Archive

The Trade Union Conference on Labour and the Environment for Latin America in Sao Paolo concluded yesterday with a series of undertakings from the Latin American trade union movement. The Conference, organized by ORIT and Sustainlabour brought together 26 national trade union centers, federations (PSI and Rel-UITA) and confederations (ORIT and CLAT).

Link to the text of a statement adopted by the metalworkers unions affiliated to the International Metalworkers Federation in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

WTO Director General Pascal Lamy has cancelled a 'mini ministerial' meeting which was intended to finalise negotiations in the controversial trade round. The meeting would have excluded most countries from the developing world, and was cancelled following angry protests from developing countries, NGOs and trade unions.

India is deliberately weakening its bargaining position in WTO by unnecessarily resorting to wheat imports against zero duty and relaxed quarantine norms when the granary is full.

Negotiators from leading trading nations and blocs are beginning a series of meetings this week in a bid to put the Doha round of world trade talks back on track after they admitted on Friday that a key April 30 deadline would be missed.

The World Trade Organisation's April 30 deadline for attaining 'modalities' in agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) will be missed, it became clear Friday as delegations wound up a week of negotiations on the two subjects.

As WTO negotiators miss yet another deadline for concluding world trade talks, developing country negotiators are no doubt asking themselves if they might be better off with no deal at all. According to a new policy report by Tufts University researchers, they have good reason to question the agreement, as hidden costs may well outstrip the limited gains predicted for most countries.

Links to excerpts from Martin Khor's news article on this development which provides some background and context to the G33 letter. And the G33 letter to Lamy for your information and action.

The European Union and the United States blamed each other on Friday for a stalemate in global trade talks which put beyond reach an end of April deadline for a key deal on farm and industrial goods.

A group of 125 civil society organizations, in a letter sent Tuesday to WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, has called for the cancellation of a mini-Ministerial reportedly involving only about 30 WTO Members which Lamy had planned for end April and early May in Geneva.