AIDS, health, and anti-globalization activists scored a major victory against corporate greed in mid April when they forced 42 Pharmaceutical companies to drop their lawsuit against the South African government’s production of generic AIDS drugs. The HIV/AIDS pandemic had reached such a catastrophic level in South Africa that the government was forced to take drastic measures to begin addressing the problem. South Africa has the highest number of people living with AIDS: 4.7 million. Four hundred thousand South Africans have died of AIDS related illnesses since a generic drug law was introduced in 1997.

The WTO in practice

Transnational corporations have a new tool for appropriating resources, the latest in the long and sordid history of colonial resource theft from the Global South. According to a recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies, multinationals are increasingly turning to international tribunals when denied access to a country's natural resources. And this new weapon is aimed squarely at Latin America.

Earlier this year, the ruling Shah Dynasty in Nepal finally fell, coming up a decade short of a quarter-millennium reign. Nepalis' recent parallel struggles for democracy and communism have come to an uneasy confluence this summer:  despite backing from India, China, the UK and the US, the Hindu monarchy has surrendered state power to a Maoist-helmed electoral republic. Twenty-first century socialism, anyone?