Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY ALAN OSBORN
EUROPEAN collective wine marketing systems are “insufficient and ill-suited to market requirements compared to those of wine-growing companies in the

new world wine producing countries:” this is one of the main conclusions of a

seminar last week (28 and 29 November) organised by COPA-COGECA, the

association of European agricultural co-operative organisations and the

CEV, Europe’s association for the wine industry and trade.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IT is rare that an international organisation report on a scandal involving crime, corruption, war and environmental degradation names and shames high profile companies, but that is what is contained within the latest United Nations (UN) Security Council report on the Congo.…

BY MARK ROWE
WARS are usually fought over coveted resources, such as oil, diamonds or fertile land. Now water, the most indispensable of mankind’s needs, is seen as the resource which may spark the armed conflicts of the 21st century.

Indeed, United Nations (UN) cultural and scientific organisation UNESCO is stepping up efforts to calm tension in some of the world’s most water-stressed areas.…

BY PHILIP FINE AND KEITH NUTHALL

THE US government has unveiled plans to push for freer trade in footwear at the World Trade Organisation’s Doha Development Round of trade negotiations. The Bush administration has announced that it would like to see an end to non-rubber footwear tariff and non-tariff barriers worldwide within 10 years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN INTERNATIONAL agreement has been signed to develop a new combination anti-malaria drug. Called pyronaridine-artesunate, it will be jointly developed by the Tropical Diseases Research Programme, the Medicines for Malaria Venture and South Korea’s Shin Poong Pharmaceuticals. It could be registered by early 2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SUCCESSFUL negotiations between the European Commission and Nepal and Cambodia have led to an extension of existing textile trade agreements between these Asian kingdoms and the European Union (EU) until December 2004. These list products – including wool – that can be imported into the EU without quota limits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has rejected a bid by Britain’s Imperial Tobacco and British American Tobacco to annul European Union Directive 2001/37/EC on the composition and designation of cigarettes on the grounds that its commercial restrictions were illegally based on freedom of trade powers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
OFFICIALS from the United States and European Union have been meeting to solve differences over the Americans’ Container Security Initiative. The EU and the US have agreed to quickly explore signing a cooperation deal on operating a mutually acceptable container security system, but problems remain, for instance on the proposed US 24 hours rule, requiring carriers to provide American customs with cargo manifest information a day before it is loaded on board a USA-bound vessel.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TOO many cooks spoil the broth. Or do they? As far as the world’s fight against money laundering is concerned, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund think that they can bring extra flavour to the struggle waged by the OECD’s Financial Action Task Force (FATF).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EU ministers have ordered that new textile trade agreements agreed last month between the European Commission and Cambodia and Nepal be provisionally implemented from January 1, pending formal ratification. All parties have agreed they should last until December 2004.…