Archive - Feb 2007 - Article

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

Press release: More than 400 farmers, fisherfolks, urban poor and

The militant Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) together with the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and Pamalakaya launched a protest action

Sixty farm, faith, consumer, environmental, development and rural advocacy organizations today declared the current U.S. agricultural trade model

Indonesia will remain firm in its stance favoring “special product exemptions” during the Doha Development Round negotiations, says a minister, brushing aside concerns that the country might compromise on its position in the light of the visit of WTO Director General Pascal Lamy.

Pascal Lamy is a man with a mission. Since assuming the post of Director General of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in September 2005, the former Trade Commissioner of the European Union has taken to heart his role as the captain of global trade, hoping to steer the 148 Member countries of the WTO into concluding a new multilateral trade agreement under the Doha Round the soonest possible time.

The relationship between the TRIPS Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity and the issue of enforcement of TRIPS provisions dominated the discussions at a meeting of the TRIPS Council on Tuesday 13 February.

The Doha Round was launched on false pretences, including calling it a development round, and the ability of developed countries to make it a development round is “absent”, according to former United States Trade Representative, Charlene Barshefsky.

How far the developing countries will be able to carry on with the least developed ones, by giving them more concessions will determine which way South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) goes.

Worries about the dark side of free trade are surfacing in the United States in ways that could affect the course of globalization worldwide.