international library for a responsable world of solidarity ritimo

Le portail rinoceros d’informations sur les initiatives citoyennes pour la construction d’un autre monde a été intégré au nouveau site Ritimo pour une recherche simplifiée et élargie.

Ce site (http://www.rinoceros.org/) constitue une archive des articles publiés avant 2008 qui n'ont pas été transférés.

Le projet rinoceros n’a pas disparu, il continue de vivre pour valoriser les points de vue des acteurs associatifs dans le monde dans le site Ritimo.

books and publications

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Transnational Institute (TNI)

Selling US Wars

> Edited by Achin Vanaik, march 2007, 370 pages, 15€

The real reasons for the war in Iraq-control of oil pricing and policies, expansion of US power, strategic establishment of US bases in the Middle East, defense of Israel-were kept hidden from the American people. Instead, justifications for the illegal war were cloaked in the high-sounding slogans of "fighting the war on terrorism," "keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of rogue states," and finally, "bringing democracy to the Middle East."

Selling US Wars is a valuable, information-filled collection of essays by renowned experts from around the world. It examines the excuses for war that were the basis for this period of the US empire drive-nuclear weapons, terrorism, "failed states," drugs, humanitarian intervention, and democracy-and analyzes the pretexts asserted for the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Washington’s aggressive policies elsewhere, including in Colombia, Palestine, and Iran. It gets behind the subterfuges to expose how Washington’s spin-doctors worked to present its wars as humane, lawful, and necessary to keep Americans safe-and why the campaigns sometimes succeeded.

The book includes an overview of the economics of empire from Walden Bello, director of Focus on the Global South in the Philippines; a piece on the ideology of empire and the rise of the neo-conservative right-wing by legendary writer Susan George in France; an essay by Mike Marqusee in the UK on American exceptionalism and how that phenomenon helped shape US popular acceptance of these "slogans”; and contributions by Tariq Ali, Achin Vanaik, Phyllis Bennis, David Bewley-Taylor, David Sogge, Mariano Aguirre, Martin Jelsma, and Zia Mian.

Achin Vanaik is professor of international relations and global politics at Delhi University, and a fellow of the Transnational Institute. His most recent book is Globalization and South Asia: Multidimensional Perspectives (editor). He is also co-author of New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament.

Tariq Ali is a widely known London-based writer, filmmaker and anti-war agitator. He is the author of Bush in Babylon and Clash of Fundamentalisms.

David Bewley-Taylor is professor of American foreign policy at the University of Wales Swansea, United Kingdom and the author of The United States and International Drug Control: 1909-1997 (Pinter 1999 & Continuum 2001).

David Sogge is an independent consultant to NGOs on development aid and aid policy and a specialist on Southern Africa. He is Fellow of the Transnational Institute and author of Give & Take: What’s the Matter with Foreign Aid? (Zed Books, 2002).

Mariano Aguirre is the director of the Spanish international relations foundation FRIDE, a fellow of the Transnational Institute, and author of La ideología neoimperial: La crisis de EEUU con Irak (Icaria, 2003).

Martin Jelsma is coordinator of the Transnational Institute Drugs & Democracy Program and a fellow of the institute. He is the editor of Trouble in the Triangle: Opium and Conflict in Burma (Silkworm, 2005).

Mike Marqusee is the author of a number of groundbreaking books on politics and popular culture, including Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s Chimes of Freedom, Anyone but England, War Minus the Shooting, and Redemption Song.

Phyllis Bennis is Fellow of the Institute or Policy Studies, Washington, DC, and is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute. Her most recent book is Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy US Power (Olive Branch Press, 2006).

Susan George is Vice President of ATTAC France and Chair of the Planning Board of the Transnational Institute. She is the author of Nous, Peuple d’Europe (Fayard, 2005).

Walden Bello is the director of Focus on the Global South, program board member of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development in Geneva, and fellow of the Transnational Institute. He is author of Dilemmas of Domination: The Unmaking of the American Empire (Metropolitan, 2005).

Zia Mian is lecturer in public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University, and the editor of Out of the Nuclear Shadow (Lokayan/Rainbow, 2001).


PERALTA Arturo Quizhpe , ZUNIGA María Hamlin

Voices of the earth: from Savar to Cuenca

> TWN, juin 2007, 172 pages.

