Trade in Southern Africa

from IPS News

This explains some opposition that is being voiced to a recent free trade agreement between countries in Southern Africa. - Kale

by Stanley Kwenda

JOHANNESBURG - The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that Southern African Development Community (SADC) governments agreed to will boost large South African companies’ reach in the region at the expense of small-scale producers and shops.

This is according to civil society organisations belonging to the Southern African People's Solidarity Network (SAPSN).

SAPSN contends that the signing of the FTA in the current regional environment will not lead to fair trade. The network adopted a resolution to this effect at its summit which ran parallel to the SADC summit of heads of state last weekend (Aug 16-17). SAPSN represents several non-governmental organisations from across the region.

‘‘We must recognize that such a SADC free trade area will serve the expansionist aims and interests of South African companies, not the equitable and more balanced trade development that enables cross-border trade, especially by small women traders,’’ read a draft of the resolution.

A delegate from Zimbabwe asked, ‘‘where is the fair trade when cross-border female traders are forced to spend hours waiting at the border?’’

Jubilee South Africa’s message was more strident, urging civil society groupings to rally populations in their home countries against the SADC FTA. Jubilee is a non-governmental organisation calling for the cancellation of poor countries’ debt.

The organisation's chairperson, Mallet Pumelele Giyose, said the FTAs will only benefit corporations from South Africa and, in some cases, their parent companies based in the North.

The SADC FTA ‘‘is a deal for South African businesses. There is nothing in it for SADC. All it will do is to choke the life out of small businesses in the region,’’ Giyose told IPS.

He cited examples of how South African big business is spreading its influence across the continent, muscling small businesses out of trade in their home countries.

Giyose lamented the case of Zambia where shopping malls have been taken over by South Africa-based corporations, leading to loss of livelihoods for local producers whose products can't compete with imported products. He added that FTAs are bankrolled by corporate interests that put profit before people.

Thomas Deve, United Nations' Millennium Campaign policy analyst for Africa based in Nairobi, Kenya, gave a slightly different interpretation: ‘‘The SADC FTA is a welcome development but in the region's current state, it is just an elite deal which does not take small business and ordinary people into account. We will not stop campaigning against the FTA, whether it is signed or not.’’

The Millennium Campaign promotes the participation of people in the achievement of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

A delegate from Zambia at the SAPSN meeting deplored SADC for ‘‘killing’’ markets for small farmers in Zambia. He called on SADC to represent the people's interests and not to parrot the ‘‘gentlemen's club'' of the North which has nothing to do with concern over average people’s lives.

‘‘Cabbages and vegetables are now cheaper in the supermarkets as all farmers are forced to sell their products in the supermarkets,’’ said the delegate.

SAPSN contends that the FTA will not benefit SADC states until the region is fully integrated. This integration process is being undermined by the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with the European Union (EU) which have been entered into on a bilateral basis, fragmenting the region.

‘‘SADC must reunite as a region and, together, firmly resist the EU's re-colonisation through the EPAs, instead of manoeuvring separately to get EU trade and aid support which is splitting SADC,’’ SAPSN resolved at its meeting.

These views echoed to some extent SADC Executive Secretary General Augusto Tomaz Salamao's remarks that the region will not fully achieve its aspirations if it is not united.

SAPSN also argued that the SADC FTA will further serve to create an open integrated market for EU importers, investors and service corporations.

Meanwhile, the cash strapped Zimbabwean government has suspended exports of basic commodities in a desperate bid to try and replenish empty supermarket shelves. The suspension of exports will last for the next two months. The goods covered under the ban include sugar, cooking oil, salt, soap, candles, rice and sanitary pads.

Basic foods such as sugar, bread, the national staple food maize meal, and cooking oil are often in short supply in Zimbabwe, which was once the regional breadbasket.

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Oxfam's Fairtrade brand accused of being 'misleading'

from the Melbourne Herald

A consumer watchdog group in Australia has cautioned on the OXFAM fair trade certification. - Kale

Free market think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, had complained to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission saying Oxfam had been misleading consumers about the brands helping farmers in developing nations.

Numerous studies showed that fair trade was not helping lift people out of poverty, as claimed by Oxfam, the institute said.

The commission, in a letter to the institute, said it recognised some material existed in the marketplace where Oxfam repeated fair trade statements that contained absolute claims.

Oxfam had been told such claims left it at risk of contravening the Trade Practices Act, the commission said.

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U.S. offers farm subsidy cut, is asked for more

from the Washington Post


A concession is being proposed by the US to try to save the global trade talks. - Kale
By Doug Palmer and William Schomberg

GENEVA - The United States sought to kickstart efforts to rescue a global trade deal on Tuesday by offering to cut a ceiling on its contested farm subsidies, but leading developing countries said it was not enough.

U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab announced Washington was ready to cap its trade-distorting farm subsidies at $15 billion a year, on condition countries like Brazil and India also make concessions to save the World Trade Organisation talks.

"This is a major move, taken in good faith with the expectation that others will reciprocate and step forward with improved offers in market access," Schwab told reporters.

The long-awaited U.S. move came on the second day of a week-long push by ministers for a breakthrough on farming and manufacturing -- core trade issues that have dogged the WTO's nearly seven-year-old Doha round of world trade talks.

Developing countries have long complained that huge U.S. subsidies squeeze their farmers out of the market, reducing food supplies and contributing to the recent spike in global prices.

But high prices have lowered U.S. spending on farm programs that encourage production -- which distort trade -- to about $7 billion last year, well below the $48.2 billion allowed under existing WTO rules.

Schwab said Tuesday's offer would require the U.S. Congress to rewrite new farm legislation. President George W. Bush vetoed a 2008 law that boosts subsidies but was overridden by Congress.

Tom Harkin, head of the Senate's Agriculture Committee welcomed the U.S. move, saying in a statement it showed the United States was ready to negotiate in good faith and complete the round but other countries now had to make concessions too.

Stressing the value of the new offer, Schwab said U.S. trade-distorting support was $18.9 billion in 2005 and close to $25 billion in both 1999 and 2000, before the food price surge.

But the move failed to impress some WTO players key to the complex trade-offs needed this week to prevent the Doha round being put on hold, possibly for a couple of years.

Supporters of a WTO deal say it could send a morale-boosting signal to the slowing global economy.

OFFER FAILS INDIA'S "LAUGH TEST"

"My immediate response is it doesn't pass the 'laugh test'," a senior Indian official told Reuters.

Brazil said it wanted deeper cuts. "This is only the second day of the talks here, so we imagine there is room for maneuver to reduce them further," a Brazilian diplomat said.

Brazil and India are key to the negotiations because the United States and the European Union want big developing economies to open up their markets in industrial goods as well as farm products in return for their agriculture reforms.

The EU said the U.S. offer was reasonable but could go deeper depending on how this week's trade talks progress.

