22-Aug-2004
POLICY REVERSAL: Green light for GMOs
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday bestowed the government’s tacit blessing on the planting and trading of genetically modified (GM) crops by revoking an earlier ban on their commercial use, in defiance of wide opposition from farmers, environmentalists and consumer networks.
13-Aug-2004
Statement from USTR Spokesman Richard Mills Regarding Australian implementing legislation and amendments related to the FTA
We understand that the FTA implementing legislation and amendments pose important issues in Australia, just as they did in the United States.
13-Aug-2004
Senate passes FTA deal amid US warning
The Coalition and Labor combined to pass the legislation after two weeks of debate in Senate, but the deal could still come unstuck if the US decides Australia’s supporting legislation including Labor’s amendments are not consistent with the agreement.
12-Aug-2004
Selling off a slice of our country
The funny thing about the free trade agreement with the United States is that Australians and Americans see it as being about completely different things. Australia’s businesspeople see it as about eliminating the barriers to exports and imports between the two countries, which they regard as a good thing.
11-Aug-2004
Australian Linux bodies blast US free-trade deal
Australia’s national open source industry body, OSIA (Open Source Industry Australia), and Linux Australia have spoken out about their concerns over the proposed Australian-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA), warning that the legal framework of the intellectual property clauses will put the entire Australian software development industry at risk.
11-Aug-2004
FTA set to increase medicine prices
Kerryn Williams spoke to David Henry, clinical pharmacology professor at Newcastle University and former Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee member, about how the proposed US-Australia Free Trade Agreement will undermine the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, and increase the price of medicine.
6-Aug-2004
Letter urging IP be excluded from US-SACU trade negotiations
Re: Excluding Intellectual Property from negotiations over
a U.S.- Southern African Customs Union (SACU) Free Trade Agreement
2-Aug-2004
Free trade beyond the WTO
Welcome to the brave new world of “Free” Trade. This is a world that extends beyond the World Trade Organisation. This may be difficult to comprehend, but the fact of the matter is that global capital, led by the US government, seeks more and more to tread where even the WTO did not.
30-Jul-2004
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/pag...
The government lied when it said it would exclude medicines from the list of products included under the prospective freetrade agreement between Thailand and the United States, a seminar was told yesterday.
20-Jul-2004
The disease of the day: Acute treatyitis
The efforts to establish global and regional ‘free trade’ agreements have met with considerable resistance. People around the world suffering the effects of so-called free trade have steadily built a movement to reject the dominant economic model.
28-Jun-2004
Reports highlight costs of free trade deal
Politicians from Australia’s opposition party could try to derail the Australian-US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) after a Senate select committee claimed the deal could push up drugs prices and give copyright owners in Australia even more protection than they enjoy in the US.
25-May-2004
FTA undermines principle of affordable drugs for all
The Australian Senate should delay implementing legislation for the Free Trade Agreement with the US. Countries such as Brazil and Thailand, with large generic pharmaceutical industries, are looking to Australia for leadership in countering this US bilateral push for global uniformly of high pharmaceutical prices through aggressive intellectual property (IP) protection.
