Global Agenda articles from September 2003

Global Agenda archives from September 2003

The right fix? A WTO deal on drugs; Big Pharma takes its medicine.
September 1, 2003... India and Brazil are good at making cheap copies of life-saving drugs. Now they are allowed to export them too SINCE 1996, Brazil has cut the number of people dying of AIDS in half, by providing patented anti-retroviral drugs to 150,000...

Not on my doorstep, thanks.
September 1, 2003... While the West fears that Iran and North Korea are diverting their nuclear-power programmes to nefarious ends, it has a growing worry about its own nuclear stations: what to do with their radioactive waste SINCE the accident at the Three...

Deficits and defiance; European government finances; The unstable stability pact.
September 2, 2003... France and Germany built the euro together. Now they are demolishing the stability pact together GERMANY and France, so long the European Union's head partnership, have become partners in crime. Last Friday, Germany confessed to the...

On the sunny side of the street; The Buttonwood column; Stockmarkets: On the sunny side of the street.
September 2, 2003... A stockmarket rally, perhaps, but not a sustainable one BUTTONWOOD confesses to being a recovering bear. As a youthful trader, he was happier selling than buying, and in maturer years missed out on one of the great stockmarket rallies for...

Bomb after bomb.
September 3, 2003... As Iraqi Shias mourn a top cleric killed in a massive bomb attack in Najaf and new bombs go off, America faces fresh questions about whether it is up to the job of securing Iraq WHEN George Bush returned to Washington this weekend after a...

Sharing the burden.
September 3, 2003... As the costs of occupying Iraq mount, America has used a donors' meeting in Brussels this week to encourage other countries to send aid. America is also expected to present a new United Nations resolution in support of a multinational force in...

Road to nowhere.(Israeli and Palestinian violence)
September 4, 2003... Violence continues in the Middle East with little sign of any effort to restore the tattered "road map" peace plan. An official report criticising the Israeli government and police over Arab deaths in riots in 2000 seems unlikely to satisfy...

A media giant is born.
September 4, 2003... Vivendi has agreed to merge its American media interests, including Universal Pictures, with General Electric's NBC television network. The deal creates the sort of vertically integrated media group that GE has shied away from in the past ...

Gold-plated Grasso.
September 4, 2003... William Donaldson, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, is outraged at the near-$140m pay packet accumulated by the boss of the New York Stock Exchange, Dick Grasso, and is demanding answers about it. The result may be closer...

Help wanted.
September 4, 2003... Anerica has circulated a draft resolution to United Nations Security Council members, to try to persuade more countries to contribute troops, money and support to its undertaking in Iraq. Getting a sceptical council to pass it will not be easy...

Road to nowhere.(continued violence in the Middle East)
September 5, 2003... Violence continues in the Middle East with little sign of any effort to restore the tattered "road map" peace plan. An official report criticising the Israeli government and police over Arab deaths in riots in 2000 seems unlikely to satisfy...

Help wanted.(U.S. asks U.N. National Security Council Members for help in Iraq)
September 5, 2003... America has circulated a draft resolution to United Nations Security Council members, to try to persuade more countries to contribute troops, money and support to its undertaking in Iraq. France and Germany have already expressed scepticism ...

Streamlining the blimp; Federal tax systems; Nuts in Brazil.
September 5, 2003... Federal tax systems tend to be overly complex and full of distortions. Ironing these out is no easy task, as Brazil, Germany and others are discovering BRAZIL invented the samba, made the caipirinha famous, and transformed football into...

Gold-plated Grasso.
September 8, 2003... William Donaldson, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, is outraged at the near-$140m pay packet accumulated by the boss of the New York Stock Exchange, Dick Grasso, and is demanding answers about it. The result may be closer...

Iraq's rising price tag; America's wars; Will an extra $87 billion be enough?
September 9, 2003... President George Bush has said he plans to ask Congress for $87 billion in extra spending on Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Britain is sending more troops to the Gulf FOUR months after declaring the war in Iraq essentially over,...

The battles to come; Cancer; A long battle.
September 10, 2003... America's annual report on cancer says death rates may have stopped falling, despite medical science's continued inventiveness in devising new ways to attack the killer disease HALF of all American men and a third of women will be diagnosed...

