Search Results for: Australia

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has demanded that a disputes panel be established at the World Trade Organisation to hear its complaint that Australian quarantine rules against meat and other food products are so tough, they break world trade laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU has demanded a disputes panel be established at the WTO to hear its complaint that Australian quarantine rules against food products are so tough, they break world trade laws. Brussels says the import of tomatoes, fresh citrus fruit, apples, peaches, nectarines, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, apricots, edible eggs and egg products, uncooked pigmeat and uncooked poultry meat is unfairly restricted.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A DISPUTE proceedings panel has now been established at the World Trade Organisation to rule on the legality of the European Union’s sugar export subsidies. Australia, Brazil and Thailand allege the handouts break world trade laws. Barbados, Canada, China, Colombia, Jamaica, Mauritius, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago and the US reserved their right to participate.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
IN a landmark decision, the High Court of Australia has ruled that a Bahamian-registered vessel owned by a Canadian company was subject to Australian labour laws and higher wages whilst in local territorial waters. Seven judges at the Canberra-based court ruled unanimously that the country’s labour court, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC), had the authority to order CSL Pacific Shipping to grant Australian pay and conditions to its Ukrainian crew.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ANTI-GLOBALISATION activists will not like it, but there are signs that September’s World Trade Organisation summit in Cancun might be able to deliver what has eluded political leaders since the WTO’s agricultural liberalisation talks began in 2000: the beginnings of a deal.…

Alan Osborn
Negotiations over a wine and spirits registry at the World Trade

Organisation are deadlocked and it now looks highly unlikely that the list

will be agreed by trade ministers in Cancun next month. This downbeat

assessment follows a meeting of WTO members earlier this month which

officials said was inconclusive “as no country showed any flexibility.”…

by Matthew Brace
Microbe mat helps cleanse Aussie water

If it’s good enough for beer it’s good enough for water. That’s always been the Aussie view and now they’re proving it by adapting cleaning techniques used in breweries to protect water from pollution.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE DOMINICAN Republic, Brazil and the Philippines are the key beneficiaries of the latest low tariff import quotas for sugar unveiled by the United States Trade Representative. Out of a total low duty quota for 2003-4 of 1,117,195 metric tonnes, the Dominican Republic commands 185,335 tonnes, Brazil 152,691 and the Philippines 142,160.…

BY RICHARD HURST
SOUTH African mining company AngloGold recently announced that it was seeking to divest from some of its Australian gold fields to continue other diversification efforts outside South Africa. AngloGold Australia ‘s general manager, Barrie Parker, said that the company’s current properties in the central Australian Tanami Desert, particularly the Coyote deposit, had been earmarked for sale in to raise money for AngloGold’s recent explorations in Ghana, Mongolia, Canada and South America.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane, Australia
BUILDINGS and lives may be safer during a fire thanks to a unique polymer plastic under development that turns into a ceramic when exposed to fire, and which industry experts predict should attract the interest of insurers.…