IAEA, Iran Reach Accord on Atomic Inspections, Amano Says By Jonathan Tirone - 2012-05-22T10:28:48Z Enlarge image IAEA Secretary-General Yukiya Amano Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Bloomberg Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency reached an agreement on nuclear inspections and will sign it in the next days in Iran, the IAEA’s Secretary-General Yukiya Amano said today in Vienna. Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency reached an agreement on nuclear inspections and will sign it in the next days in Iran, the IAEA’s Secretary-General Yukiya Amano said today in Vienna. Photographer: Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Bloomberg United Nations atomic inspectors and Iran reached an agreement that will allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to investigate alleged nuclear-weapons work in the Persian Gulf nation. “There was an important development on the structured approach ... Continue reading →

EU Planning WTO Complaint Against Argentine Import Curbs By Jennifer M. Freedman and Jonathan Stearns - Mon Apr 23 15:26:43 GMT 2012 Enlarge image EU Said to Plan WTO Complaint Over Argentina’s Import Limits The April 16 expropriation of YPF, Argentina’s largest crude producer, by Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is emboldening the EU to act over the separate question of the country’s import restrictions. Photographer Walter Moreno/Bloomberg The April 16 expropriation of YPF, Argentina’s largest crude producer, by Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is emboldening the EU to act over the separate question of the country’s import restrictions. Photographer Walter Moreno/Bloomberg The European Union intends to complain to the World Trade Organization about Argentinean import restrictions that the bloc says violate global ... Continue reading →

EU’s Emission’s Trading System Would Beat WTO Challenge By Jennifer M. Freedman - Fri Apr 13 11:58:21 GMT 2012 The European Union’s plan to impose carbon-emissions curbs on international airlines would probably stand up to any challenge at the World Trade Organization, according to a study by a University of Cambridge researcher. Countries including the U.S., China, Russia and India have criticized the EU’s emissions trading system, which requires all aircraft landing in and departing from Europe to surrender enough carbon dioxide allowances to cover their emissions. Allowances up to a fixed overall cap are given to participants for free or must be bought at auctions or on the carbon market. Extending the cap-and-trade plan, known as ETS, to the airline industry as of January ... Continue reading →

WTO Judges to Decide If EU Has Ended Illegal Airbus Aid By Jennifer M. Freedman - Fri Apr 13 09:58:08 GMT 2012 The World Trade Organization agreed to decide whether the European Union has removed subsidies to Airbus SAS (EAD) that break commerce rules, the first step to possible retaliatory sanctions against the EU. The U.S., which requested the so-called compliance panel today in Geneva, said on March 30 that illegal EU aid to the airplane maker had “cost American aerospace companies tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue.” The EU said in December it had scrapped all aid deemed trade-incompatible by the WTO. WTO judges ruled in June 2010 that loans by Spain, the U.K., France and Germany were unfair subsidies that had ... Continue reading →

WTO Sees Trade Growing 3.7% After 5% Expansion in 2011 By Jennifer M. Freedman - Thu Apr 12 10:54:58 GMT 2012 Enlarge image World Trade OrganizatioDirector-General Pascal Lamy “More than three years have passed since the trade collapse of 2008-09, but the world economy and trade remain fragile,” WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said in a statement posted on the WTO website. “More than three years have passed since the trade collapse of 2008-09, but the world economy and trade remain fragile,” WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said in a statement posted on the WTO website. Photographer: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg Global trade in goods will grow 3.7 percent this year after expanding a less-than-forecast 5 percent in 2011 as Europe’s sovereign debt crisis continues to crimp commerce, the ... Continue reading →

Khodorkovsky Wants U.S. Visa Ban Over Yukos Lawyer Death By Henry Meyer - Tue Apr 10 13:09:45 GMT 2012 Former Yukos Oil Co. owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky is pressing the U.S. to impose a visa ban and freeze the assets of some 30 officials involved in the imprisonment of a company lawyer who died after being denied medical care in prison. Vasily Aleksanyan, who had AIDS and developed cancer while in jail, was imprisoned for more than 2 1/2 years until December 2008. The European Court of Human Rights had demanded his release, saying that Russia violated several articles of the European Convention on Human Rights by denying him specialized treatment for AIDS. He died in October 2011 at the age of 39. A group of ... Continue reading →

Honduras Complains at WTO Over Australia Tobacco-Logo Ban By Jennifer M. Freedman - Wed Apr 04 15:08:57 GMT 2012 April 5 (Bloomberg) -- Complaints are rising over an Australian law that prohibits the display of tobacco companies’ logos, labels and trademarks. As of Dec. 1, cigarettes in the country will have to be sold in dark brown packets, with no symbols or images and the same font for all brands. Honduras complained at the World Trade Organization saying the ban violates global rules on intellectual property. Philip Morris International Inc., Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, British American Tobacco Plc and Japan Tobacco Inc. are also challenging the law and will present their arguments against it in Canberra beginning April 17. Bloomberg Television's Shraysi Tandon reports from ... Continue reading →

UN Rights Council Backs U.S. Demand for New Sri Lanka War Probe By Andrew Macaskill and Jennifer M. Freedman - Thu Mar 22 10:51:35 GMT 2012 The United Nations Human Rights Council voted in favor of a U.S.-sponsored resolution calling on Sri Lanka to again investigate alleged abuses during its 26-year civil war, stepping up pressure on the government in Colombo. The resolution that passed in Geneva today by 24 votes in favor to 15 against, with 8 abstentions, urges the Sri Lankan government to begin another probe into claims the nation’s army and Tamil Tiger guerrillas committed war crimes during the conflict that ended in 2009. India, Sri Lanka’s northern neighbor and biggest trade partner, backed the resolution, which had 40 additional co-sponsors, after ... Continue reading →

Going shopping? Don’t forget your wallet and credit card. Or Geiger counter. The discovery of radioactive tissue boxes at Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) stores in January raised alarms among nuclear security officials and company executives over the growing global threat of contaminated scrap metal. While the U.S. home-furnishing retailer recalled the boutique boxes from 200 stores nationwide without any reports of injury, the incident highlighted one of the topics drawing world leaders to a nuclear security meeting in Seoul on March 26-27. The bi-annual summit, convened by President Barack Obama for the first time in 2010, seeks to stem the flow of atomic material that has been lost, stolen or discarded as trash. As U.S. and European leaders tackle the proliferation of weapons-grade ... Continue reading →

(Corrects filing date of Airbus-Boeing subsidy case in paragraph 5.) Like many cases filed at the World Trade Organization, the U.S. complaint against China on rare earth minerals started with a bang. “Our competitors should be on notice: You will not get away with skirting the rules,” President Obama told reporters in the Rose Garden on March 13. The U.S., the European Union, and Japan have complained that China, which produces at least 90 percent of rare metallic elements essential for producing a wide range of high-tech goods, is unfairly curtailing exports of those elements to protect domestic industry. “Being able to manufacture advanced batteries and hybrid cars in America is too important for us to stand by and do nothing,” Obama said. If history ... Continue reading →