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| PERU: ‘Voluntary Payment' Instead of Taxes for Mining Firms
by Milagros Salazar, Inter Press Service (IPS)
August 25th, 2006
Peruvian Prime Minister Jorge del Castillo told Congress that private mining companies operating in Peru would make a "voluntary payment" of 757.5 million dollars over the next five years, to go towards fighting poverty. However, they will not pay the tax on windfall profits that new President Alan García had promised in his campaign. |
| THAILAND: Patent or patient? How Washington uses trade deals to protect drugs
by Alan Beattie, Andrew Jack and Amy Kazmin, The Financial Times
August 22nd, 2006
As the World Health Organisation's top man in Thailand, William Aldis knew Thai officials were hosting their US counterparts in the northern city of Chiang Mai to negotiate what to many outsiders might seem an entirely worthy objective: a bilateral free-trade deal. But he saw dangers - and decided to make his views public. |
| WORLD: Legalizing Human Trafficking
by Basav Sen, Dollars & Sense
June 28th, 2006
The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), now being negotiated in the World Trade Organization (WTO), is likely to reduce migrant workers to the status of commodities. |
| EU: Europe Defends Stance on Genetically Altered Foods
by Paul Meller, The New York Times
February 8th, 2006
The European Commission defended its current practices on screening genetically altered foods in the wake of a report from the World Trade Organization that criticized its past action in restricting the entry of modified products into the European Union. |
| PHILIPPINES: No new mining permits
by Gil C. Cabacungan Jr. , Blanche S. Rivera, Philippine Daily Inquirer
February 4th, 2006
PRESIDENT Macapagal-Arroyo has offered to suspend the issuance of new mining permits to try to appease Roman Catholic bishops strongly opposed to the country's new Mining Act, a top Malacanang official said yesterday. |
| GLOBAL: World Bank Gets Cold Feet on Bird Flu Drug Patent
by Marwaan Macan-Markar, Inter Press Service
November 4th, 2005
The World Bank has decided that it is not in keeping with its mission to get involved in the emerging global debate on the Tamilfu patent held by the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and that could be broken under the 'compulsory licencing' rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). |
| INDIA: Spice Farmers in Misery
by Sunil Raman, BBC news
May 13th, 2005
Thousands of spice farmers in India are in the midst of a major crisis, threatening one of the country's best known trades. |
| EUROPE: Loses Sugar Appeal at W.T.O.
by Tom Wright, New York Times
April 29th, 2005
The World Trade Organization's highest court issued a final ruling Thursday ordering the European Union to stop illegally dumping subsidized sugar on global markets or face punishment. |
| LATIN AMERICA: AIDS Patients See Life, Death Issues in Trade Pact
by Marla Dickerson and Evelyn Iritani, LA Times
April 22nd, 2005
Under CAFTA American pharmaceutical giants would gain a five-year edge on the development of new drugs by low-cost competitors. Generic versions of name-brand drugs are the main weapon for battling the AIDS pandemic in the developing world. |
| LAOS: Massive Dam Project Could Backfire
by Emad Mekay, IPS
April 8th, 2005
A new dam funded by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and hailed as a windfall for Laos may end up doing more harm than good to one of the world's poorest nations and its vulnerable farmers, several independent development groups say. |
| LATIN AMERICA: Banana Producers Go to WTO
by Raphael Minder and Frances Williams , Financial Times
March 30th, 2005
Ecuador and four other Latin American banana producers sought World Trade Organisation arbitration on Wednesday in their dispute with the European Union, raising the prospect of another long trade battle over the EU's banana import regime. |
| EU: WTO gives U.S. the Byrd
by Agencies, Times Online U.K.
August 31st, 2004
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) backed the EU and seven other WTO members in their demand to punish a US failure to revoke an anti-dumping law -- the so-called Byrd amendment -- declared illegal under international trade rules. |
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