This report identifies options that negotiators and policy-makers could pursue in order to reach a permanent solution at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to the problems some developing countries say they face when buying food at government-set (or government-administered) prices under their public stockholding programs for food security purposes. The …
The UK is in a peculiar position, as it shares close ties with the United States but is part of the European Union. The US however, is less proactive on climate change issues, and is unwilling to join the Kyoto Protocol. What are you doing to bring your partner in …
70 years ago, a species called the yellow crazy ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) turned up at the Christmas Islands off Australia, perhaps stuck to a piece of timber. For a long time, it remained dormant. Then in the mid 1990s, its population began to explode. Yellow crazy ants began to form …
What are the various methods of managing invasive weeds? The government generally comes to know about invasive weeds 10-15 years after they are introduced. By then, they are already spread over wide areas and their extinction becomes impossible. The only thing that can make a difference is the people's awareness. …
How easy is it to predict the potential of a plant to become invasive in a new habitat? When an alien species, be it a pest or a weed gets into another habitat, there is generally a time lag before it becomes invasive. Its introduction, as such is sudden and …
What are the modes of successful invasiveness? There have been some studies on recruitment of pollinators by lantana. When lantana invades as an invasive species into a native ecosystemit proliferates and increases its density and biomass. Consequently, there is a chance that it usurps the native pollinators from the native …
function alien2() { var popurl="image/20040229/30-illus.jpg" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=475,height=450,scrollbars=yes") } "A successful invasion is a rare event,' says Suresh Babu, a researcher at the School of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi. An accepted thumbrule is that only one in 10 introduced species become naturalised, and only one in 10 among the latter actually …
Last year, a cricketing row broke out between New Zealand and India, when a member of the Indian team was fined for carrying soiled shoes. For India, it was cricketing pride at stake. But New Zealand customs authorities were merely following quarantine regulations. The shoes could have carried a possible …
ten years since the blueprint for sustainable development of Small Island Developing States (sids) was envisaged in the form of the Barbados Programme of Action (bpoa), many plans have yet to be implemented due to lack of capacity and aid. The overall assistance for small islands has fallen from us …
the eu is dangling the carrot of the World Trade Organisation's (wto) membership to persuade Russia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. "There are signs of a political link between finalising the wto negotiations and Russia's ratification of the pact,' said G
Addressing a meeting of Russian and European Union (eu) business leaders early this month, President Vladimir Putin said that "we often unfortunately face excessively tough requirements, which are blocking Russia's entrance into the wto [World Trade Organization]'. Russia is the largest economy outside the wto and has been trying to …
Three months since the Cancun debacle, the collapsed world trade talks still hang in the balance. World Trade Organization (wto) members met on December 15-16 to follow-up on the failed negotiations but little substance emanated from behind closed doors except an agreement on procedural issues of restarting negotiations through the …
Cancun: a paper tiger jurgen maier The strategy of the European Union (eu) did seem to be transformed in the conference centres of Cancun. A coherent eu policy is non-existent. Europe is deeply divided between the American satellites (the uk, Spain and Italy) and the Gaullist camp (France, Germany and …
Even as Japan submitted to the World Trade Organization (wto) a proposal to impose tariffs of about 30 per cent on us steel in retaliation for duties on steel imports the us introduced (it has now taken this proposal back) the Geneva-based trade body ruled on November 25, 2003 that …
Land use in China is in for irretrievable change. At the Third Plenum of the 16th Party Congress, held October 11-14, 2003, the world's biggest communist country promised to protect private property and allow farmers to amass large land holdings. According to state-run television, these decisions were part of a …
Subsidies are recognised worldwide as a serious threat to sustainable fisheries management. They distort international fish trade and penalise developing country fishers whose governments cannot afford to provide them subsidies. The debate on the size and impacts of subsidies intensified after the Food and Agricultural Organization reported in 1992 that …
more than a month after the debacle in Cancun, Mexico, where global trade talks collapsed, the stalemate persists. Two crucial World Trade Organization (wto) meetings in Geneva have not yielded any noteworthy results. And while the deliberations have resumed informally, little progress can expected anytime soon. The heads of delegation …
The earth is hotter than it has been in the past 2000 years and the largest ice shelf in the Artic has broken into two after having existed for 3000 years. But all that Russia does is procrastinate over endorsing the Kyoto Protocol
THE tone and tenor of the failed Fifth World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Cancun found an echo in the annual meetings of the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Dubai from September 20 to 22. The developing countries reiterated their demand that the industrialised world …
