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Labor leaders from Brazil, India, South Africa and eight other developing countries joined together formally for the first time Thursday to fight demands by rich countries in global trade talks for sweeping cuts in industrial tariffs.

Brazil and India agreed this week to reject a coefficient of '15' as advanced by the European Union and the United States in the tariff-cutting formula for developing countries in the nonagricultural market access negotiations.

The United States needs to start giving some hard numbers in negotiations on farm subsidies to push global trade talks forward and meet a June 30 deadline, a senior Indian trade official said.

The US is open to a Free Trade Agreement with India but wants bilateral economic engagement to increase further, a senior US government official said.

Mexico said on Tuesday it would likely join Canada in a complaint to the World Trade Organization about U.S. corn subsidies.

This paper makes some comments on the paper presented the 1st March 2007 by William R. Cline at the 2007 Agricultural Outlook Forum in Washington.

The United States today requested World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement consultations with India over customs duties India imposes on imports of wine and distilled spirits.

African trade envoys are extremely unhappy over what they call 'layers of opaqueness' in the manner which the four key players in the Doha Development Agenda negotiations - the United States, the European Union, Brazil and India - are following, keeping others out of the process.

Bilateral discussions among the trade chiefs of the European Union, India, the United States and Brazil held over the weekend in London and Geneva stepped up movement in the Doha Development Agenda negotiations to finalize the possible elements of a deal in the difficult packages of agriculture and market opening for industrials.

In February this year the WHO Director General, Margaret Chan caused a storm when she was quoted in Thailand saying that the country should negotiate with pharmaceutical companies before issuing a compulsory license.