Archive

EU Rejects Ag Requests in G-6 Meeting

28 February, 2006
Brussels yesterday flatly rejected calls by the United States, Australia and Brazil to improve its farm market access offer a stand that cast doubts on whether the ministerial meeting of the Group-of-Six countries next week in London will succeed in breaking the ice in the Doha Development Agenda farm negotiations.

A Batch of Plurilateral Services Offers

28 February, 2006
The United States joined the European Union, Japan, Canada and other industrialized nations yesterday in presenting requests under a new plurilateral approach in the stalled Doha Development Agenda services negotiations.

WTO services negotiations move up a gear

28 February, 2006
Global talks to free up trade in services, a key part of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) Doha round, moved up a gear on Tuesday with leading states putting in demands for liberalisation.

février 28th

United States is Active Participant in Coalition to Jump Start WTO Services Negotiations

27 February, 2006
The United States today launched a new effort to jump start the WTO Services negotiations. Joining with like-minded developed and developing countries, the U.S. will push for a common set of liberalization objectives in services sectors key to global growth and development. Services are a significant and growing part of the U.S. economy as evidenced by the $56 billion surplus in services trade in 2005. Further, 8 of 10 U.S. jobs are in the services sector.

EU and others launch 'plurilateral' process to boost Doha services negotiations

27 February, 2006
Today, the EU and other developed and developing country WTO partners have submitted new market access requests in several services sectors as part of the DDA negotiations in services. These joint requests mark the beginning of the 'plurilateral' negotiations in services as agreed by WTO members at last December

Collective requests in which the EU is participating under the DDA Trade in Services negotiations

27 February, 2006
An agreement was reached among a number of countries to pursue common objectives in improving access to selected telecommunications markets around the globe. The markets selected reflect the interest of many countries to develop a modern telecommunications sector. There is a broad recognition that the opening up of telecommunications markets will bring significant benefits to customers. Foreign operators will bring with them - especially to developing countries - valuable technological knowledge acquired through their operations in their home markets. Enhanced competition brings down the overall cost of services and consumers enjoy higher quality, advanced services at affordable prices. The development of telecommunications markets promotes the performance of enterprises of all economic sectors as the cost of their operations will be reduced while speed in conducting business will be improved.

février 27th

The Pseudo-Science of Biotech Lobbyists: The baseless Barfoot - Brookes claim that farmers and the environment have benefited from GMO's

26 February, 2006
While biotech crops fail farmers, and destroy biodiversity the 'global' studies of biotech lobbyists continue to cook up benefits to farmers and the environment. A recent example of such pseudo-science is a report by Graham Brookes and Peter Barfoot of PG Economies Limited, U.K entitled.

février 24th

Agriculture: No convergence from week of consultations

23 February, 2006
A week-long series of meetings on agriculture on 13-17 February at the WTO did not result in more convergence on the issues covered, although positions of various countries or groupings were further clarified.

New proposal on reducing cotton domestic subsidies

23 February, 2006
A new proposal was tabled last week on an accelerated programme for reducing domestic support for cotton by the four West African countries that are co-sponsors of the sectoral initiative in favour of cotton.

Geneva Update: HEADING TOWARDS AN ICEBERG: is it too late to steer the ship?

23 February, 2006
I. WHAT IS LEFT TO DECIDE?; II. THE PROCESS: modalities, schedules and timelines; III. AGRICULTURE AND NAMA: pushing for convergence; IV. SERVICES: preparing for the onslaught; V. IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER; VI. DOCUMENTS