Free Republic

The United States has said it had approved a World Trade Organisation deal to make generic medicines more widely available to poor countries. US Trade Representative Rob Portman (news, bio, voting record), in Hong Kong for a WTO conference, announced that Washington had formally accepted the accord, which was settled last week at the WTO's Geneva base. WTO members confirmed their support for a provisional 2003 amendment to intellectual property rules that enabled poor countries to import generic drugs to treat infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS. "Our acceptance of this amendment is an important step in the...

CALERA, Mexico - The boys and girls of this central Mexico town will soon play in a $1.2 million sports center. Part of the money came from residents who emigrated to the United States and send some of their wages back home. But not all that arrives with the money is so good. Because of all the cash that pours into Calera from U.S. cities, townsfolk struggle with inflated prices for houses and cars. Local officials worry that some residents are content to merely wait for a monthly check from relatives in the United States and aren't investing enough of...

Word out of the White House is that the Bush administration is powerfully peeved by remarks delivered Wednesday by Prime Minister Paul Martin at the UN Conference on Climate Change. "There is such a thing as a global conscience," Martin told reporters at the Montreal conference, referring specifically to the American refusal to commit to even a watered-down plan to cut greenhouse gasses. The Americans, not surprisingly, took exception to Martin's scolding, and delivered one of their own to Canadian Ambassador Frank McKenna on Thursday. Jim Connaughton, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, told McKenna that Martin's comments are...

A draft congressional report has called for the investigation of Canadian Maurice Strong’s role in the United Nations Oil-for-Food program. Page 35 of the 54-page report, written by Republicans on a House International Relations subcommittee states: "Maurice Strong should be examined for his role in the OFFP."

TUNIS, Tunisia — A U.N. technology summit opened Wednesday after an 11th-hour agreement that leaves the United States with ultimate oversight of the main computers that direct the Internet's flow of information, commerce and dissent. A lingering and vocal struggle over the Internet's plumbing and its addressing system has overshadowed the summit's original intent: to address ways to expand communications technologies to poorer parts of the world. Negotiators from more than 100 countries agreed late Tuesday to leave the United States in charge, through a quasi-independent body called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN. That averted...

Despite the high expectations of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to improve the lives of Mexico’s poor, inadequate government preparation for free trade has not resulted in the promised rewards of an open market, it was argued in a lecture on campus last week. As part of the Department of Political Science’s ongoing “Our North America Speakers Series,” John Scott from Mexico City’s Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, and Jay Johnson, a political science PhD student, gave a well-received talk Thursday afternoon on NAFTA and its effects in Mexico. Essentially, argued Scott, the benefits of free trade...

The history of Canadian peacekeeping Peter McCluskey, CBC News Online | Updated October 30, 2003 The seeds of peacekeeping can be found buried on the battlefields, in the trenches and in the graveyards of Europe and Asia. The men who fought and lived through two world wars never wanted to see another. They believed that by putting an end to regional conflicts they could reduce the potential of the world ever being consumed by war again. They would create a new international body to keep peace in the world and support social and economic progress. The newly formed United Nations...

Rich countries must abandon farm subsidies and give more market access to poor states if the Doha trade talks are to succeed, the head of the World Bank said today. Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz made his appeal amid fears that the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting of ministers in Hong Kong was in jeopardy because of the absence of progress on farm subsidies. Writing in the Financial Times, Wolfowitz said the need to reduce protection on agriculture was a central element of the Doha talks. He warned that unless serious concessions were made by all sides, the Doha talks would...

Google claims don't give advertising priority to 'hate orginizations' however I just received the following e-mail from Google's marketing regarding some advertising requests: (Bold added for emphasis) Today I want to make sure that you are aware of a very exciting program available to NPOs. Google has begun a program called "Google Grants" which supports organizations with 501(c)(3) status. These grants are awarded as in-kind fr*ee advertising on this supreme search engine. Google Grants support NPOs who share their philosophy of community service with a strong mission to help the world in areas such as science and technology, education, global...

Those who are long of tooth recall Chevy Chase’s news routine on Saturday Night Live, especially his weekly riff, “Generalissimo Franco is still dead.” That was based on true stories of the removal of assorted organs from the dying General, with doctors’ assurances he was still alive. That also led to Don Henley’s classic, “Dirty Laundry,” with the lines, “Is the head dead yet? Get the widow on the set....” This is ancient news, but it’s relevant to the Democrats. Like the Generalissimo, that Party has had major organs removed, but is allegedly still alive. As a student of US...

1. How Can Europe Be United? Briand senses the need of improving the historical lot of 350 million Europeans who are the hearers of highest civilization but who find it impossible to live through a single century without a dozen wars and revolutions. For the sake of pacifying our planet, MacDonald has crossed the Atlantic. On the agenda are the United States of Europe, disarmament, freedom of trade, peace. Capitalist diplomacy everywhere is cooking up a pacifist stew. Peoples of Europe, peoples of the world get out big spoons to swallow it with. Why all this pother? After all, aren’t...

GLOBAL EARTH TRUSTEE AGENDA for the NEW MILLENNIUM By John McConnell - The Founder of Earth Day Introduction Back in 1933 Albert Schweitzer, a world renowned scholar, wrote that "the world is inexplicably mysterious and full of suffering." The human race has a long history of violence - war, hate and injustice. But in the midst of all this chaos and violence we find some people replacing conflict with cooperation, and fear with faith finding a common cause and cooperating for mutual benefit. In the human heart hope springs eternal. "Every time I hear a new-born baby cry, or touch...

<p>President Bush told a United Nations conference on global development in Monterrey, Mexico, last week that Americans have an obligation to "share our wealth" with poor nations. He proposed a 50 percent increase in foreign aid. He thinks more aid should be in the form of grants, not loans. He would also forgive much of the current Third World debt. The president said new aid would only go to nations that reform their governments, economies and human-rights practices.</p>