After around 30 ministers met to discuss the U.S. proposal and other areas of the talks, European trade chief Peter Mandelson said the emphasis was shifting to industrial goods where "there is a lot of disagreement, a lot of heat but where we have to find an outcome in order to get a deal."

Costa Rican Trade Minister Marco Vinicio Ruiz said ministers would split into small groups on Wednesday to try to find a breakthrough. Senior trade officials said the talks were likely to overshoot their original end date of Saturday.

Proposals by a WTO mediator proposed capping U.S. spending on farm subsidies at between $13 billion and $16.4 billion.

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EPAs must now address poverty, urges minister

from the Citizen, Tanzania

The GDP of Africa increased by 5 percent last year, while the continents world trade declines. A politician from Tanzania speaks out on the importance on trade aggrements with it's neighbors. - Kale

By Polycarp Machira

The government has said negotiations between the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) zone and the European Union should unequivocally address poverty reduction and wealth creation as key to envisaged economic partnership agreements (EPAs).

Finance and Economic Affairs minister Mustapha Mkulo (pictured) made this affirmation while opening a conference on accelerating regional integration in Eastern and Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean Region (ESA-IO) in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

He said deliberations on integration should also recognize peculiarities and differences among African countries as well as Caribbean and Pacific states, noting that they are by no means a homogenous group.

''Optimal integration outcomes can be realized if the process of integration is properly thought through and owned by countries which are integrating,'' he said.

African regional integration and deepening of the African-Caribbean and Pacific integration process must be underscored by sound mutually beneficial trade cooperation arrangements among the countries, he further stated.

Since 1975 the ACP countries, under the Lome Convention series, have in theory enjoyed the European Union market access, duty free and quota free.

In practice this privilege of market access to the EU has delivered little in economic results, he pointed out.

The minister, standing in for President Kikwete at the function, said over the years, the market share of products from the ACP countries to the EU has been declining.

ACP has lost market share to non-ACP countries in the process, he stated.

Studies have revealed that the cost of production in Sub-Saharan Africa is relatively higher compared to Asia or Latin America, thus ACP countries do not produce goods meeting standards of the EU market, the minister noted.

Mr Mkulo said a key issue that should always be considered is drawing up rules for desirable integration and economic partnership agreements.

These should be trade rules that will result in improving the quality of life in the world, in particular the reduction of widespread poverty, he emphasised.

European trade commissioner Luis Michel told the gathering that the EU council of ministers was convinced that the main objective of negotiation with ACP regions is to reach a durable economic partnership.


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EU, Latin American leaders meet on trade, climate

from Reuters

By Helen Popper

LIMA (Reuters) - Political differences loomed over a summit of European and Latin American leaders in Peru on Friday, threatening to undermine their efforts to fight poverty and global warming.

Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales differed with his regional counterparts over free trade in the run-up to the meeting, while Venezuela's Hugo Chavez ratcheted up tensions in a conflict with neighboring Colombia.

Free trade proponents like Peru are losing patience with skeptics like Bolivia's Morales, who accused Peru and Colombia this week of trying to exclude his nation from talks between the European Union and Andean countries.

"We can advance at different speeds, but let's advance," Peruvian President Alan Garcia said on Thursday, saying his country should be allowed to move faster with the EU.

Morales, a former coca grower, fears free trade deals could hurt peasant farmers in his impoverished country. "We want trade, but fair trade," he told reporters in Lima.

The EU is also holding negotiations with Mercosur, led by Brazil and Argentina, and Central American countries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, one of the first leaders to arrive for the summit, said after meeting Garcia that the EU was "open, and willing to make the path easier" on trade.

Merkel made no mention of a spat with Chavez, who this week called her a political descendant of Adolf Hitler for implying he had damaged relations between Europe and Latin America.

Chavez frequently insults conservative leaders, especially U.S. President George W. Bush. At a summit in Chile last year, Spain's king told him to "shut up."

Chavez is also embroiled in a dispute with Colombia that raised the specter of war in the Andean region in March. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accuses him of supporting the leftist FARC guerrillas, and soon before leaving for Lima, Chavez said he was reviewing diplomatic ties with Bogota.

Such feuds could dominate the fifth such gathering of leaders from Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

They may also struggle to find common ground on how to fight cocaine trafficking, as well as the use of food crops to make renewable biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Brazil is an advocate of the so-called greener fuels, but many poor countries blame them for pushing up food price.

However, the poor nations are increasingly worried about climate change and say rich states must cut carbon emissions.

Peru created an environment ministry this week to help it cope with the impact of rising global temperatures, which are melting its Andean glaciers. Peruvian delegates to the summit will push for more concrete measures to combat climate change.

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EU Ponders Next Move On Trade Deals

from All Africa

The Monitor (Kampala)

By Peter Nyanzi
Brussels

The European Union is contemplating the way forward following the reluctance of the majority of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to sign the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) they have been negotiating, five months after the expiry of the December 31 deadline set by the World Trade Organisation.

EU officials told a group of ACP journalists attending a workshop on EPAs in Brussels recently that there was need for a consensus "as soon as possible" with the regional blocs and individual States that had initialled interim agreements and those had completed rejected them.

Eight years ago when negotiations on EPAs began, it was with the best of intentions - to put in a place a fair trade regime that would go beyond just being compatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules; to encompass poverty alleviation, development and regional integration in the ACP countries.

But as the WTO's December 31, 2007 deadline drew close, there was angst and despair as the whole process became increasingly bogged down in a quagmire of controversy and acrimony.

Not surprisingly, only less than half of the 78 ACP countries had initialled the agreements at the close of the year. Of the six regions, only the Caribbean has concluded a full EPA.

The East African region signed an interim agreement on November 23.

Later in June or July, the Commission will present both the interim and full EPAs to the European Parliament for approval.

Following high-level consultations with the concerned parties, the EC has drawn up a number of issues for which it seeks consensus over the next 12 months with the negotiators from the various regions involved in the EPA talks.

Intense lobbying is rife in Brussels, the European capital by civil society actors and lobby groups, which want the whole process revisited.

But Mr Peter Mandelson, the trade commissioner and other officials, blamed the impasse on "misinformation" and "misconceptions" being perpetuated by some civil society groups and some Members of the European Parliament (MEP) such as Ms Glenys Kinnock, who denies the claims.

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WTO deal seen having little impact on food prices

from Reuters

By Jonathan Lynn and Missy Ryan - Analysis

GENEVA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Soaring food prices have surfaced as a big concern in the delicately poised agriculture negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

But because any WTO deal will have an impact only in the long term, the Geneva talks will not offer a solution to the immediate crisis, diplomats and officials say.

A doubling of the prices of major cereals on international markets since mid-2007 has sharply increased the risk of hunger and poverty in developing countries where many people spend the bulk of their household income on food.

Already food riots and protests have been seen across Asia and Africa, and Haiti's government has fallen. International aid agencies are struggling to feed people in their care.

