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Global crisis illustrates need to reach Doha accord: Mandelson
(OSLO) - European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said Thursday that the current worldwide financial turmoil emphasised the need to conclude a global WTO trade pact that failed earlier this year.
"The message that governments, ministers and negotiators should take from this current crisis is that the global economy needs strengthening," Mandelson said during a visit to Oslo.
Faced with a "very vulnerable and fragile" world economy, "we need to restore confidence in markets and the successful conclusion of the Doha talks would certainly help achieve that," he added.
The Doha Round, orchestrated by the World Trade Organisation, was launched in the Qatari capital seven years ago but has been deadlocked because of disputes between the rich developed world and poorer developing nations on trade in farm and industrial products.
The latest round collapsed in July after India and the United States failed to agree on a safeguard mechanism that would allow nations to impose a special tariff on agricultural goods if imports surge or prices fall.
"If anyone was in any doubt about the need for success (of the Doha Round) and the contribution of a successful outcome to the global economy, they should have no doubts after what we've seen in the last week," said Mandelson, who represents the EU in the talks.
"The European Union and (non-EU member) Norway, as well as others, will be making every effort we can to revive these talks and bring them to a successful conclusion in the near future," he added.
Following the crushing collapse of July's meeting, lower-level trade talks were relaunched this month at the WTO's headquarters in Geneva.
Both Mandelson and WTO chief Pascal Lamy have said ministerial level talks would take place in a few weeks.
Text and Picture Copyright 2008 AFP. All other Copyright 2008 EUbusiness Ltd. All rights reserved. This material is intended solely for personal use. Any other reproduction, publication or redistribution of this material without the written agreement of the copyright owner is strictly forbidden and any breach of copyright will be considered actionable.
Global crisis...
One other sad fact:
Don't expect any retrubutive action any time soon.
That only happens to catch and punish the little tribal lords of Africa - by the holier then thou western politicians.
Who said there was justice in the world...
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Global crisis...
All that is dealing with the sysmtoms and ignoring the root of the problem..
Eight years ago Americans, brainwashed by a couple of preachers, voted them into the white house and did not realize that with two oil men in that high office they would be screwed royally at the pumps toward the end of their terms.
These two; "tweadle dim and tweadle dumb" were not so dim and dumb afterall but they just sounded like that.
In a few months - once out of the office - they will be nominated to the boards of the major oil companies and rewarded with millions of shares as coming on board gratitude and end up as billionaires three months after that.
In the interim, the ignorant arabs and iranians are shell shocked with their good fortune and loughing all the way to their banks.
On the other side of the equation, the wall street jews - the major fund managers - discovered that they could play with the free market principles un-incumbered and get extremely rich in the process with no effort by their elected politicians to take any action.
Almost daily swings up and down in Wall
Street on any kind of service or commodity; oil or finance has been a fair game.
When Adam Smith established the principles of free enterprise and trading he was basing his principles on little Joe Blog investing his savings of a few thousand and did not foresee that those with billions in their hedge funds etc can turn the market into a gambling casino and move and shake the free enterprise primarily to their own benefits.
Well, it happened and not likely to stop soon.
This necessitates a tougher market control by the governments if the politicians have the wisdom to see it and the courage to deal with it or the free enterprise system will implode on itself very soon.
If you think that you have seen bank failures wait a little longer to see countries and governments go bankrupt soon - if not controlled effectively.
So, the synopsis is, not the ignorant arabs or the iranians but the crafty jews of America are screwing the average Americans and the rest of the world indirectly and on daily basis and getting away with it.
America needs sensible, intelligent and un-corruptable politicians in the high office and very soon. Those with a long history of Washington DC are not going to bring that change about despite their daily rhetorics.
Only a real change in mindset in USA can establish sanity to the trading floors and the markets of the world with the right person(s) in the white house.
The rest of the world and WTO can take a bteather after that.