Archive - déc. 9, 2005 - Article

Over 100 groups across India, including social movements and trade unions, have challenged the minority government

The study Trading away our last ancient forests (1)concludes that liberalisation in the forestry sector must be halted immediately in order to avoid destroying the last remaining ancient forests and the indigenous communities dependent on them.

Intense and rushed formal and informal consultations have been taking place since last Friday 2 December to find agreement among WTO Members on the content of an amendment to the TRIPS Agreement, which is to constitute a 'permanent solution' for facilitating the supply of medicines to countries with insufficient or no drug manufacturing capacity.

The WTO General Council late Tuesday 6 December approved an amendment to the TRIPS Agreement making permanent a decision originally adopted in 2003 to resolve the problem of supply of generic versions of pharmaceutical products to countries with inadequate manufacturing capacity, due to limitations in the TRIPS Agreement when using compulsory license.

The latest draft is more interesting for what it omits than what it has added. The cover note that was attached to the 1 December draft has been removed.

If you only had one choice, what would you choose: Water? Food? Life-saving medicine?

With the Doha global trade talks stalled by US and European discord over agriculture, US lawmakers are warning that domestic political support for the round could be jeopardised if the Hong Kong ministerial meeting next week focuses exclusively on the narrow demands from a few developing countries