The response of some nations, to slap export duties or other restrictions on food, has raised questions at the WTO, and also in the minds of economists looking at the impact of such moves.

"There's no question the price of food ... puts pressure on the agriculture negotiations," said Marietta Bernot, global trade and customs adviser to U.S. confectioner Mars.

Bernot was representing Mars, a major buyer of sugar, on a big delegation of U.S. business lobbyists to the WTO this week.

NO QUICK FIX

WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy told the lobbyists that the WTO could tackle the systematic distortions to the international market for food arising from tariffs and subsidies, but could not do anything to fix the immediate crisis, she said.

The WTO's Doha round was launched in November 2001 to boost the world economy and help developing countries export their way out of poverty. Hopes are high a deal can be done this year.

Agriculture is the key to any deal because of its importance to developing countries, who have been urging rich importers like the European Union to cut tariffs to open their markets and rich exporters like the United States to cut subsidies that squeeze poor country producers out of the market.

The surge in prices has led some countries to slash tariffs, even if they had resisted sweeping cuts in the talks. But Gawain Kripke of Oxfam America noted a difference between autonomously cutting duties under pressure, and locking in liberalization.

Arguably the rise in food prices should make it easier to persuade exporters to dispense with subsidies as farmers don't need them and importers to lower tariffs as they want to dismantle barriers to letting in food.

"It should make a deal easier to get," said Kim Elliott of the Center for Global Development, a U.S. think-tank. "It should make a deal easier, but food prices are just historically incredibly volatile. I don't think any farmer in the U.S. is counting on them staying where they are," she said.

In fact, apart from one technical issue involving the rules for developing countries to stockpile food as long as this does not distort trade, the surge in prices has had barely any impact on the substance of the talks.

"Generally it has not changed fundamentally the discussions in there yet," said New Zealand's WTO ambassador, Crawford Falconer, who chairs the agriculture negotiations.

"The bottom line... is that it hasn't crept into the negotiations in any real sense," said Mark Manis, senior trade adviser for the U.S. Agriculture Department.

GLASS HALF EMPTY

That is because different countries may have different ways of reading the implications of the food price rise.

Some may conclude the message of the current crisis is they can no longer depend on imports and must improve food security by raising barriers to protect local farmers, Falconer said.

But whatever deal eventually emerges will not bear on the crisis in the short term because the WTO does not work that way.

Proposals now on the table would see developed countries reduce trade-distorting subsidies and tariffs over five years while developing countries would have eight years.

A deal would boost confidence that the international community could tackle problems but would have no immediate commercial impact or affect events on the ground in places like Haiti or Indonesia, Falconer said.

"I can't see how you could imagine that what we are doing would create any short-term consequences within the next 12-month period," he said.

WTO Chief Economist Patrick Low agreed that a Doha deal would only have an impact in the medium-term.

"A more open trading system tends to get food to the places where it's needed more efficiently than the segmented protected agricultural markets. So that element of the negotiations is rather important," he said.

Low said restrictions on exports of food imposed by countries such as Egypt and India would push up world prices further even if they helped consumers in the domestic market.

But such measures hurt producers, and could have social and political consequences by changing income distribution.

"I think these things would have been more prominent in the negotiations had we seen this degree of utilization of export measures earlier on," he said.

WTO agreements allow countries to restrict exports of food, but proposals now on the table would tighten these rules.

Export duties, as imposed by Argentina on soybeans, are also up for negotiation, driven primarily by long-standing concerns in EU countries with oilseed processing industries that they could not access raw materials at the same price as producers.

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Buying chocolate can get messy when child labor is in the picture

from Scripps News

By JOAN OBRA, Fresno Bee

OAKHURST, Calif. -- For many folks, chocolate is a guilty pleasure. But for eighth-graders at Mountain Home Charter School, a chocolate fund-raiser inspired only guilt.

That's because about 70 percent of the world's cocoa -- taken from the cacao tree to make chocolate -- comes from West Africa, where reports of abusive child labor have circulated for years.

Alarmed by the evidence, eighth-grader Masha Bluestein hoped to change Mountain Home's fund-raiser for a class trip to Catalina Island. So she and her mother, Cordia Bluestein, pitched an idea to the other parents: Instead of selling any old chocolate, let's choose chocolate that's certified fair trade.

The certification, they explained, indicates products made without abusive child labor, such as work that prevents children from attending school, uses hazardous farming practices or includes child slavery.

"I really didn't expect people to be particularly receptive," Cordia Bluestein says. "But everyone agreed. They said, 'If it's wrong, it's wrong.' "

Now, instead of $1.50 candy bars, the students are selling $3 bars of milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate and peppermint crunch from Sweet Earth Organic Chocolates, a certified fair-trade company in San Luis Obispo.

There wasn't necessarily a problem with the previous candy, says Joan Madaus, Mountain Home's eighth-grade coordinator.

But the students wanted a guarantee that none of the candy was made with abusive child labor, and Sweet Earth was able to provide what they needed.

"I think it's wrong to have children in slavery to pay for our field trip when we can use fair trade for the same reason," Masha Bluestein says.

Eliminating abusive child labor isn't as simple as buying fair-trade products. The problem has deep economic and political roots. And the proposed solutions are just as complicated.

To understand the rise of child labor, consider the example of Ivory Coast in West Africa.

According to a 2006 report from Fafo, a Norwegian foundation that studies issues such as trafficking and child labor, Ivory Coast tripled its cocoa output between 1955 and 1970 by welcoming migrant workers and expanding the country's farms.

To cut costs, these farms used child labor -- a tool that was seen as "even more necessary as world cocoa prices plummeted in the late 1980s and early 1990s," the report said.

There were other reasons to slash costs. Ivory Coast President Felix Houphouet-Boigny supported his government with "rents extracted from the cocoa economy," states the report, titled "Child Labor and Cocoa Production in West Africa."

After Boigny died in 1993, political instability worsened. From 2002 to 2004, the country was entangled in civil war. In the cocoa-producing areas, natives and migrants bitterly fought over farmland.

By this time, news reports had alerted the world to child labor problems in Ivory Coast and Ghana.

In 2001, Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, created the Harkin-Engel Protocol, which pushes to have those countries eliminate abusive child-labor practices. When the countries didn't meet the 2005 deadline, the protocol was extended until July 1, 2008.

It's considered unlikely that abusive labor will be significantly diminished by the deadline. Tulane University, which was hired by the Department of Labor to monitor the efforts, says the countries have created pilot programs to monitor child labor, but have yet to quantify the problem.

Given these conditions, what can a socially conscious shopper do?

The answers: Buy chocolate that's free of abusive child-labor practices. And support companies that fight poverty and economic decline -- two factors responsible for abusive child labor in West Africa.

This is easier said than done, however. A look at chocolate on the shelves of Whole Foods Market, for example, shows some confusing choices.

