Free Republic

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

"India-Sweden trade hits $1.7bn NEW DELHI: Trade between Sweden and India has doubled between ’02 and ’06 to about $1.7bn per year. With Swedish exports to India increasing by 42.5% in ’06 alone, the country is optimistic that the future of bilateral trade relations between the two countries is bright. Launching the second edition of the Sweden-India Business Guide ’06-’07, Harald Falth of the Swedish embassy pointed out that trade had multiplied in both directions. “India is the third-largest export market for Sweden in Asia. And Indian export to Sweden is steadily increasing. The two-way future of Swedish-Indian trade sure...

Presbyterians in America aren't known for preaching fire and brimstone. "No frenzy, no fanaticism, no skirmishing," Mark Twain wrote of his mild-mannered denomination in 1866. "You never see any of us Presbyterians getting in a sweat about religion and trying to massacre the neighbors."

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexican President Vicente Fox has asked Congress to eliminate a 20 percent tax on corn syrup sweetened soft drinks to abide with a World Trade Organization ruling. In a presidential decree issued Tuesday, Fox urged legislators to act quickly to avoid U.S. trade reprisals against Mexico. The Mexican Congress Permanent Commission, which handles matters while the legislature as a whole is on break, turned the request over to the lower house for analysis. In March, a WTO panel rejected an appeal by Mexico and supported U.S. claims that Mexico was violating international law in imposing a...

U.S. repeals Byrd Amendment Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, 2/14/2006 7:13:00 AM Import duties collected after September 2007 will go to government WASHINGTON — The U.S. government has repealed the Byrd Amendment, the controversial trade law that is allowing some U.S. furniture manufacturers to collect millions of dollars in import duties. Congress repealed the amendment as part of a budget bill, which President Bush signed into law on Feb. 8. The move will eliminate the payment of antidumping duties beyond Oct. 1, 2007, to U.S. manufacturers that petitioned for a federal investigation into the alleged dumping of Chinese-made wood bedroom...

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...

The Bush years have seen an economic boom take place among the world's developing nations, according to my analysis of the CIA world fact book, and www.indexmundi.com, an internet site which keeps historical record of past CIA world fact books. This article is merely describing a positive trend that appears to be benefiting billions of the world’s poor. I make no inference as to why it is happening, apart from the title tease; I do find it ironic, however, that it is occurring at this time: Among those who most vocally profess concern for the world’s poor, their most hated...

...In April, the IFC designated nine universities to provide initial programs, with the goal of "[making] the Center a... 'Public Square' on hallowed ground." "The character of a university," the IFC intoned, "allows for this form of 'sacred space'... in which sensitive, controversial and provocative subjects can be candidly explored, yet in a manner that does not generate political distraction."... [NYU] President... [extolled] today's campuses "as 'modern sanctuaries [committed to] free, unbridled and ideologically unconstrained discourse.'" Hello. Campuses today are indeed "sanctuaries"— but almost exclusively for scholars of liberal-left-radical persuasion. Their "unconstrained discourse" is overwhelming that of rank ideologues— neo-Marxists,...

...The Twin Towers attack killed more than 2,800 innocents, including 343 New York City firefighters. But let us not forget that the day also brought the largest rescue operation of its kind, as the lives of 25,000 others were saved.... Proponents of the performing arts center at Ground Zero have sought to stifle the discussion of this issue by saying this is a matter of free speech and the placement of their proposed theaters at the World Trade Center site is fitting. We believe that public cultural art, dance, music and theater institutions are needed, but not on this sacred,...

ALMATY, Kazakhstan - When Sergei Pashevich looks at the map of Central Asia, he sees a chessboard on which a replay of the Great Game is unfolding, with oil, trade and the war on terrorism as the big global issues. The Great Game, a term invented to define the imperial rivalries and ambitions of 19th-century Russia and Britain, now applies, in Pashevich's view, to a new, post-9/11 struggle for influence that is pitting Russia and China against the United States. "Right now the whole Central Asian region is a field for geopolitical games," he says. [SNIP - see article for...

EU defeat in banana export battle "Banana wars" have been rumbling on since the 1990s A new European Union tariff on imported bananas has been declared illegal by the World Trade Organization (WTO).The WTO backed a claim brought by Latin American countries, who argued the EU tariff would have a "devastating effect" on their economies and exports. Under a EU system set for launch in January 2006, imports faced a tariff of 230 euros ($280.30; £158.50) a tonne. The new tariff had aimed to safeguard exports from countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group. Most were former...

Less than three months after the World Trade Center collapsed, a Washington lawyer, Kenneth R. Feinberg, was handed a highly unusual job. In an effort to prop up the airline industry, Congress had passed the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act. Along with loan guarantees, the new law called for a special fund to compensate victims of the 9/11 attacks. The amount of the compensation, and who qualified for it, would be decided by an all-powerful official known in legal language as a special master. Mr. Feinberg, a mediator best known for resolving the Agent Orange class-action suit, got...

Seemingly terminal reconstruction gridlock may not be the only scandal plaguing the site of the destroyed Twin Towers. Now serious concerns are being raised about the nature of the principal Ground Zero memorial. The International Freedom Center is to be a 250,000-square-foot museum with a self-professed mission to "harness the power of history and use it as a springboard for contemporary dialogue and debate" on the meaning of freedom.... Because odds are that, at the end of the day, this center won't focus on freedom's triumphs, so much as on its failures — particularly those in which America can be...

