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News archives

Monday, November 27, 2006

Top WTO powers to meet in January to discuss stalled global trade talks
GENEVA -- Ministers from the WTO's most influential powers will meet early next year to make their first joint attempt at reviving global trade talks since their collapse last summer, officials said Monday. Top representatives of the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia, India and ... Continued...

Negotiate as if Doha round could be last
LAUNCHED five years ago, the Doha round promised to make global trade free and fairer for both developed and developing countries. It would slash the high tariffs and other non-tariff barriers that block imports, ease customs procedures for traders and reform outdated agricultural policies. Since th... Continued...

NAFTA Trade Soaring
U.S. Department of Transportation statistics show freight shipments flowing to and from Canada and Mexico reached a record high value in 2005. More than $790 billion in trade crossed the northern and southern U.S. borders in 2005, an 11 percent increase from 2004, according to DOT's Bureau of Tr... Continued...

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Corn Growers Join Manufacturing and Labor Representatives for Globalization Summit
Colorado Springs, Colo. – Keith Bolin, President of the American Corn Growers Association (ACGA) and other key leaders of his organization met with dozens of other farm and rural leaders as well as leaders from the U.S. manufacturing sector, organized labor and the academic community at a recent con... Continued...

Friday, November 17, 2006

Genetic engineering no magic bullet for Africa's hunger
The Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced their joint $150 million Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa for the continent's 180 million impoverished farmers who - they claim - were bypassed by the Green Revolution. What? For 25 years, the Consultat... Continued...

WTO chief supports resuming trade talks
Pascal Lamy, the director general of the World Trade Organization, gave negotiators in Geneva the go-ahead Thursday to resume technical work toward a global accord and reiterated that real progress depended on farm-subsidy concessions. Lamy suspended the work in July when talks collapsed in acrimon... Continued...

Barry Coates: Medicine patents should be relaxed
Is five years long enough for rich countries and the pharmaceutical industry to put the health of poor patients before profits? The short answer appears to be no. The more worrying answer is there are signs this will happen in the foreseeable future. Global health remains a scandal. More than 4 m... Continued...

WORLD US DELEGATION TO FOCUS ON DOHA TRADE TALKS
Trade Representative Susan Schwab said the US delegation visiting Vietnam this week for the APEC meeting would focus on trying to resuscitate the Doha trade talks while also directing their efforts on strengthening multilateral and bilateral ties in several other areas. Schwab said the US was lo... Continued...

US congressional advisers see indaequate China WTO progress
BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - A US congressional advisory body said China is not living up to its promises as a member of the World Trade Organization, and called for the US to be more insistent on getting Beijing to fulfill its commitments, the Wall Street Journal reported. "China's adherence to its man... Continued...

Thursday, November 16, 2006

China Could Find Congress a Chillier Place
WASHINGTON -- She scuffled with police on Tiananmen Square, protested the visits of Chinese leaders to the White House, and calls the U.S. trade relationship with China "a disaster." When Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi becomes House speaker in January, her views on China could set the tone for a ne... Continued...

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Toilets Underused to Fight Disease, U.N. Study Finds
The toilet and the latrine, which helped revolutionize public health in New York, London and Paris more than a century ago, are among the most underused tools to combat poverty and disease in the developing world, says a United Nations report (Correction Appended, see below) released yesterday. “... Continued...

Clean water is a right: But it also needs to have a price - Economist
Growing up on the shores of Lake Victoria in the 1950s, Anna Tibaijuka would earn a couple of cents by sorting coffee beans for her father. With one of these coins she would buy a sweet from an Indian shopkeeper. With the other, she would buy potable water from a kiosk. But when she returned to h... Continued...

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Battle for Cheap Drugs Also Being Lost in WTO
GENEVA, Nov 14 - The only concrete result to come out of the 2001 World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar appeared to be the Declaration on Intellectual Property and Public Health, since the rest of the decisions on a new round of trade talks are at a standstill. Bu... Continued...

Doha free trade talks suspended 5 years
GENEVA - Governments from around the world pledged to great fanfare in Doha that they would make free trade work for even the poorest countries. Five years later, it's just another quiet day at the World Trade Organization. The lofty rhetoric of 2001 quietly dropped, negotiators have failed to foll... Continued...

China urges US, EU to take the lead in revival of global trade talks
China on Tuesday urged the United States and the European Union to lead efforts to salvage stalled global trade talks by making concessions, a diplomat said amid negotiations at an Asia-Pacific gathering. A senior Chinese official made the remarks as delegates drafted a separate statement calling... Continued...

India becomes 11th biggest exporter of services in 2005: WTO
India has jumped five places to become the world's 11th biggest exporter of commercial services in 2005, and inched one step ahead to the 29th rank among the largest merchandise exporters, according to the latest statistics from the World Trade Organisation. The country has also emerged as the world... Continued...

APEC Mulls Pacific-Wide Free Trade Zone
HANOI Vietnam -- With global trade talks suspended, the APEC club of 21 Pacific Rim economies is exploring the possibility of creating a massive free-trade zone stretching across the Pacific Ocean, but analysts warn it is a monumental task fraught with political and technical difficulties. The As... Continued...