Vintage Plantations products have been certified by the Rainforest Alliance, a nonprofit group that supports sustainable agriculture. Alter Eco's products are certified fair trade by TransFair USA. Endangered Species Chocolate calls its products "100 percent ethically traded." The labels also state that "10 percent of net profits (are) donated to help support species, habitat and humanity."

And then there are Trader Joe's Swiss milk and Swiss dark chocolates that bear the Equitable Trade logo.

According to its Web site, www.equitabletrade.org, the association incorporates "a more comprehensive, more meaningful and more transparent set of social, business, environmental and ethically responsible principles and standards into business and trade practices."

The array of choices forces consumers to study different companies and organizations, then decide which ones they trust the most.

One of the most well-known organizations is TransFair USA. Spokesman Anthony Marek explains how it works: Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International in Bonn, Germany, is the umbrella organization for more than 20 fair-trade certifiers. It audits participating farmers in developing countries to verify the absence of abusive child labor and the reinvestment of revenue in projects such as health-care programs, scholarships and microloans to businesses.

In the United States, TransFair USA audits companies to ensure they're paying at least the fair-trade price to these farmers. (Fair-trade agreements set a higher minimum price than the market.)

Marek urges shoppers to choose chocolate with the "fair-trade certified" logo, which depicts a person holding a bowl in each hand. Such products contain 100 percent fair-trade certified products, he says.

(The reporter can be reached at jobra(at)fresnobee.)

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At home: Beautiful Afghan rugs are splendid poverty fighters

from The USA Today

By Maria Puente, USA TODAY
It's an age-old question: What can any one person do to fight global poverty? You can shop. For luxury rugs.

That's the answer offered by Arzu, a non-profit, for-benefit corporation that is bringing the traditional rugs of Afghanistan to the Western market while providing stable employment, education and health care benefits to female weavers and their families.

"This is a new trend in social entrepreneurship," says Connie Duckworth, president of Arzu ("hope" in the Afghan language Dari), a retired Goldman Sachs highflier. "The biggest empowerment for women is a job and the ability to earn income. The idea was to (find) the highest-quality high-end product that can be produced for export."

The answer: Afghan wool rugs, which have been coveted for millennia. But near-constant conflict in recent years had diminished rug production and quality and threatened the loss of traditional patterns and techniques.

Arzu aims to reverse that. It employs the weavers — so far, 700 women, plus their families, in 10 villages — and pays them a salary plus bonuses for finished rugs. Proceeds of the sales of the rugs, about $1,000 for a small one and up to $18,000 for large, are invested in village schooling and health care.

"Each rug is unique, and we know who made it and their family circumstances," Duckworth says. "They get away from the idea that charity items are junk made for tourists."

Since fall 2004, nearly 700 rugs have been sold through trunk shows in high-end markets around the USA, through the website (ArzuRugs.org) and through architects and interior designers. She hopes to produce up to 1,200 rugs a year soon.

No power? Don't be left in the dark

Power outages are an irritating fact of modern life — and so is stumbling around looking for a flashlight and cursing the darkness. Now Energizer is offering a family of lighting products to reduce the darkness, the stumbling and the cursing.

The Energizer Light On Demand line includes seven products, ranging from a nightlight ($24.99) to an All-in-One Light Center with four detachable area lights in a charging base ($70).

Some of the products have a "find-me" light: It senses (through the wall plug) an outage and automatically turns on.

The lights are intended for everyday use, such as the desk lamp ($44.99), so homeowners already will be aware of where they are when the power goes, eliminating the need to fumble for a flashlight. When there's an extended outage, regular batteries can be used in the light sticks, adding hours of use. Also, the wall sconce ($44.99) and the motion light ($29.99) don't require wiring, so they can be placed anywhere without the need to hire an electrician.

The lights use LED technology, which is more efficient than incandescent light bulbs, and they last much longer.

The line is available at Target (Target.com) nationwide.

Haute couture is in the house

World-famous fashion designers know how to dress the body, but can they dress a home? From the pages of Dressing the Home: The Private Spaces of Top Fashion Designers (Abrams, $45, March 2008), it appears that at least 21 of them can.

The book, by Marie Bariller with 300 photographs by Guillaume de Laubier and a foreword by Dolce & Gabbana, tours the homes of such boldfaced names as Christian Louboutin, Betsey Johnson, Elie Saab, Diane von Furstenberg and D&G themselves, whose house in the South of France features such unexpected style pairings as Old Master paintings and zebra stripes on black lava stone.

"The idea is to show the strong links between (the designers') work and the decoration they create at home. It is very close," says Bariller, a former model. "They dare everything as they do at work."

For instance, Johnson's New York apartment is as eccentric as she and her fashions: quirky furniture, surfaces jammed with kooky collectibles, and everywhere her favorite color of sugary pink. The Parisian apartment of Louboutin (he of the celebrated red-soled spike heels) reflects his passion for Egypt, and of course, delectable shoes, which are scattered here and there on consoles.

Individual designers occasionally have opened their homes to design magazines; this is a first book of such spreads. The designers cooperated, and it shows in the lavish photography. Says Bariller, "Except the fact that they all show great taste for dressing up a home, there are as many differences — as in fashion."

Something old, something new

Antiques lovers fill their homes with old furniture, china and accessories — and now they can add custom-made antique hardwood floors.

The latest in "green" flooring shifts attention from sustainable wood toward wood reclaimed from old barns, warehouses and other antique buildings. Matt Stanton, owner of Copper Plank Custom Mill (copper plank.com ) in Scottsdale, Ariz., calls it Revival ("old wood, new life") flooring.

"We've put it in everything from modest homes to $10 million homes," Stanton says. "It's certified 100% green, it's aesthetically beautiful, structurally superior and made with authentic antique wood."

The wood is mostly oak, long-leaf yellow pine or chestnut and comes from old buildings around the world. Company "harvesters" find it and ship it to Arizona, where workers de-nail it by hand and dry it by kiln. The wood is then adhered to backer-board of nine-ply layers of Russian birch, which makes it especially stable and strong, Stanton says.

All of this costs about $16 to $25 a square foot installed, so it's aimed at the medium to high end of the market.

The floors come with an engraved plank containing the geographic origin and time period of the wood.

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CAFOD joins protest about impact of trade agreement on poor farmers

from Ekklesia

By staff writers

The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), an agency of the bishops in England and Wales, has expressed concern that the full implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will result in job losses and radical wage depreciation for poor Mexican farmers.

The NAFTA agreement is due to be finalised this month, February 2008. Critics, including CAFOD and other UK development groups, say it will pit poor Mexican workers in an unworkable economic battle against US and Canadian competitors, rather than spreading propserity evenly.

Overall, they argue, the result may well be greater inequality. The American government says the result will be a boost in finance and trade, although it has negotiated hard, using all its international muscle, to secure a deal favorable to the rich United States.

CAFOD has now backed a strong statement from the Mexican Catholic Bishops Conference's social action commission, criticising the proposed deal.

