Archive - 2009

Versión española abajo.

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH INTERNATIONAL
MEDIA ADVISORY
For immediate release: Wednesday July 1, 2009

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EUROPEAN UNION URGED TO RECONSIDER ITS ROLE IN CENTRAL AMERICA
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WOW - when's the last time 106 congressional Representatives - 9 full committee chairs and 40 subcommittee chairs included - were original cosponsors of any legislation, much less agreed on a new way forward on the contentious issue of trade?

Kathrin Hille in Beijing and Edward Luce in Washington

China and the US failed to achieve a breakthrough at their latest round of
climate talks on Wednesday, raising the stakes in the global effort to fight
global climate change.

The two countries responsible for almost half of the world¹s greenhouse gas
emissions ended three days of negotiations in Beijing.

While there are still months to go until the December meeting in Copenhagen,
where 181 countries, led by the United Nations, plan to work out a new

Date: 18 June, 2009 Dear Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh, As the newly formed UPA coalition government is just settling in to govern for the next five years, there is news that Commerce Minister Anand Sharma is already on his way to the United States (US) to bilaterally iron out differences to seal the trade deal that was launched during the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) 4th Ministerial Meeting in Doha. At stake in these trade negotiations are hundreds of millions of livelihoods in the farming and non-agriculture sectors that India has fought hard to preserve over the past eight years since the launch of the Doha Development Round.

Con la participación de más de 400 delegados de la sociedad civil, en el marco de la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Crisis Económica Mundial en Nueva York - EEUU, Rafael Correa criticó la “ideología fundamentalista” del neoliberalismo porque ha llevado al mundo a la actual crisis.

There is a rather odd interview Anand Sharma has given to Reuters. He is off to Washington and the interview comes just before the visit. Part of the interview is about India being keen to break the deadlock in WTO negotiations.

TRIPS and FTAs have adverse impact on access to drugs

Geneva, 3 Jun (Kanaga Raja) -- The WTO TRIPS Agreement and the TRIPS-plus
provisions in Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) have had an adverse impact on
prices and availability of medicines, making it difficult for countries to
comply with their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to
health, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Mr Anand Grover,
said on Tuesday.