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Congressional approval of a trade pact with six small Central American countries nudged forward the Bush administration's free-trade agenda. But the close vote and bitter fight underscored anxiety about the pace of globalization and clouded prospects for approval of future deals.

The highlight of yesterday's one-year assessment of the Doha Development Agenda farm negotiations focused mostly on the evaluation by agriculture negotiations chairman Tim Groser

At 12:03 am on July 28th, the House of Representatives approved the Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA. CAFTA, which would expand NAFTA to Central America and the Dominican Republic, would devastate farmers, privatize essential public services, and accelerate the race to the bottom on wages in the US and all over Central America.

The talks on non-agricultural market access(NAMA) are at an impasse on key issues and the consultations at the WTO this weekcould not come up with agreement, according to Ambassador Stefan Johannesson ofIceland.

The European Commission's DG Trade has finally replied to questions raised by Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) about the privileged access and influence of industry lobby groups like the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) and the European Services Forum (ESF).

Following the World Trade Organization (WTO) Mini-Ministerial Meeting in Dalian, China earlier this month, Ambassador Alejandro Jara, Chairman of the WTO Council for Trade in Services Special Session, issued a report on the state of play in the Doha Round services negotiations.

The passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in the U.S. House of Representatives late last night signals a major setback for U.S. sugar farmers and a damaging blow to Central American farmers

India yesterday offered a substantial market-opening for foreign financial services companies

It dealt with eight regular items today, including TRIPS andhealth, special and dfiierential treatment, small economies,implementation issues, budget committee.

The WTO General Council started its meeting today in an atmosphere of anti-climax as well as general gloom that its long-touted objective of coming up with 'first approximations' of modalities on key issues to give a boost to the preparations for the Hongkong Ministerial in December would not be fulfilled.