The Mexican bishops say: "There is a very real risk of greater impoverishment in rural and indigenous areas." They want to see the interests of the poor central to NAFTA.

CAFOD has worked in Mexico for more than 30 years and has campaigned to raise awareness of the plight of small farmers affected by NAFTA since 2001.

The agency says it supports the bishops' call for the Mexican government to guarantee its people have enough food to eat, to protect national production and to consider renegotiating NAFTA.

Roisin O'Hara, from CAFOD's Latin America and Caribbean team, declared last wek: "CAFOD welcomes the bishops' powerful statement condemning the free trade system and applauds their expression of solidarity with Mexico's poorest communities."

O'Hara continued: "Trade liberalisation has filled Mexico with cheap alternatives, leaving small producers unable to compete. Every hour the country imports an estimated 1.5 million dollars worth of agricultural and food products, almost all from the US. During the same hour, 30 people leave their homes in the Mexican countryside to seek work in the US."

"We have witnessed first-hand the devastating effects unfair trade policies are having on the poor and agree we have a moral responsibility to speak out and support them out of poverty," she said.

An indigenous coffee farmer, Vicente Gómez, whom CAFOD supports through a partner organisation in the south of Mexico, is quoted as saying: "Since NAFTA we get very little for what we sell. Now coffee only brings in 6 pesos a kilo but a pair of trousers is 100, shoes 150, and a hat 50."

Mexican bishops point out that: "Mexico cannot close its borders indefinitely, not only because we are not self-sufficient in everything but also because the market now exceeds national limits in both its benefits and limitations."

They declae: "[W]hen the laws of the market impose upon the rights of the people and communities, profit becomes the supreme value and serves the large interest groups, excluding the poor and generating a global economic system which is both unjust and inhumane."

The letter from the church leaders continues: "It is necessary to seek paths, in the sphere of international commerce, which change those systems which generate injustice and exclusion in those countries or sectors of society which are less developed. No system is untouchable when it generates death."

In particular, CAFOD reports, the bishops have warned that more farmers may abandon their farms and migrate to cities or to the US which "currently has a very strong and inhumane anti-immigration programme".

They say that farm workers may be tempted to cultivate illegal crops which will open the door to insecurity and violence, and that the increasing demand for fuel for industry is stimulating the production of bio-fuels derived from grain which has serious consequences for the ability of the country to feed itself.

The bishops concluded their statement by quoting the words of Pope Benedict XVI: "The just ordering of society and the state is the principle task of political bodies and not the Church. However the Church cannot remain at the sidelines in the fight for justice".

British anti-poverty groups, ranging from CAFOD and Christian Aid through to the World Development Movement and War n Want, have warned that 'free trade' can often be a smokescreen for the huge vested interests of the rich and for widespread economic injustice.

Where groups of workers and producers are hamstrung by one-sided deals there is no freedom, only unfairness, they point out. The answer is a major readjustment of the international trade, economic and financial system, they say.

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Peru GDP to Expand on Gas Plant, U.S. Trade Accord, Toledo Says

from Bloomberg

By Karla Palomo and Alex Emery

Peru's economy, which may expand as much as 8 percent in 2007 on surging mining and agricultural exports, will receive an additional boost from a $5 billion natural gas plant and a U.S.-Peru trade agreement, the Andean country's former president, Alejandro Toledo, said.

The Hunt Oil Co.-led gas project will add 2 percentage points to gross domestic product growth by 2010, Toledo said in a Nov. 30 interview in New York. The free-trade agreement, scheduled for a final vote in the U.S. Senate today, will add 1.5 percentage points, he said.

During Toledo's 2001-2006 administration, Peru reduced debt, trimmed annual inflation to a region-low 1.5 percent, tripled exports and pushed annual economic growth to 5 percent. Peru has created jobs by diversifying away from traditional commodity exports to added-value products such as asparagus, grapes and salmon, he said.

``This makes us less vulnerable to external factors such as changes in mineral prices,'' said Toledo, 61, currently a professor at Stanford. ``The economy is on auto-pilot.''

A project to build 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) of roads to link the Atlantic and Pacific coasts will spur trade by providing rural communities with access to markets, he said.

In Latin America, 210 million people live on less than $2 a day, Toledo said.

That level of poverty will require over $220 billion a year in investment to ensure 8 percent average growth and cut unemployment by 2.5 percent in 15 years, the former president said, citing a World Bank report.

``Latin America has reduced its poverty in recent years, but the figures remain high,'' he said. ``The region isn't the poorest in the world, but it is the most unequal.''

The resurgence of populist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua has slowed regional integration efforts and curtailed freedom, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Emery in Lima at aemery1@bloomberg.net ,/span>

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Oxfam Says Deal Signed Under Pressure

from All Africa

The East African (Nairobi)

By Paul Redfern

The UK aid agency Oxfam is insisting that last week's interim trade deal between the East African Community and the European Union was a result of undue arm-twisting of African ministers behind the scenes.

Although the allegations have been denied by East African trade ministers, Oxfam says the December 31 deadline imposed for a deal to be signed, forced ministers' hands.

"Developing nations have been placed under enormous pressure to sign," said Luis Morago, head of Oxfam International's European Union office. "Despite concerns raised by many including the IMF, the Commission has ignored possible alternatives and insisted on the deadline.

"They have essentially forced the East Africans to choose between guaranteeing markets for their agricultural products today and maintaining a degree of protection to promote future industrial growth - which all developed countries have done in the past.

"This agreement will oblige the East African region to remove 80 per cent of its tariffs on EU goods over 15 years, possibly more quickly, which could lead to unemployment and loss of vital government revenue that might otherwise be spent on health and education."

The European Union itself, however, issued a press release saying, both sides "welcomed the progress made in their discussions," which took place in Brussels last week.

The EU said that with the first phase of discussions now complete, a full Economic Partnership Agreement should be should be signed next year.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, who has come under pressure himself to ensure that East African states were not forced to sign up to agreements which would do long-term harm to their economies, insisted that the deal was good news for the countries of the East African community.

"It will prevent trade disruption and allow the EU to open its markets fully to East African Community exports from January 1, 2008."

The interim deal only involves trade in goods, market access, development co-operation and fisheries.

It will however ensure that vital horticultural exports, including flowers, fresh fruit produce and vegetables can continue to enjoy duty-free access to EU markets from next year.

However, it does force the EAC to gradually open up its markets over the next two decades and 80 per cent of exports from the EU are expected to enter East African markets duty free after 15 years.

This could deprive East African governments of considerable revenue.

In the shorter term moreover, EAC countries will be expected to open up their markets to other European Union products as long as they do not affect "sensitive agricultural and industrial products."

Mr Morago said that other poor African countries should not sign up to similar deals.

"It suits the European Commission to spread the impression that regions are falling into line and the rest should do so too.

"But we would urge other countries to take heed of the range of voices raised against these deals and continue to ask the Commission for more time to negotiate a pro-development deal and for feasible alternatives to be considered."

