13-Feb-2008
Times of India
India finds itself increasingly on the defensive in agricultural trade for permitting field trials across the country in a host of genetically modified food crops — rice, brinjal, okra, potato, tomato and groundnuts — and thereby exposing conventional crops to the risk of transgenic contamination. A case in point is a rather dodgy no-contamination certificate that the regulator, Genetic Engineering Approval Committee, was forced to give two months ago in response to a restriction imposed by Russia on import of rice, groundnuts and sesame seeds from India.
13-Feb-2008
Prensa Latina
Panama said Tuesday that negotiations for a free trade agreement with Guatemala is 90 percent advanced. Panama plans to negotiate a similar accord with the EU en bloc.
13-Feb-2008
AllAfrica.com
East Africa’s trade ministers have proposed the formation of a larger trading bloc to eliminate friction among states over deals signed with partners outside the continent. The proposal made at a meeting of the Trade ministers in Arusha last week calls for the formation of a grand Free Trade Area (FTA) consisting of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) and the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc).
12-Feb-2008
The specter in JPEPA
One does not have to be a constitutionalist, a legalist, an economist, an environmentalist, and, yes, even a pundit to see that many provisions in the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement are so frightfully flawed and to realize that it could very well become an environmental and economic nightmare for this country and its people.
