Archive - Feb 23, 2007

Peasant groups have accused visiting World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy of trying to pressure the Philippine government to change its position on delayed global trade talks.

Vowing to let Pascal Lamy hear the loud cries of poor sectors, farmers and fishers gate crashed and disrupted a meeting today organized by Philippine business with World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy.

The US, European Union and India are close to a compromise that would allow the Doha global trade negotiations to resume, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy said Wednesday according to a Dow Jones news service report from Jakarta

The Indonesian Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, has maintained that Indonesia will continue withholding its bird flu virus samples from foreign laboratories until there is a new global mechanism for virus sharing that has better terms for developing countries.

The reluctance of Indonesia to freely provide bird flu samples to the World Health Organisation because of the fear that commercial companies would obtain them to develop patented products is understandable, since samples of other viruses given to WHO have previously been used by corporations to obtain patents