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Doha Talks Need ‘Serious Acceleration’ to Meet 2010 Deadline: Lamy
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy warned delegates at the WTO’s General Council meeting on Tuesday that they will need to dramatically pick up the pace of their negotiations if they want to wrap up a global trade deal by the end of next year. The meeting also shed some light on the organisation’s upcoming ministerial conference,…
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US Seeks More Protection for 'Sensitive' Farm Products at WTO
The US has informally suggested that it be allowed to protect an additional two percent of agricultural tariff lines as ’sensitive’, trade sources said, a move that sparked immediate resistance from exporting countries already concerned about the extent of market access exceptions in the WTO’s troubled Doha Round of trade talks. While lesser tariff cuts for…
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EU, South Korea Sign Free Trade Accord
The European Union and South Korea signed a free trade agreement last week that will do away with ‘virtually all tariffs’ on trade between the two major world economies, the European Trade Commission said in a statement. The deal is the biggest trade pact ever signed by the 27-nation bloc. The EU’s Trade Commissioner, Catherine Ashton,…
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Major Economies Find ‘Substantial Agreement’ on Climate Financing, but Hurdles Remain
High-level officials from 16 industrialised nations plus the European Union focused on climate change at a two-day meeting of the Major Economies Forum in London earlier this week. Pressure is mounting as a major year-end climate meeting in Copenhagen draws near, but the multilateral talks on how to slow the world’s emissions of climate-warming gases…
- In Brief
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EU Ag Commissioner Proposes €280mil in New Dairy Subsidies
Following weeks of protests by dairy farmers across the EU, the European Agriculture Commissioner proposed on Monday injecting €280 million into the troubled European dairy sector. The proposed new subsidies would be drawn from the EU’s 2010 budget and distributed to member states according to their dairy production levels, EU Agriculture Commission Mariann Fischer Boel told…
- WTO in Brief
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US Group Launches Doha Round ‘Turnaround’ Campaign
A Washington-based advocacy group has launched a multi-city campaign to ‘turn around’ the WTO’s Doha Round of trade talks, which the organisation says “will hurt us economically, increase the flood of unsafe imports and undermine efforts to re-regulate the banks and stabilise our economy.” The campaign will include demonstrations in national capitals around the world and…
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Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan to Join WTO on Separate, But Coordinated, Terms
Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan will no longer seek to join the WTO as a single customs union, trade officials from the three countries said last week. But they still plan to closely coordinate their accession talks, the officials added, and the countries will wait until all of their negotiations have been completed so that the…
- Vacancies
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Vacancy: WTO Accession Advisor / Dushanbe
IDEAS Centre, an independent, non-profit organisation dedicated to helping low-income countries to integrate into the world trading system, provides trade policy and negotiating advices to government of developing countries and delivers technical assistance to strengthen their capacities. IDEAS Centre is a key partner of Tajikistan in its accession process to the World Trade Organization and in…
- Events
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Events
22-23 October, Washington DC, US. DIALOGUE ON FORESTS, GOVERNANCE, AND CLIMATE CHANGE. Jointly organised by Chatham House, the Rights and Resources Initiative and the World Resources Institute, this is the second in a series of meetings aiming to promote learning and frank discussion on the key issues facing forests and forest communities as the world…
- Resources
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Resources
KEEPING ILLEGAL FISH AND TIMBER OFF THE MARKET: A COMPARISON OF EU REGULATIONS. By Heike Baumüller, Duncan Brack and Katharina Umpfenbach (Chatham House), October 2009. In response to the global problem of illegal logging and fishing, and the failure of the international community effectively to address the problem, the European Union has moved to tighten…