But the respected Financial Times newspaper in London said the EAC trade ministers from Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania were wise to sign up to an interim deal to ensure market access for their key agricultural sectors.

"Unless new deals are concluded by the New Year, some ACP countries will face far less generous trade agreements," the paper said.

Nevertheless, as the current interim deal involves just goods, the EU is likely to step up its pressure next year to get a more comprehensive agreement that also include services and investment.

The reason for the rush to complete trade deals by the end of the year is the December 31 deadline set by the World Trade Organisation to renegotiate the privileged trade access given to ACP countries under the Lome Convention.

These preferential market-access agreements had been challenged by other developing countries not given access, claiming they were unfair.

The World Trade Organisation agreed, setting in motion a deadline for a new deal.

But as Madeleine Bunting wrote in the Guardian newspaper, "The sting was that the new system of EPAs had to meet the WTO requirement for reciprocity; what started out as the EU doing some poor countries a favour became a trade deal in which the EU was given duty-free access to the markets of developing countries.

"For developing countries, the EPAs have become a nightmare. They are a Damoclean sword hanging over their heads in the form of the December deadline, with all the economic disruption and chaos that would entail, but they also have deep anxieties about what they are being rushed into agreeing."

Meanwhile, Britain has agreed a 10 year aid deal with Uganda worth £700 million.

UK Secretary of State for International Development Douglas Alexander said the Development Partnership Agreement "is an indication of the UK's strong partnership with Uganda, and is based upon our shared values of reducing poverty, tackling corruption and respect for human rights."

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EU Reaches Interim Free Trade Pact With 5 East African Nations

from Canadian Business

Constant Brand

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European Union negotiators concluded an interim free trade pact with five east African nations, EU officials said Tuesday.

The deal is part of the EU's efforts to reach new aid-and-trade deals with members of the 78-nation Africa-Caribbean and Pacific group before a Dec. 31 deadline set by the World Trade Organization.

The WTO ordered the EU to bring its 30-year-old preferential trade ties Europe's former colonies in line with world trade regulations after it ruled they were unfair to nations excluded from the arrangement.



The latest deal, which applies to Kenya, Unganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi, is only a partial one, EU officials said.

The agreement focuses on opening up bilateral trade links with these countries. But at this point it will apply only to goods, not to services, as was foreseen when the EU began trade talks with ACP group of nations more than five years ago.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the agreement "will prevent trade disruption and allow the EU to open its markets fully to exports" from the five nations as of Jan. 1.

A similar interim deal was reached on the weekend with four southern African nations, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique.

That deal excluded Angola, South Africa and Namibia, which have said they do not want to participate in the new Economic Partnership Agreements, or EPAs.

Negotiations are still ongoing with four other regions to conclude EPAs, including the Caribbean, the Pacific, western Africa and central Africa.

Anti-poverty groups like Oxfam have accused EU nations of trying to force the new trade pacts on the poor nations, which they argue are ill equipped to open up their fragile national markets to competition from European goods.

Mandelson said last week he still hoped to conclude negotiations with the other groups by the end of the year.

The EU trade chief has warned that nations which do not reach accords with the EU by January will automatically lose the preferential privileges that have been in place for three decades and receive only limited access to EU markets under existing world trade rules.

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African and U.S. business meet amid Chinese advances

from Reuters via Yahoo news

By Marius BoschTue

African and U.S. business leaders meet this week to seek ways to increase investment in the world's poorest continent, but experts say corporate America may have already lost critical ground to China and India.

U.S. firms, including oil giants Chevron and Exxon Mobil as well as soft drink maker Coca-Cola, will attend the U.S.-Africa Business Summit on November 14-16 in Cape Town, the Corporate Council of Africa said.

Business leaders are due to discuss trade and investment opportunities in Africa, but many analysts say U.S. companies are lagging far behind cash-flush Chinese firms that are leading a new rush into Africa.

"This is (an) economic scramble for Africa," said Jasper Okelo, an economist at the University of Nairobi.

In 2006, Africa's foreign direct investment inflows were $38.8 billion, with Nigeria and Egypt making up the biggest shares, according to data from UNCTAD, the United Nations' trade and development agency.

China, however, is seen as the emerging power in Africa. The Asian giant has invested billions, often in the form of credit and loans, in African economies in an effort to back its credentials there as an emerging economic superpower.

A deal that would see ICBC, China's biggest lender, buy a fifth of Standard Bank, South Africa's biggest banking group, for $5.6 billion in cash underscored China's determination to play a leading role in African markets.

It would be the biggest overseas acquisition by a Chinese bank and the largest foreign investment in Africa if approved by Standard Bank shareholders.

"There are concerns that China in particular has moved in very swiftly into key areas where the U.S. and other key players were hesitant to go," said Trudi Hartzenberg, director of South Africa's Trade Law Centre.

India also is seen to be making rapid inroads in Africa and may be eyeing investments in the gold mining sector to feed its domestic market, Hartzenberg added. Indian demand is one of the biggest drivers of the price of gold.

But China's overseas expansion has been criticized by human rights groups and others in the West, who argue that Beijing often turns a blind eye to abuses and corruption in its chase for assets and commodities, especially in Africa.

"HUGE SCOPE" FOR INVESTMENTS

Some experts believe the summit may lead to investment opportunities, especially in the agriculture and oil sectors.

"There is a lot of good that could happen for Africa especially if the businesses that are represented in the Corporate Council on Africa pay more attention to this region," said Michael Chege, economic advisor at Kenya's Ministry of Planning and National Development.

Leon Myburgh, sub-Saharan specialist at Citigroup, said how local economies benefited from foreign direct investment was more important for Africa than the nationality of investors. He said there was "huge scope" for foreign investments in Africa.

Many small African businesses have already benefited from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a 2000 U.S. law that allows nearly 40 African countries to export some goods free of duties and quotas into the United States.

But critics of the law argue that U.S. government subsidies to American farmers keep African growers mired in poverty, outweighing any real benefits the trade initiative offered.

U.S. investors are also facing stiff competition from those outside China and India.

Dubai-based JAFZA International upstaged a U.S. government corporation's plan to fund the development of a new special economic zone outside the Senegalese capital Dakar when it stepped in with a more complete financial offer.

The Middle Eastern group's bid prompted The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a U.S. initiative to help the world's poorest countries, to withdraw from contention.

(Additional reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Dakar and Duncan Miriri in Nairobi; Editing by Paul Simao and Giles Elgood)

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Bush presses Congress to pass Latam trade agreements

from Yahoo News via Reuters

By Doug Palmer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Failure to pass free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama would damage U.S. standing in Latin America, President George W. Bush said on Tuesday as he urged Congress to approve both pacts soon.

"Champions of false populism in the region are watching Congress. They will use any failure to approve these trade agreements as evidence that America will never treat democracies in the region as full partners," Bush said in an apparent swipe at Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a foe of the United States.

