• Author: DENNIS SHANAHAN
• Source: The Australian

KEVIN Rudd’s public faith in multilateralism and its ability to deliver a global agreement on climate change remains unabated after the failure of the World Trade Organisation to agree on the Doha trade round.
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Filed by Anita Li under Global Financial Crises, Multilateral Trade

• Author: Amiti Sen
• Source: The Economic Times, The Economic Times

GENEVA: Despite cracks appearing in the unity of the formidable G-20 farm alliance of developing countries at the WTO mini-ministerial, Brazil and India - the key players in the group - seem keen on burying the past. Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim said the group was intact and would continue working together, even on the critical issue of special safeguard measures (SSMs) for developing countries which lead to the break-down in talks. Indian commerce minister Kamal Nath, too, said there were no problems in the general approach of the G-20 towards the SSMs.
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Filed by Anita Li under Other, Development

• Author: Liu Junhong
• Source: China Daily

Fortune magazine of the US recently published its list of the 500 biggest companies in the world in terms of market value. The latest Fortune 500 reflected three prominent changes in the political and economic structure of our world, namely the so-called natural resources nationalism, the crackling of the US-led global financial system and the rise of emerging economies.
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Filed by Anita Li under Other, Global Financial Crises, The Environment, Climate Change, Energy and Nuclear Safety

• Author: Laura MacInnis
• Source: Reuters

The collapse of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks has raised divisions of opinion about whether the Doha round push was simply trying to tackle too much at once.

Some negotiators suggested a series of smaller accords may be salvaged from the wreckage of Doha, which was designed to pry open global markets for agricultural and manufactured goods as well as cross-border services.
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Filed by Anita Li under Multilateral Trade

• Author: Harumi Ozawa
• Source: Agence France Presse

Japan’s embattled Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is set to reshuffle his cabinet on Friday in a bid to revive sagging approval ratings by bringing in new faces, reports said.
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Filed by Anita Li under Other

• Source: eSource Canada Business News Network

Canada and the United States are at the back of the G8 pack in the race against climate change, according to the 2008 G8 Climate Scorecards released by WWF and Allianz SE.
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Filed by Anita Li under The Environment, Climate Change

• Author: Mathabo Le Roux
• Source: All Africa

Johannesburg, (Business Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) — HOPES of saving a world trade deal were dashed when World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks collapsed last night in Geneva, dealing a major blow to the global economy and raising questions over the continued viability of the WTO.

The meeting was the last chance to strike a deal on cutting tariffs and subsidies in agriculture and manufactured goods before the US presidential election in November. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Multilateral Trade, Development

• Source: EFE News Service

Geneva, Jul 30 (EFE).- The world economy will suffer due to the collapse of the Doha round of trade talks, a failure that will especially harm the poorest countries and allow the United States to move forward with a law that increase farm subsidies, Brazil’s foreign minister said here Wednesday.

“We all lose,” Celso Amorim said in an interveiw with Efe, but “the poorest always lose more because they have less ability to adapt.” (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Multilateral Trade, Development

• Author: Jim Lobe
• Source: Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, (IPS/GIN) — A major think tank is calling on the United States to reform its policies concerning emergency food aid and overseas trade and development, in response to the record rise in global grain prices.

The price hikes are threatening recent gains in poverty reduction in many developing countries, according to a bipartisan report released Tuesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Multilateral Trade, Development

• Source: States News Service

MRS. BUSH: Welcome, everyone, to the White House. Thank you all very much for coming for this signing of the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008.

I’m so glad you all are here. Americans can be proud that our country is leading the efforts against global HIV/AIDS. And I’m proud of my husband’s leadership in launching the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. (Applause.) (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development, Health and Infectious Disease

• Source: AFX Asia

Japan’s cabinet on Tuesday adopted a plan to slash carbon emissions up to 80 percent by 2050 by starting carbon trading and stepping up research on carbon-capture technologies.

“Japan must continue showing leadership on the issue of environment,” Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told the cabinet meeting. “To lead the world, Japan must take the initiative by achieving a low-carbon society.” (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

• Author: Vladimir Solovyov
• Source: Russian Press Digest - Russica Izvestia

Russia delivered its new foreign policy concept to NATO

Yesterday Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s Ambassador to NATO delivered a new foreign policy concept of his country at the Russia-NATO Council session. Presenting the keynote document, he suggested that the western bloc should give up competing with Moscow and focus on the reconfiguration of the European security system together with Russia. Moscow hasn’t defined the new world order principles yet, but it has listed the shortcomings of the current one, “NATO’s swelling, the OSCE is not doing the things it should, and the Council of Europe interferes in the spheres out of its authority.” (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under East-West Relations and Russia

• Author: Shaun Vorster
• Source: All Africa

THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us global emissions need to peak, and start to decline, in 10 to 15 years.

According to the panel, avoiding dangerous climate change requires developed countries to reduce their emissions compared with 1990 levels by 80%-95% by 2050 and by 25%-40% by 2020. In developing countries, substantial deviations below business-as-usual baselines are required. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

• Source: BBC Monitoring Africa

Laurence Caromba in his article in The Star of July 24 displays a significant failure to understand the various strands of South Africa’s foreign policy. While the article appears to have been written as a reaction to the vote in the United Nations Security Council on Zimbabwe, it also confuses other aspects of foreign policy. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Democratization and Human Rights

• Source: Xinhua News Agency

Visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and U.S. President George W. Bush met at the White House on Tuesday, agreeing to push forward with the constructive and cooperative relations between the two countries.