The People’s Health Assembly in Cuenca was a tremendous experience for health activists and workers, and for all who fight for social justice and development. It built on the first PHA in Bangladesh, and marked another milestone for the social movements fighting for the health rights of the world’s people.

This book, written and conceptualized by María Hamlin Zúniga and Arturo Quizhpe Peralta, captures the spirit and the wonderful activities of those days in Cuenca.

Publisher: Facultad de Ciencias Medicas, People’s Health Movement - Latin America, People’s Health Assembly 2 and Third World Network

Price US$21 for First World countries US$14 for Third World countries RM32.00 for Malaysia Prices are inclusive of postage costs by airmail


TAN Céline

Debt and Conditionality: Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative and Opportunities for Expanding Policy Space

> TWN Global Economy Series no. 9, 2007, 28 p., US$8.00

The Multilateral Debt Initiative (MDRI) was introduced in September 2005 to operationalise the political outcome of deliberations at the G8 summit in Gleneagles in July that year. The MDRI is to provide 100% cancellation of eligible debt stock owed by eligible countries to four multilateral financial institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and is separate from but linked operationally to the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.

A critical question arising from these developments in debt relief is whether - aside from relieving the debt overhang of indebted countries and therefore clearing fiscal space for more productive and redistributive expenditure - the cancellation of debt, particularly from the international financial institutions (IFIs), results in greater policy autonomy for the countries concerned.

A significant constraint on national policy space in developing countries in the past two decades has been the uncompromising debt burden shouldered by these countries and the stringent economic policy prescriptions accompanying debt renegotiations and access to financing from the IFIs. However, the recent series of debt cancellations - under both the enhanced HIPC and the MDRI - may offer eligible countries opportunities for expanding domestic policy space, enabling countries greater freedom over their macroeconomic and development policies, including options which were not allowed under the restrictive conditionalities of the Bretton Woods institutions.

This paper examines the key aspects of the MDRI and considers the opportunities this framework and completion of the enhanced HIPC initiative create for indebted countries to expand their policy space.


Worldwatch Institute

Catch of the Day: Choosing Seafood for Healthier Oceans

> November 2006, 75 p., U$ 8,50.

In Catch of the Day: Choosing Seafood for Healthier Oceans, senior researcher Brian Halweil explores how buyers of seafood-including individual consumers, school cafeterias, supermarket chains, and large food distributors-can reverse fishery declines and preserve the fresh catch of tomorrow.

At a time when global fishing regulations have proven ineffective in protecting fish populations, Catch of the Day is a refreshing reminder that we are not doomed to face an ocean wasteland "inhabited primarily by sea slime and jellyfish." Rather, a public that better understands the state of the world’s oceans can be a driving force in helping governments pass legislation to ban destructive fishing, mandate seafood labels, decrease consumption of endangered fish, and create sustainable marine preserves.

Catch of the Day shows that being a more deliberate seafood eater doesn’t mean a spartan existence; in fact, it could be the only guarantee that fresh and healthy fish continues to appear on our tables.


Successful Experiences in Municipal Public Water and Sanitation Services from Brazil

> Associação Nacional dos Serviços Municipais de Saneamento, June 2006.

The book presents twenty examples of successful public water delivery in large and small, wealthy and poor municipalities across Brazil. The city of Porto Alegre is already known around the world for its use of participatory budgeting and other democratic reforms to achieve universal access to clean water. The book shows that similar approaches are used in many other cities in Brazil and in many cases have led to rapid expansion of access to water and sanitation for the poorest communities.

Examples are the city of Alagoinhas (140,000 inhabitants) in the poor north-east of Brazil and Santo Andre (670,000 inhabitants) in the industrial region around Sao Paolo. The cases in the book, selected by a group of water sector specialists following strict criteria, show that public water utilities can achieve universal access, also in very difficult socio-economic circumstances. Key features of the successes presented in the book are a strong political will to improve public water delivery and, importantly, "social control": reforms that boost citizen’s involvement and democratic control over public services.

"Successful Experiences in Municipal Public Water and Sanitation Services from Brazil" is published by ASSEMAE, the federation of more than 1,700 public water and sanitation companies from municipalities from across Brazil.


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