by the urgent warnings in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is dead wrong, writes Leonardo Boff, a Brazilian liberation theologian and member of the International Committee of the Earth Charter.


THE SINISTER NEW BIOFUEL ALLIANCE
by Joao Pedro Stedile
The Landless Movement of Brazil and the international organisation Via Campesina condemn the new initiative of President George W. Bush, who in his upcoming trip to Latin America hopes to seduce and co-opt the countries of the region into becoming major producers of biofuels for export to the United States, writes Joao Pedro Stedile, leader of the Landless Movement of Brazil (MST) and Via Campesina Brazil.
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Subsidies - Who Really Benefits? - RSS Why Do Subsidies Matter?
Subsidies -- transfers of public money to private interests -- have profound and long-lasting effects on the economy, the distribution of income in society, and the environment. Holding governments to account for how they allocate resources is important to citizens, not least because the bill goes to the taxpayers. At a global level, the impacts of subsidies are felt across borders, often most acutely in developing countries.

  Read our free newsletters:
Issue Seventeen: Biofuels in China
Issue Sixteen: Transport Subsidies
Issue Fifteen: U.S. Economic Crisis
Issue Fourteen: Reforming Subsidies
Issue Thirteen: Oil and Climate Change
Issue Twelve: Nuclear Power
Issue Eleven: Fertiliser Subsidies
Issue Ten: Irrigation Subsidies
Issue Nine: Global Farm Trade
Issue Eight: Fisheries Subsidies - EU
Issue Seven: India's Development Race
Issue Six: Services Sector Subsidies
Issue Five: Energy Subsidies
Issue Four: Investment Incentives
Issue Three: WTO Farm Subsidy
Issue Two: Investigating Subsidies
Issue One: Biofuels
Subsidies Newsletter - Sign up for the free GSI-IPS monthly newsletter, addressed to journalists and experts.
Partnership with the
GSI
Global Subsidies Initiative
Understanding the complexity of subsidies -- the jargon, rhetoric and figures -- and the effects they have on people, the environment and economies is a challenge for journalists. IPS is an independent media partner of the Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI), in a collaborative effort to raise the capacity of journalists to investigate the hidden impacts of government subsidies. The GSI, a programme of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), is a research-driven organisation that aims to put a spotlight on subsidies and the ways they can undermine efforts to put the world on a path toward sustainable development. The International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ) is another GSI media and communications partner.