...The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany struck their deal with Iran on Wednesday in Geneva. Yesterday, also in Geneva, the World Trade Organization agreed to open membership talks with Iran. Unlike the 22 other times this issue has come up, the U.S. did not object. Agreeing to let Iran negotiate to join the WTO was part of the U.S. promise to the European three last March in return for their agreement that Iran can't be allowed to enrich uranium. At the very least, this action ought to put to rest the caricatures of the Bush Administration as "cowboys"...

The end of the quotas has triggered what trade experts believe could be one of the largest migrations of production in history, jeopardizing Cambodia's 220,000 apparel jobs. Hundreds of thousands more are threatened in Bangladesh, El Salvador, Lesotho and other countries that prospered under the quota system. The massive manufacturing shift will be a windfall for billions of people, bringing huge savings to consumers and accelerating the transfer of jobs to engines of low-cost production in China and India. But it could cripple economies across Latin America, Africa and Asia. Relative newcomers to the international commerce club risk losing their...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretaryNovember 20, 2004 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. This weekend I am on my first trip outside the United States since the election, traveling to South America for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. I am meeting with many allies and friends to strengthen our ties across the Pacific and discuss practical ways we can enhance prosperity, advance liberty, and improve our shared security. America and the nations of Latin America and Asia share many vital interests. All Pacific nations benefit from free and fair trade, the foundation of this...

Last week I was joined at lunch by an Indian gentleman who had recently retired from a senior position at a semiconductor company of national repute in the United States. Much of his work in the last decade was in establishing production facilities for his company in China; not surprisingly, he displayed very intimate knowledge of the government and the industry in China, and how the two work in tandem to make China prosperous. Of Indian descent that he is, he kept bringing comparisons with the subcontinent into his conversation, and seemed to a have reached a conclusion, like most...

The European Commission in Tokyo on Thursday called into question the financial aid that the Japanese government has given to Boeing for the development of its 7E7 Dreamliner airplane, alleging the US company is attempting to circumvent a 1992 EU-US agreement on subsidies. The move came a day after the US and the European Union launched the biggest dispute in the history of the World Trade Organisation, accusing each other of offering massive subsidies to Boeing and Airbus, their respective flagship aircraft makers. “The decisions by the US and the EU will also have a collateral effect on Japan’s contribution...

...Even after nearly two decades in the Senate, John Kerry is uncertain whether he is for or against TPA, even though it must be renewed early next year. Instead, Mr. Kerry wants a long study that would conveniently extend months beyond when this hard-fought authority is due to expire.... Mr. Kerry's vacillation on trade extends further. His campaign has signaled the abandonment of America's successful drive for Free Trade Agreements. The Bush administration has completed FTAs... that also include enforceable commitments on labor and environmental laws, combined with aid programs that help developing countries improve conditions cooperatively -- contradicting Mr....

The value of the national commission now investigating the terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001, is that it forces the nation to look beyond its feelings of grief and awe, and grimly assess the things that could have been done better. This is a service to the future, but it is never a dismissal of the heroism of the past. We needed these respectful but hardheaded men and women to ask tough questions about the Bush administration's vigilance before 9/11, and this week we needed to hear their stern questions about New York City's emergency response to the attack on the...

GENEVA — Brazil's emphatic win over the United States in a key trade ruling over cotton will send shock waves through world trade talks and embolden those demanding all farm subsidies be slashed, analysts said on Tuesday. The Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO), in a confidential decision, told Washington to halt much of the lavish aid it gives the country's some 25,000 cotton farmers, ruling it illegal, sources close to the ruling said. The decision goes to the heart of the debate at troubled WTO negotiations to reform world farm trade, where angry poorer countries argue the massive subsidy schemes...

Free-Trade Bloc Framework OK'd in Miami Thu Nov 20, 8:47 PM ET By TRACI CARL, AP Business WriterMIAMI - Trade ministers from across the Americas — unable to agree on thorny issues like agricultural subsidies but pressured to avoid another failure in international talks — approved a watered-down framework on Thursday for the world's largest free-trade bloc. Ministers from 34 countries in the Americas, excluding Cuba, were scheduled to finish negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas on Friday. But after days of debate, they said Thursday they had achieved all they could in Miami. The agreement, due...

For Immediate ReleaseOffice of the Press SecretarySeptember 20, 2003 President's Radio Address      Audio THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Every day, millions of Americans put in long hours building businesses of their own. Their hard work strengthens the economy, creates most of the new jobs in America, and supplies the innovation that drives our future prosperity. As we mark National Small Business Week, our nation honors the enterprise and hard work of small business owners and employees. Small businesses are a key to upward mobility, particularly for women and minorities. There are over 3 million minority-owned small businesses across America, and that...

<p>The chaotic scene was a precursor to an even larger rally and march beginning at 10 a.m. today at the state Capitol. Organizers have taken out a march permit for 8,000 people. Their target: an international agriculture conference, hosted by the U.S. government, that starts today at the Sacramento Convention Center.</p>

Dovish Wife Pecks at Sen. Baucus, Praises Saddam Poor Sen. Max Baucus. To trick Montanans into re-electing him he did everything possible to fudge his identity as a Democrat and all but licked President Bush's cowboy boots. Now his appeasement activist of a wife is causing him problems. The senator's wife, Wanda, a painter and anthropologist, has gone so far as to desecrate the American flag by replacing the stars with doves on an appeasement poster prominently displayed at their home in snooty Georgetown. "We are way out of line" and have no right to fight Saddam Hussein, Mrs. B...