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Oxfam has abandoned its support for the current talks on a new trade deal, saying Europe and the US have failed to live up to their promises to use trade to cut poverty in the world's poorest countries.

Director-General Pascal Lamy told journalists on 24 April 2006 that 'we may have missed the deadline but we are not in deadlock'. Earlier, in a statement at an informal meeting of heads of delegations, he said that 'genuine and important progress has been made, but not fast enough to allow us to reach agreement on modalities by the end of the month'.

In a move that has upset many developing countries, the European Union and Japan have recently proposed new treaties in the WTO to prevent or restrict the use by WTO members of export taxes and export restrictions.

The four new simulation exercises by Esther Busser from the ICFTU on India, Indonesia, Philippines and Mexico.

The WTO's agriculture negotiations this week have focused so far on issues relating to the export competition pillar, specifically on food aid, state trading enterprises and export credits.

The World Trade Organisation Monday finally made the conclusion that the deadlines for reaching 'modalities' for agriculture and non-agricultural market access by the end of this month could not be met, and that a planned meeting of some 30 Ministers would be called off.

Link for the English translation of the statement circulated in Spanish.

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.

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).