Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY MARK ROWE
WHEN anti-money laundering officials draw up their lists of most notorious nations, Burma – or Myanmar by its official name – is routinely identified as one of the murkiest epicentres of money laundering. Ignore the fact that Burma has only been classified as a non-cooperative country or territory (NCCT) by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) anti-money laundering body for just three years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has corrected its anti-dumping duty on malleable cast iron tube or pipe fittings from Brazil, reducing the rate from 34.8 to 32 per cent. The move by the EU Council of Ministers follows a ruling last year by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that the European Commission had erred when calculating the original duty (erected in 2000).…

BY PHILIP FINE

AMERICAN farmers says recent European Union (EU) trade actions will cost them millions of dollars and are urging their government to bring US laws into compliance with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. The American Farm Bureau Federation says that escalating sanctions on raw agricultural products and processed foodstuffs put US producers in a double bind: higher tariffs on several commodities that only apply to US products and competition from products exported by other countries with lower tariffs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFFICE International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation, has reported outbreaks of blue tongue disease amongst sheep in Cyprus and scrapie in Brazilian flocks. The Cypriot outbreak has hit six flocks and involved 71 cases, almost entirely amongst females.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been awarded official observer status at the Office International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation.…

BY MARK ROWE
MENTION Albania and money, and the image that comes to mind is of the extraordinary pyramid schemes that gripped the country in the mid-1990s as the country stepped out into a post-Stalinist dawn. Albanians poured their assets into the schemes, with an enthusiasm that was as remarkable as it was misguided.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD’S premier anti-money laundering operation has released a detailed report detailing how corrupt lawyers are increasingly using their expertise to help criminals clean dirty money. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says that lawyers are not only advising criminals on money laundering, but arranging paperwork and even conducting illicit transactions themselves.…

Keith Nuthall
INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund (IMF) policies towards borrower countries will henceforth be influenced by their capacity to implement Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations on fighting money laundering. IMF directors have agreed these assessments “do not contravene the prohibition of the Fund to exercise law enforcement powers”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A SPECIALIST ferrous metal United States government committee has criticised the recent free trade agreement struck between the US and Australia that will remove tariffs on iron, steel and related products traded between the two countries. The federal inter-sector advisory committee on ferrous ores and metals has concluded the although the deal itself does promote US interests, there are a number of elements that fail to cover concerns “which certainly affect our sector’s economic interests and the equity and reciprocity for the US overall that we seek in US trade agreements.”…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE MOST fortified frontier in the world, Korea’s Demilitarized Zone, (DMZ) is being touted by the (South) Korea National Tourism Organisation as a future destination for wildlife eco-tourism. The DMZ, an area of land four kilometres wide and 250 kilometres long divides North and South Korea across the Korean Peninsula.…