The House of Representatives is expected to approve a free trade agreement with Peru on Wednesday, setting the stage for the Senate to give final congressional approval in coming weeks.

However, the trade pact with Colombia has faced strong opposition because of Democratic party concerns about that country's history of violence against trade unionists and their belief that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe hasn't done enough to put the killers of trade unionists in jail.

The Panama pact has run into trouble after that country's National Assembly chose as its leader a lawmaker wanted in the United States on charges he murdered a U.S. soldier in 1992.

U.S. officials have stopped short of publicly demanding that lawmaker, Pedro Miguel Gonzalez, step down but have repeatedly expressed disappointment he was elected.

Bush urged both Democratic and Republican lawmakers to solidly back the Peru agreement, and then turn to votes on the Panama and Colombia agreement "as soon as possible."

"It's not acceptable to pass one trade agreement and let the others languish. It's not fair to pick out one country and not support the trade agreement with the other two," Bush said.

Although the Peru agreement appears headed for victory, House Democrats in charge of trade legislation say that took a huge amount of work. Many party members, especially those elected to the House for the first time last year, are wary of trade deals, which they believe depress wages and cost American jobs.

Bush also called on Congress to pass a free trade agreement with South Korea, which many senior Democrats oppose. They say its auto trade provisions are too heavily weighted in favor of South Korea, a major auto exporter.

The White House has defended the deal and points to a broad array of farm, manufacturing and service industry groups that hope to see it ratified before Bush leaves office in early 2009.

Bush also repeated his support for reforming and improving federal trade adjustment assistance to help workers who have lost their jobs due to imports or a factory moving overseas, despite his threat to veto a bill passed last week by the House.

The House proposal would extend the program to the service sector -- which accounts for about 80 percent of U.S. employment -- for the first time and also allow public sector employees to apply for the aid.

"If a job goes overseas, some family hurts in America and I understand that. We can help and that's why I believe in trade adjustment assistance," Bush said. "I want the program to focus on those who have lost jobs as a result of trade."

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Free trade in rice can lead to more hunger

from Tiscali

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA (Reuters) - Free trade in rice has increased hunger and poverty among subsistence farmers in at least three developing countries, an anti-poverty advocacy group said on Thursday.

The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance examined the local impacts of decisions to open national rice markets to foreign imports in Ghana, Honduras and Indonesia.

Its study supported what many advocacy groups have long suspected -- that free trade policies exacerbated hunger and poverty, rather than helping countries out of it.

"The causes we found were mainly due to liberalisation of markets and reductions of tariffs," Jean Blaylock, global trade campaign officer for the alliance, told Reuters.

The findings of the study run counter to the thinking behind the Doha round of trade talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which aims to help poorer nations export their way out of poverty by freeing up global trade.

The study also reinforces the conclusion that aid to developing countries in the form of food can devastate the livelihoods of local farmers.

Rice is the staple food for half the world’s population.

NO BENEFIT FOR CONSUMERS

Blaylock said the study showed that rice farmers, while not starving, were cutting back on their children’s education, health care and at times food, and the beneficiaries of cheap rice imports were the importing companies rather than consumers.

"In all three countries, the influx of cheap imports has not even necessarily equated to lower costs for consumers because of the high concentration of the rice business," the group said.

"Thus both producers and consumers in the national economy can lose in the drive to liberalise markets to international trade," it said in a statement.

Rice growing and processing are the main source of income for around 2 billion people, it said. International trade in rice accounts for only 6.5 percent of global consumption.

The study showed that Ghanaian rice farmers in Dalun, Northern Region, had seen demand for their product drop 75 percent since 2000 as rice from the United States, Vietnam and Thailand flooded the local market.

Rice production in Honduras collapsed in the early 1990s when the government removed tariffs and producer support under International Monetary Fund and World Bank programmes, it said.

Huge amounts of rice dumped on the Honduran market as food aid from the United States after two natural disasters, Hurricane Mitch and Tropical Storm Michelle, eliminated demand for local rice at a fair price.

"Donations ... of milled rice came from abroad, and the municipalities were full of milled rice. They started giving this rice to everybody. So the market was saturated and rice producers didn’t know what to do with their rice," the study quoted Honduran farmer Eduardo Benitez as saying.

Rice imports to Indonesia increased under liberalisation expanded after the 1997 Asia financial crisis, creating volatility in producer and consumer prices resulting in higher poverty, malnutrition and debt, it said.

The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance groups more than 100 Christian churches and organisations to cooperate on global trade and HIV/AIDS. The full study can be seen at www.e-alliance.ch/globaltrade/policiesandhunger.pdf

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Kenyan farmers ask court to block proposed EU trade agreement

from Yahoo News

NAIROBI (AFP) - Kenyan small scale farmers on Thursday asked the high court to block a proposed new trade agreement with the European Union that activists warn could strangle poor economies and industries.

The farmers said the new tariff system, the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) set to replace a current preferential arrangement, will condemn hundreds of thousands in Kenya into joblessness and deeper poverty.

Kenya is among 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries enjoying special access to the EU market, but the World Trade Organisation has ruled that the deal must end by January 1, 2008 to pave the way for free markets.

"The EPAs would unfairly obligate ... (ACP) countries to open their borders to duty and tariff-free goods and services from Europe, with the consequence of undermining the right to development," they said in court papers.

If they take effect, the EPAs "will contravene the petitioners (farmers) rights and freedoms; including the rights to life, to work, to earn a living and rights to basic services, such as provision of water, security, education, roads and infrastructure," it added.

The case was referred to the country's chief justice for direction.

Kenyan courts are empowered to block the country from signing bilateral and multilateral deals if they are deemed to affect the rights of its subjects.

If EPA fails to take effect in January, then somewhat wealthier African nations, including Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, will automatically face a specific band of tariffs.

Nonetheless, 40 of the ACP countries considered least developed will still benefit from the preferential trade agreements.

In a recent statement, the ActionAid organisation charged that Europe's "use of strong-arm trade politics will deny food rights and undermine good governance in the world's poorest countries."

The preferential trade pacts between Europe and the ACP were initially designed to ensure a steady flow of supplies from former colonies, but Europe is now pushing to get a wider access to ACP markets.

Many poor countries argue that they will no longer be able to compete if they lose their special tariffs on exports to EU countries.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has upped the pressure on ACP countries to find a common position and press on with the negotiations to ensure there is a solution.

With the year-end deadline looming ever larger, the EU sought in April to boost the negotiations with an offer to scrap all tariffs and quotas on ACP countries' exports with the exception of sugar and rice.

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US official says Chavez gains if trade pacts nixed

from Reuters Alert Net

By Walker Simon

NEW YORK, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is poised to score a public relations victory in Latin America if the U.S. Congress fails to approve free-trade pacts in the region, a top State Department official said on Monday.

