Medios

IPN Opinion article

December 12, 2002
This week the Environment Committee of the European Parliament met to discuss the traceability of genetically modified (GM) food and its labeling. With some luck Parliament will base its decisions on sound science. But it got no help or guidance last week when the European Union\'s Agriculture Council botched an opportunity to resolve the genetically modified food labeling dilemma. It chose to make labeling mandatory, shamefully exempting those products of large European multinationals.

IPN Opinion article

December 4, 2002
"Defensive responses to tax competition are a dead end. They do nothing to promote economic growth or reform inefficient tax systems. A more constructive response to tax competition would be to learn from foreign reforms and adopt pro-growth tax policies at home. The United States should be a leader but has fallen behind on tax reform. For example, the United States now has one of the highest corporate tax rates among major nations. The chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, Glenn Hubbard, believes that "from an income tax perspective, the United States has become one of the least attractive industrial countries in which to locate the headquarters of a multinational corporation."

IPN Opinion article

November 17, 2002
Protesters against the World Trade Organisation will have to come up with some new tricks soon. Puny uni students named \"Jonny\" wearing balaclavas and clutching Molotov bongs just won\'t cut it any more. Wrestling police, throwing marbles at horses and vandalising McDonald\'s stores is becoming ayawn. The media attention span is short and the protesters have been singing their tired old tunes for too long now. We will drop them as suddenly as we picked them up. After three years in the media glare, WTO protests are in danger of becoming passe. The time has arrived for the other side to be heard. And that is why a smiling Indian engineer named Barun Mitra was in Martin Place last week, moving among the protesters, asking them about GM crops and if they really supported Saddam Hussein.

IPN Opinion article

November 15, 2002
Guilt and goodwill have blinded many to the damage that aid can do. Trade, not aid, is the solution for the poor. At this week\'s informal WTO ministerial meeting in Sydney, trade ministers should make good on their promise at Doha to create a world trading system that benefits all participants. That means reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers on all goods, as well as reducing agricultural subsidies.

IPN Opinion article

November 14, 2002
If foreign aid is the answer, the question has to be, how do you make a corrupt clique rich? By James Shikwati

IPN 
Press release

November 10, 2002

IPN Opinion article

November 1, 2002
The main threat to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) comes from the European Union (EU) which is trying to turn the multilateral trade organisation into a regulatory authority on the lines of the EU. Delivering a lecture on globalisation, WTO and the new round here on Thursday, Dr Razeen Sally, senior lecturer in international political economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science said that the new issues which the EU tried to thrust upon World Trade Organisation during the Doha ministerial meet, including environment, were on the lines of the regulatory mechanism followed by the EU.

IPN Opinion article

October 1, 2002
Because it is increasingly easy for investment funds to cross national borders, politicians must exercise a degree of fiscal discipline to attract jobs, capital, and entrepreneurs instead of losing them to another country. This is known as "tax competition" and the United States is the world's biggest winner of this process. America's modest tax burden, combined with privacy laws for foreigners seeking to escape oppressive fiscal systems, has helped attract more that $9 trillion of foreign investments to the U.S. economy. That inflow is a key source of American prosperity because that money is put to work for the nation and produces more jobs, higher standards of living and general prosperity.

IPN Opinion article

September 24, 2002
Sir, In your editorial \"Bitter coffee\" (September 19) you suggest that Oxfam\'s pressure on companies will help poor coffee farmers. However, Oxfam\'s definition of \"fair\" trade is to impose quality standards set by the International Coffee Organisation which, by increasing costs for multinationals, will help small coffee producers but disadvantage poor farmers, consumers and companies alike.

IPN Opinion article

September 12, 2002
Developing countries comprise of three quarters of the World Trade Organization membership and will play a major role in the success in the next round of talks.' Our strength so far is in numbers,' observed Margaret Chemengich head of the Kenyan delegation in Sydney. The world trade body sets rules and promotes market access and operates on the principle of non-discrimination. The world economy is fragile and its believed that by bringing issues that concern the poor countries on board it can help make the next round of talks succeed.