http://www.choike.org a portal on Southern civil societies http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1799.html When tens of thousands of people staged demonstrations in Mexico last year to protest a 60 percent increase in the price of tortillas, many analysts pointed to biofuel as the culprit. Because of US government subsidies, American farmers were devoting more and more acreage to corn for ethanol than for food, which sparked a steep rise in corn prices. The diversion of corn from tortillas to biofuel was certainly one cause of skyrocketing prices, though speculation on biofuel demand by transnational middlemen may have played a bigger role. However, an intriguing question escaped many observers: how on earth did Mexicans, who live in the land where corn was domesticated, become dependent on US imports in the first place? http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/2265.html On April 22, Presidents George W. Bush, Felipe Calderón, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper concluded a trilateral summit in New Orleans. The summit marked the fourth meeting of the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), which has drawn fire in all three countries since its proceedings are not open to public participation or congressional oversight and working groups are made up only of government and large business representatives. http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/2035.html Evidence from Latin America suggests that good trade performance and trade policy reforms alone cannot deliver growth and poverty reduction. If trade is to have a significant impact on broad-based growth and poverty reduction across the region, a raft of complementary policies, investment programmes and social protection measures needs to be designed, debated and implemented. http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/1169.html The new efforts to breathe life into the Doha round of trade negotiations at the WTO are targeting international trade in services as well as in manufactures and agriculture. The processes envisaged appear to involve "horizontal" negotiations for modalities - in agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) at senior-official levels leading to a mini-ministerial (mid-May being a possible date), as well as a "signalling" conference on services, and conclusion of negotiations with an agreement while George W. Bush is still in White House. http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/5952.html The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (PD) aims to reform the delivery and management of aid. Despite changes in how aid is delivered to partner governments, civil society organisations contend that the Paris Declaration remains an unjust and unequal framework for understanding and implementing the aid effectiveness agenda. Among other concerns, the Paris Declaration is gender blind, and as a result, fundamentally flawed. http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/4603.html The energy integration of the region could be a decisive mechanism for a better geopolitical position in the international arena. To achieve that goal, it is fundamental to construct an adequate infrastructure, and to have an institutional scheme to regulate the way in which said infrastructure will operate. To be precise, the design of the technical as well as institutional mechanisms for the development of a common energy market is still a challenge to fulfilling the region's prevailing political will.