EU claims victory as WTO rules against most U.S. complaints on EU customs
BRUSSELS Belgium -- The European Union said Tuesday that a World Trade Organization panel upheld the legality of its customs system, backing the EU on 18 out of 19 complaints brought by the United States. Washington had accused Europe of failing to respect global trade rules because it has a com... Continued...

DRUGS `UNAFFORDABLE' IN DEVELOPING WORLD
Rich countries are reneging on their promise to improve public health in developing countries by adopting ``selfish'' protectionist policies, a charity warned today. International pharmaceutical companies are taking poor countries to court to try and maintain their monopoly over drugs for diseases ... Continued...

Election pushes globalization to forefront; New leaders may focus on taking sting out of job losses
WASHINGTON -- To hear some Democrats tell it, the United States is engaged in a costly, ill-advised foreign adventure that is long overdue for a change of course. Not the war in Iraq. Globalization. Several members of the Democratic Congress that takes office in January say the Bush administrati... Continued...

US commerce secretary says mkt access, IPR key to 'beneficial' China ties
BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - Market access, transparency and protection of intellectual property rights are key to a "mutually beneficial" trading relationship between the US and China, US secretary of commerce Carlos Gutierrez told business executives in Beijing. Speaking at a roundtable discussion, he... Continued...

Monday, November 13, 2006

USA-Peru Trade Promotion Pact up in the air
U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab confirmed to Peru's Minister for Foreign Trade and Tourism Mercedes Aráoz that due to the current political conjuncture, the U.S. government will not be able to send the Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) to Congress before year's end. “Ms. Schwab confirmed t... Continued...

Dead Sea is being gradually sucked dry
Fifty years ago, the waters were 395 metres below sea level; now they're 418 metres Special to The Globe and Mail EIN GEDI, ISRAEL -- The sign on Route 90 still points to a campground, but what remains is more like a battleground: uprooted, leafless trees; deep, cratered earth; and a single lo... Continued...

Thursday, November 9, 2006

The 2006 Human Development Report calls for 20 litres of clean water a day for all as a human right
Strictly embargoed until 15:00 Cape Town (13:00 GMT, 08:00 New York) 9 November 2006 World water and sanitation crisis urgently needs a Global Action Plan: The 2006 Human Development Report calls for 20 litres of clean water a day for all as a human right Cape Town, 9 November 2006—A Global Ac... Continued...

GE Water wins sea water desalination plant project in India
GE Water & Process Technologies, a unit of GE Infrastructure, today announced that it has won its first sea water desalination plant project in India from Tata Chemicals Ltd. The contract is valued at US $6.5 million. GE Water and Process Technologies will provide Tata Chemicals a Mobile Sea Water D... Continued...

Monday, November 6, 2006

Protectionist Stance Is Gaining Clout
DUBUQUE, Iowa -- Bidding for a congressional seat held by a free-trade Republican for nearly two decades, Democrat Bruce Braley has gained an edge by taking the opposite view: bashing globalization. In one of the most closely watched congressional races, Mr. Braley has made opposition to the Bush... Continued...

Thursday, November 2, 2006

Water policy managers not confident of sustainability
Research into how water managers see their roles shows that many are making decisions that might ultimately be bad for conservation. The University of South Australia asked water managers if they were meeting environmentally sustainable principles agreed to in the 1990s. The study found that t... Continued...

Wednesday, November 1, 2006

New spill cuts water to thousands in China: Creosote, a probable carcinogen, ends up in river after truck overturns
BEIJING - Water supplies to 28,000 people in northern China have been cut after an overturned truck spilled 33 tons of toxic oil into a river, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday. The truck was carrying wash oil, also known as creosote, when it overturned and dumped its contents in... Continued...

The WTO is “a laboratory for harnessing globalization”
I am happy to be with you today and, in my first trip to Boston as WTO Director-General, to share with you some thoughts on global governance and the contribution that the World Trade Organization can make. And what better place to do this than here, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, in t... Continued...

Thursday, October 26, 2006

China's water supply: Economist advises liberalization
A modest proposal From The Economist print edition: China should liberalise water pricing HOW to provide sufficient clean water to the vast and arid north of China has long been a headache for its rulers. Of late they have considered some ambitious proposals. One of the most hotly debated, to div... Continued...

Friday, October 20, 2006

Water supply at risk
Water supply at risk Guardian Weekly The world's glaciers and ice caps are in terminal decline because of global warming, scientists have discovered. A survey has revealed that the rate of melting across the world has sharply accelerated in recent years, placing even previously stable glaciers... Continued...

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Irrigation up for debate in Canada: 'We need to take some of that water back'
Irrigation farming may no longer be sustainable in Alberta, say water advocates, who point to lower water levels across the province due to receding glaciers and less snow in the mountains. About 70 per cent of the surface water used in Alberta every year is used for irrigating crops. Less water ... Continued...