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30-Jun-2005
Oxford Press
The Bush administration and key lawmakers struck an 11th hour deal with US sugar producers to shore up congressional support for a controversial trade agreement, senators said Wednesday. A full Senate vote could come as early as Thursday on the US-Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).
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30-Jun-2005
Chosun Ilbo
A gradual reduction in tariffs on manufactured goods between China and ASEAN as their free trade pact goes into effect on July 1 spells trouble for Korean exports.
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30-Jun-2005
IPS
After tiptoeing around the issue for months, Thailand’s trade negotiators will have to finally reveal where they stand on the life-or-death question of producing cheap, generic anti-AIDS drugs.
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30-Jun-2005
Bangkok Post
The prospect of including in many FTAs, especially the Thai-US one, issues like intellectual property and agriculture, could have implications on the survival or disappearance of the Thai rice culture
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30-Jun-2005
Looking at the experience of Jordan’s pharmaceutical sector, this paper shows that the expected benefits from bilateral agreements between developed and developing countries have been largely overestimated while the costs underestimated.
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30-Jun-2005
New York Times
An ambitious American plan for a hemispherewide trade pact, which President Bush described as a "vital link for prosperity," is mired in disputes that have led to widespread skepticism about its chances of ever materializing.
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30-Jun-2005
AU
EPAs should serve as instruments for development and poverty reduction. They must also support the deepening of intra-African trade.
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29-Jun-2005
Workers’ rights and the environment are being sacrificed in the rush to sign a free trade agreement (FTA) with China, a public interest group says.
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29-Jun-2005
Argenpress
Sovereign states are the original right bearers. They have to denounce bilateral investment treaties or their most arbitrary clauses following the procedures provided, in accordance with the legal principles of democratic constitutions; to recover their legislative and jurisdictional powers, by retrieving their inherent jurisdiction which had been delegated to international foreign tribunals, allowing them to rule on the general regulatory or contractual policies of independent nations.
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29-Jun-2005
Market Watch
The US Senate Finance Committee won’t hold an important vote on the controversial Central America Free Trade Agreement before Wednesday, delaying action on the pact by at least a day.
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29-Jun-2005
Voice of San Diego
The lack of worker and environmental protections leads the list of concerns as CAFTA is modeled after the failed 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. At its 10-year anniversary, the verdict on NAFTA is in: It is an economic, social and environmental failure.
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29-Jun-2005
India Daily
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and visiting Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, on Wednesday, signed the much awaited Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement (CECA).
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28-Jun-2005
Financial Times
Eighteen months of talks over a proposed bilateral trade agreement between Japan and South Korea are on the verge of collapse because Japan’s Agriculture Ministry has blocked meaningful dialogue on trade in farm and marine products, a South Korean diplomat said yesterday.
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28-Jun-2005
People’s Daily
The Thailand-China relations have been developed in a positive and constructive way since the diplomatic ties between the two countries were established 30 years ago, and now it is time to push it to a higher plane, said Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra before his departure to China on the occasion of 30th anniversary of bilateral relations.
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28-Jun-2005
AFP
As Thailand prepares for new rounds of free trade
talks with Japan and the United States, AIDS activists are voicing
increasing concern that patients here could lose access to cheap,
life-prolonging drugs.
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28-Jun-2005
Seattle Post Intelligencer
When George W. Bush and the U.S. pharmaceutical industry team up in Washington, you know it’s bad news for U.S. consumers. Now they are taking their show on the road — to Central America.
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28-Jun-2005
ICTSD
Developments relating to protection of IP in Arab countries have, in general, received less attention from stakeholders, particularly civil society, than in other developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. In this connection, the aim of this paper is to stress the need for Arab countries to adopt a more development-oriented perspective on IP protection.
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28-Jun-2005
Asia Pulse
Vanuatu has ratified the Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreement (PICTA). The PICTA seeks to create a free trade area over a decade, initially starting with the Pacific Forum Island Countries, and providing for expansion to other trade partners in future.
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28-Jun-2005
Globes
Israel is beginning negotiations for a free trade agreement with the Mercado Comun del Sur (Mercosur) countries (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay).
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28-Jun-2005
Business Recorder
Pakistan and Bahrain on Monday agreed to initiate talks on Free Trade Agreement (FTA), boost co-operation in trade, economic and defence fields as Bahrain Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa began a three-day visit to the country.
