Search Results for: World Trade Organisation⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE scheme to boost the efficiency and fairness of the Philippines’ judicial system is to receive a US$21.9 million World Bank loan. The money will help finance a Filipino Supreme Court’s judicial reform programme, improving a judiciary that has, said the bank, suffered from caseload “delays, corruption, weak administrative structures, outdated technology and deficient facilities, and underdeveloped human resources.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) will over the next three months try to pick up the pieces from its failed summit in Cancun, Mexico. The meeting was effectively scuppered by the developing world, which refused to talk about writing rules on protecting investment rights into a new WTO agreement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MAJORITY of Iraqis were delighted by the fall of Saddam Hussein, witness the banging of shoes on the heads of his fallen statues. But among the happiest were organised criminals who have exploited the lawlessness following the end of his regime.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DATA released by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has shown the wide extent of the fires that have this year ravaged the world’s forests. In Europe, Portugal has been particularly hard hit, with 417,000 hectares being burnt so far this year, compared with 123,910 in all of last year.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is providing Euro 850,000 to fund a study into whether the use of mobile phones causes deafness. The GUARD project, which involves teams from seven countries including the UK, will report in December. No scientific evidence yet exists to suggest mobile phones affect hearing but this will be the first extensive study on humans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE JAPANESE government has appealed against a World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel ruling that supported claims from the United States that it had followed WTO rules when staging a sunset review of its anti-dumping duties on corrosion-resistant carbon steel flat products from Japan.…

BY MARK ROWE
RUSSIA has called on Thailand to cut import tariffs on non-ferrous and ferrous metals to help boost trade between the two countries. Alexei Kudrin, Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance said that if tariffs were lowered, Russia would increase imports, particularly of non-ferrous metals, steel and iron, which constitute the lion’s share of Thai imports from Russia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AS the diplomatic impasse crystallised at Cancun recedes into memory, the World Trade Organisation is facing what may be the sternest test of its eight year existence: can a body of 146 members actually agree comprehensive trade deals by consensus?…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
UNITED Nations cultural agency UNESCO has welcomed a pledge by the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) not to explore or mine in official World Heritage sites. The council includes 15 of the world’s largest mining companies, such as Alcoa, Anglo American, Nippon Mining & Metals, Rio Tinto and Umicore.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TOURISM once was regarded as a key to the developing world’s ills, allowing poor countries to make money out of their natural landscape and cultural attractions, but as with most success stories, there is a downside. In some countries, tourism has boomed so suddenly and aggressively, the development it has sparked has threatened to go out of control, spoiling the delights that lured tourists in the first place and creating a host of new environmental problems for governments to deal with.…