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The African Union Trade Ministers' Conference, held in Nairobi on 12-14 April, adopted a Nairobi Ministerial Declaration on the Doha Work Programme, detailing Africa's position on the current WTO negotiations.

African Trade Ministers have expressed their serious concern that some developed countries are making use of the process of reform of the United Nations to target the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in order to erode its mandate or even its institutional existence.

Peter MandelsonPeter Mandelson, trade commissioner for the European Union, on Friday labels the US the biggest single block to the faltering Doha round of trade negotiations.

The WTO Director-General, Pascal Lamy, made a bold statement at the 28th March meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), in which he called on Trade Ministers to come to Geneva for the last week of April and early May to finalize modalities for the Doha Agenda.

African Trade Ministers have expressed their serious concern that some developed countries are making use of the process of reform of the United Nations to target the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in order to erode its mandate or even its institutional existence.

The African Union Trade Ministers' Conference, held in Nairobi on 12-14 April, adopted a Nairobi Ministerial Declaration on the Doha Work Programme, detailing Africa's position on the current WTO negotiations.

African Trade Ministers have declared that the WTO modalities on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) that are scheduled to be concluded at the end of April must be 'all-inclusive' and indicated that they would not accept 'partial modalities' that leave out issues of concern to African countries.

Links for 'reference papers' from the Chair of the Agriculture Negotiations, Amb. Falconer, which will be discussed in the current agriculture week.

Aid and advocacy groups from around the world on Tuesday called on WTO chief Pascal Lamy to cancel a major trade meeting scheduled for the end of this month, saying many poor countries are being excluded from talks.

The departure by U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman to become director of the Office of Management and Budget and the nomination of Deputy USTR Susan Schwab as the next USTR signals that trade has become a diminishing priority for the Bush Administration, according to several sources.