Failure by Congress to ratify trade pacts with Peru, Colombia and Panama would spark a crisis in U.S. relations with Latin America, which Chavez, a U.S. adversary, would turn to his advantage, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns told reporters.

"If we turn away (from approving the pacts), it's going to embolden someone like Hugo Chavez that he can make hay out of that crisis," said Burns. "We certainly don't want to see someone like Chavez gain a public relations benefit if it doesn't get through, that's surely what he'll try to do."

Chavez blames U.S.-backed free-market policies for increasing poverty in Latin America. He has promoted his leftist Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, of which Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua are members.

Burns, who spoke to reporters after a speech to Wall Street investors, was the latest Bush administration official to step up rhetorical pressure on Congress to approve the pacts.

The deal with Colombia is the most controversial. Democrats threaten to block it on concerns over anti-union violence and killings by illegal paramilitaries.

The AFL-CIO labor federation has fiercely opposed the trade agreement with Colombia, which it has called the most dangerous country in the world for unions. It has accused President Alvaro Uribe's government of failing to aggressively prosecute hundreds of cases of murdered labor unionists.

Burns said the Colombian government had made strides in reducing violence and added that Washington had encouraged Colombia to speed up bringing to trial cases of human rights abuses by the military and the demobilizing of paramilitary forces.

Colombia is one of the top five recipients of U.S. aid, having drawn about $5 billion in aid since 2000, he said.

"Colombia has already been the closest country to the United States in the hemisphere in terms of assistance in terms of counterterrorism and counternarcotics," he said.

"What's the message if we turn away from free trade, that the country that is closest to the United States can't get a free-trade agreement with the country?" he asked.

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Brazil President Says Rich Countries Keep Trade Benefits To Selves

from Nasdaq

PRETORIA (AP)--Brazil's president accused rich countries of keeping world trade benefits to themselves, and called for greater reform in the U.N. and international treaties.

The Doha round of World Trade Organization talks are looming large over a South Africa-India-Brazil summit Wednesday that followed U.S. accusations developing countries were putting the talks in peril by refusing to open up their manufacturing markets.

"It is useless for us to be invited for desert and not the powerful countries' banquet," Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said as the summit opened. "This Doha international negotiations cannot be simply and purely about the agenda of the small number of developed countries."

The three countries, all regional powerhouses, came together in 2003 to strengthen ties between developing countries and to form a powerful bloc in world trade negotiations.

Efforts to liberalize manufacturing trade have hit a rough patch less than a month after the U.S. breathed new life into the trade talks by agreeing to limit trade-distorting farm subsidies to a range between $13 billion and $16.4 billion.

The round aims to add billions of dollars to the world economy and lift millions of people out of poverty through free trade. But it has repeatedly stalled since its inception in Qatar's capital Doha in 2001, largely because of wrangling between rich and poor nations over eliminating farm subsidies, and more recently, barriers to manufacturing trade.

Lula, who is on a tour of a number of African nations, said he believed a " fair and balanced resolution was not only desirable, but possible."

However, he warned: "This commitment must above all benefit the poorest. After, all this is a development round."

Lula called developing countries to maintain their unity and deepen efforts to help weaker countries as well as pushing for greater reform in the United Nations and the expansion of the U.N. Security Council.

His bloc with South Africa and India "is a tool to shorten the physical and political distances not only between our countries but all humankind," he said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also emphasized unity among the three countries to ensure the voice of developing nations was heard.

"All developing countries have difficult job balancing the need for more rapid growth and problems of social inequality," he said.

Singh also pushed for greater economic ties and the establishment of a free trade area between the three nations.

President Thabo Mbeki was the least committal on what he was hoping from the meeting, where leaders are expected to sign a number of agreements in various sectors such as education, energy and technology.

"We must expedite process and produce deliverables that must make an impact o the lives of people of all our countries," he said.

He said the trade talks "must be address issue of global transformation."

Cracks are beginning to appear in the united front of India, Brazil and South Africa as they come under pressure from the U.S. and the European Union.

Some developing countries are starting to breaking ranks with Brazil, India and South Africa, making their own proposals that support a reduction in manufacturing tariffs.

Such cuts would affect South Africa and its vulnerable textile and automotive industries, more than India and Brazil because of the way their economies are structured, said Philip Alves of the South African Institute for International Affairs.

"South Africa is making a logical sensible argument," Alves said. "But the big question is if India starts softening and Brazil does the same, what kind of pressure will South Africa come under in the next couple of weeks?"

Part of the reason the Doha round has sparked such fierce and prolonged debates is that the final treaty must be agreed by consensus and will be legally binding on all countries.

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West Africa to miss EU trade partnership deadline

from Reuters Alert Net

By Peter Murphy

ABIDJAN, Oct 5 (Reuters) - West Africa will miss a Dec. 31 deadline to sign a new trade partnership with the European Union and hopes to keep its preferential commercial privileges for up to two years while it negotiates, a West African official said.

Ministers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) were meeting on Friday in Ivory Coast to agree a common approach ahead of talks later this month with the EU over signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

These EPAs are set to replace trade arrangements giving African, Caribbean and Pacific states preferential access to the EU market. These preferences have to be scrapped to conform with World Trade Organisation (WTO) principles.

Anti-poverty campaigners say this shift to the EPA will expose fragile industry in poor African nations to crushing competition from more modern, efficient EU-based firms.

But Brussels, which is pushing the Dec. 31 deadline, says it will boost their economies and attract investment towards them.

"West Africa isn't ready to sign such an agreement by 31 December," Ablasse Ouedraogo, special adviser for trade negotiations to the ECOWAS President, told Reuters late on Thursday before the start of the West African meeting.

While EU chiefs were pushing for an interim agreement, ECOWAS ministers wanted to pursue a legal derogation that would postpone the introduction of the EPA to conform with WTO rules.

"We will then have the time to continue the (EPA) negotiations before the WTO can take action (against us)," he said, adding it "should take less than two years" for the West African bloc to prepare to sign the deal.

COMPROMISE

"It is the most logical and realistic way," he said, speaking in Ivory Coast's economic capital Abidjan.

EU officials have refused to countenance a postponement and have urged African officials to knuckle-down to negotiations.

"It is a WTO imposed deadline. We are governed by international rules and we intend to stick to them. Our waiver expires at the end of this year and we need a successor regime by the end of this year," Peter Power, spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, told Reuters in Brussels.

Ouedraogo said he was confident the two trading blocs would reach an agreement that would avoid any disruption to trade with the EU, West Africa's No. 1 trading partner.

"There won't be any worst case scenario. As much as Africa needs the EU, the EU needs Africa. We will find a compromise to enable exchanges to continue that will reinforce the partnership and cooperation between West Africa and the EU," he said.

Pacific countries have made more progress and this week agreed with the EU to seek a pre-EPA interim deal that would include a timetable for cutting tariffs on goods, rules of origin and safeguard mechanisms to slow sudden surges of imports. (Additional reporting by Bill Schomberg in Brussels)

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