Friday March 27, 2020: The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has just reported on its first Global COVID-19 survey of 109 trade unions in 86 countries, including 28 out of 36 OECD countries and fifteen G20 countries.
March 24, 2020: The debate is already raging about the deeper lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic.
March 23, 2020: The AFTINET submission to the government inquiry on trade relationships with the Pacific Islands recommends that the Australian government cease trying to promote Pacer Plus in its current form, which excludes countries with over 80% of Pacific Island economic output and is not an effective regional agreement. Instead the government should conduct a fundamental review of the terms of Pacer Plus based on listening to the real concerns of Pacific island countries about the impacts of climate change as well as imbalances in the trade relationship.
March 17, 2020: Read our new factsheet Trading away our Services? How trade rules impact public and essential services.
March 16, 2020: ASEAN Secretary-General Dato Lim Jock Hoi has reaffirmed that RCEP members intend to sign the agreement in late 2020.
March 11, 2020: ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, a regional network of current and former parliamentarians, has criticised the lack of transparency in RCEP negotiations and called for the released of the RCEP text and for governments to conduct open and inclusive public consultations.
March 10, 2019: The Australian Information Commissioner has launched a court case against Facebook for alleged breaches of Australia privacy laws.
March 5, 2020: AFTINET Media Release - Four new Parliamentary inquiries show Australian trade policy failing in the Pacific
March 2, 2020: An investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald reveals that Chow Tai Fook Enterprises (CTFE), the Hong Kong company that now owns the privatised Australian Alinta energy company, is storing sensitive personal data overseas without adequate privacy protections, despite undertakings given to the Australian government in 2017 that data would be stored in Australia and conform to Australian privacy laws.
February 27, 2020: The Pacific Island Countries (PICs) are taking on disproportionate binding commitments in exchange for false promises of benefits from the regional free trade deal known as PACER-Plus according to new analysis released today from the Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG).