|
The G20 group of developing nations will attempt to help revive the World Trade Organization talks for a global trade treaty at a meeting next month in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said Wednesday.
Amorim announced the G-20 meeting four days after he met with U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab in Rio. Both said the WTO talks could be saved if trade ministers hold intensive meetings in coming weeks and months. Speaking to Brazilian lawmakers, Amorim said regional and bilateral trade deals won't work as a substitute to a deal involving the 149-nation WTO. "There isn't any alternative to the WTO," he said. "If the WTO doesn't work out, the damage will be severe, not only for Brazil, but for everyone, and would serve as a signal to the world of the breakdown of the multilateral system." WTO negotiations collapsed earlier this month in Geneva over disagreements on farm subsidies in rich nations and market access in developing countries. The 21-member nations of the G-20 have about 60 percent of the world's population and are responsible for about 21 percent of the planet's agricultural exports. G20 is fighting to lower, or even eliminate, trade barriers from developed countries in order to allow free trade between nations of different levels of prosperity. Negotiations were hung up over the refusal by the United States to lower its subsidies to domestic agriculture. The European Union also contributed to a halt in the negotiation process when it offered cuts on subsidies which were far below G20's expectations. Amorim also warned that a complete failure of the Doha round of trade talks, started in the capital of Qatar five years ago, could generate trade protectionism worldwide and lead to increased trade retaliation by nations. Trade ministers from the G20 set a tentative schedule for the new meetings to be held September 9-10. Then heads of state from India and South Africa will travel to Brazil's capital, Brasília, for a September 13 summit, hosted by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on reviving a global treaty. Their talks will come just a week before another international meeting of top officials in Australia billed by that country's trade minister as the last hope of salvaging WTO global trade liberalization talks. The United States and WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy have accepted invitations to attend the September 20-22 conference in Australia of trade minister from the 18 farm exporting countries that compose the Cairns Group, Trade Minister Mark Vaile said. The G20 was formed in 2003 with Brazil as one of its leading member nations. The other members are Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, the Philippines, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, South Africa, Thailand, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The Cairns Group _ which accounts for more than a quarter of the world's agricultural exports _ comprises Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay Mercopress
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.