During the meeting, Yang hailed the great development that two countries have achieved in the past seven years in enhancing China- U.S. relations, which he said also contributed to the peace, stability and development of the Asia-Pacific region and the world. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Other, East-West Relations and Russia

• Source: Voice of America Press Releases and Documents

Russia is again rejecting calls from U.S. presidential hopeful John McCain, who says he wants Moscow expelled from the Group of Eight industrialized nations.

The likely Republican nominee has twice in recent weeks called for Russia’s expulsion from the so-called G8 grouping. He told ABC television Sunday such a move would “improve their [Russia’s] behavior” on a wide range of issues. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under East-West Relations and Russia

• Source: Voice of America Press Releases and Documents

The head of the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO) says there were no big surprises in the latest UNAIDS report. Richard Burzynski says, “I think we’ve been starting to hear some of this information. I think what’s complex when we’re looking at some of the information they’re bringingCthere are three key areas. One is there has been an increase in prevention and treatment services with some measurable results. But clearly it’s not going to be even close to sufficient to meet universal access targets that were set by the G8 and other governments for 2010. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Education and Social Policy, Health and Infectious Disease

• Author: Michael Geist
• Source: Ottawa Citizen

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the leaders of G8 countries closed their recent summit in Hokkaido, Japan, by encouraging “the acceleration of negotiations to establish a new international legal framework, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and seek to complete the negotiation by the end of this year.” The decision to fast-track the controversial ACTA has led to new momentum for the still-secret treaty as the Australian government recently disclosed that a new round of negotiations will commence this week. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Other

• Author: Keya Acharya
• Source: Inter Press Service

An acrimonious debate is raging within the international community over the “common but differentiated” principle of climate change, which sets differing emission-reduction targets on countries based on their history of emissions, with richer nations requiring higher cuts.

The probability of implementing such a principle seems somewhat slim, seeing as the United States has rejected the Kyoto Protocol climate change treaty outright and Canada, another G-8 member, has not kept its initial commitments on cutting emissions as per the Kyoto Protocol. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under The Environment, Climate Change

• Source: The Press Trust of India Limited

Marathon talks to hammer out a global trade pact collapsed tonight after the U.S, India and China failed to reach a deal over measures to protect farmers in poor countries .

In a tense split that could delay any global agreement on trade liberalisation for several years, top negotiators of a core group of seven nations including India, US, EU, China and Brazil fought to avert a collapse of tortuous talks over nine days to salvage the floundering Doha Trade round. (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Global Financial Crises, Exchange Rate Management and Monetary Policy

• Source: Russia & CIS Business and Financial Newswire

The following is a digest of Moscow newspapers published on July 29. Interfax does not accept liability for information in these stories.

POLITICS & ECONOMICS

U.S. Senator John McCain accused Russia of forcing out BP and said Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was taking his country down an autocratic path. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee repeated his call for Russia to be expelled from the Group of Eight (Moscow Times; Vedomosti). (more…)

Filed by Ozlem Yucel under Global Financial Crises, East-West Relations and Russia

• Author: Michel Morkos
• Source: Al Hayat Newspaper

Geneva talks, which have been ongoing for a week now in view of wrapping up the Doha Round seven years after its go-ahead in Qatar, are linked to other talks that were conducted within the context of the G8 (mid-July) or the FAO’s Food Summit in Rome during the first week of June. These talks have a common ground: the looming concern over the current and future ability to supply food to the Earth’s population and the need to decrease the number of the poor, currently standing at 854 million around the world, of whom 820 million live in developing countries, particularly emerging ones. The world’s poor has not decreased since 20 years, even though agricultural production increased by 2 percent annually between 1980 and 2004 and the world population increased by 1.6 percent during that same period. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Multilateral Trade, Development

• Author: Jeffrey Sachs
• Source: The Edge Malaysia

The G8 Summit in Japan earlier this month was a painful demonstration of the pitiful state of global cooperation. The world is in deepening crisis. Food prices are soaring. Oil prices are at historic highs. The leading economies are entering a recession. Climate change negotiations are going around in circles. Aid to the poorest countries is stagnant, despite years of promised increases. And yet, in this gathering storm, it was hard to find a single real accomplishment by the world’s leaders. (more…)

Filed by Amadeus Domaradzki under Development, The Environment, United Nations Reform

• Author: K. Z. Islam
• Source: The Daily Star

WHAT is the yardstick and rationale for forming an international organisation? Is it military might? Is it financial strength? Is it the level of GDP? Or is it population? There can be various combinations for forming an international organisation. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under United Nations Reform

• Source: The Hindu

NEW DELHI: R.K. Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has asked the developed nations to get serious about reducing carbon emissions before it is “too late.”

“Continued greenhouse gas emissions will lead to further [global] warming of 1.8 degree Celsius to 4 degree Celsius over the 21st century,” he said while speaking at a seminar on “Global Warming and Climate Change Challenge — Issues and Challenges for India,” organised by the Union Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Ministry here on Saturday. (more…)

Filed by Ivana Jankovic under The Environment, Climate Change