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Fair Trade News Digest

1. IMF and World Bank Round-up

2. Un fair trade in the Philippines

3. Re-construction of Iraq is “largest humanitarian operation of all times,” could drain funds from other programs

 IMF and World Bank Round-up

            The head of the World Bank and Germany's  main industry federation, BDI, expressed concern March 31 at the pace of world trade talks underscoring fears that trans-Atlantic differences over Iraq could blow them off course. The so-called Doha round of trade liberalization talks was supposed to wrap up negotiations on trade in agricultural products April 1 but the World Trade Organization dropped that deadline last week without fixing a new one in its place. Negotiators failed to meet their deadline for figuring out how wealthy nations can reduce their huge agriculture subsidies, the issue at the heart of a current round of negotiations at the WTO. The poorer nations were promised that this round of trade talks would especially benefit them and require the first major reductions in what amounts to $300 billion a year in subsidies paid by the world's richest nations to their farmers.

 Unfair Trade in the Philippines

            The biggest pyramid scheme fraud in the country's history collapsed in the past few weeks, the New York Times reports. An estimated two million people, predominantly poor people, were victims of the pyramids. The amount of money lost by them more than $2 billion, said officials. The Philippine Senate has held hearings on the issue, and now the scandal threatens to expose irregularities within the government itself.

 Reconstruction of Iraq is “largest humanitarian operation of all times”

            "How is it we routinely accept a level of suffering and hopelessness in Africa we would never accept in any other part of the world? We simply cannot let this stand."- James Morris, head of the World Food Program in an interview with the Boston Globe on moves by the G8 to cancel Iraq's debt and fund its reconstruction -- and whether a double standard exists in responding to crises in Africa and elsewhere. The article also quotes Mark Malloch Brown, the administrator for the UN Development Program, as saying that the scope of Iraq's problem could not help but drain some funding from other programs. For his part, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, said he was confident that wealthy countries would not ignore crises in Africa, South Asia, and other parts of the world. James Morris, Executive Director of the World Food Program (WFP) has qualified the needs of the Iraqi population as the "largest humanitarian operation of all times," with preliminary estimates of the cost at $1.3 billion. IRAQ: The Paris Club, comprised of some of the world's greatest creditors, will meet April 22 to discuss how to handle the question of reducing Iraq's huge external debts - estimated at between $60 billion and $120 billion, or as much as $5,000 per citizen. Forgiving the debt would require more generosity than would normally be given to a middle-income country because so much of the debt is the result of Saddam's excesses, notes the Guardian (U.K). Iraq has not serviced its debts for a decade but a framework needs to be in place to make the rest of reconstruction work effectively. Iraq has not borrowed anything from the World Bank since the Ba'athist revolution of 1973 and has not repaid any of its creditors since 1991 when the Iraqi central bank suspended payments.

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