After Abbas.(Mahmoud Abbas)
September 10, 2003... Mahmoud Abbas's resignation as Palestinian prime minister has dealt a blow to the Middle East "road map". Already, there has been a return to the cycle of attack and counter-attack. Once again, peace is depressingly far away LITTLE after...

Preparing for a Mexican marathon; The Cancun trade talks; A negotiating marathon.
September 10, 2003... The Doha round of trade talks reaches its halfway point at Cancun this week. Some World Trade Organisation members are just getting started; others already look exhausted ROBERT ZOELLICK, America's trade representative, and Pascal Lamy,...

Japan's rock bottom.
September 10, 2003... Japan has relapsed so many times that it is widely derided as incurable. But now it's on the economic wagon. Fingers crossed A BEAR on Japan for longer than he can remember, Buttonwood has touched on the country a few times and never, it...

Kirchner closes the kitty.(Nestor Kirchner)
September 10, 2003... Argentina has failed to pay back part of a giant IMF loan, endangering the lender's reputation as much as the borrower's IN DECEMBER 2001, Argentina recorded the largest sovereign-debt default in history. This week, it set another record....

Grasso's brass neck; Executive compensation; Grasso gives back $48m they didn't even know he had.(Dick Grasso)
September 10, 2003... Dick Grasso, the New York Stock Exchange's chairman, is to give up $48m in future pay following a row over his acceptance of nearly $140m in accumulated compensation--a payout which prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to demand...

After Abbas.
September 11, 2003... Mahmoud Abbas's resignation as Palestinian prime minister has dealt a blow to the Middle East "road map". Already, there has been a return to the cycle of attack and counter-attack. Once again, peace is depressingly far away LITTLE after...

Struggling to strike a balance; Homeland security; Fortress America, fortress Europe.
September 11, 2003... America has made much progress in protecting itself in the two years since the September 11th terrorist attacks. But more needs to be done, in Europe too TWO years after the September 11th terrorist attacks that levelled the World Trade...

Grasso's brass neck; Executive compensation; Grasso gives back $48m they didn't even know he had.
September 11, 2003... Dick Grasso, the New York Stock Exchange's chairman, is to give up $48m in future pay following a row over his acceptance of nearly $140m in accumulated compensation--a payout which prompted the Securities and Exchange Commission to demand...

The Mexican marathon; The Cancun trade talks; A negotiating marathon.
September 12, 2003... The Doha round of trade talks reaches its halfway point at Cancun this week. Some World Trade Organisation members are just getting started; others already look exhausted ROBERT ZOELLICK, America's trade representative, and Pascal Lamy,...

Kohler blinks before Kirchner.
September 12, 2003... A day after Argentina defaults on part of a giant IMF loan, the Fund gives it the deal it wanted IN DECEMBER 2001, Argentina recorded the largest sovereign-debt default in history. This week, it set another record. On Tuesday September...

Tragedy before a referendum.
September 12, 2003... The murder of Anna Lindh, Sweden's foreign minister (pictured), has shaken the nation but may not make Swedes embrace Europe's single currency ANNA LINDH, the Swedish foreign minister, died on Thursday September 11th after being stabbed...

The sword and the shield; The Cancun trade talks; The battles begin.
September 14, 2003... The G22, a coalition of poor countries led by the likes of India and Brazil, is talking tough at the world trade talks in Cancun. But its calls for America and the European Union to slash their agricultural subsidies with little in return are...

Keeping the krona; Sweden's euro referendum; The noes have it.
September 15, 2003... Some pundits thought that the murder of Anna Lindh, Sweden's foreign minister and a euro-enthusiast, might lead to a sympathy yes vote in the country's referendum on the single currency. It didn't IN A week marked by loss, the Swedes on...

Selling the occupation; America and Iraq; Everything's fine, really.
September 16, 2003... Opponents of the war in Iraq say its aftermath has been a disaster. The Bush administration claims it is going pretty well. Who to believe? FINISHING the job in Iraq will be time-consuming and expensive, but America has made an impressive...

Testing their metal; The Buttonwood column; What's behind the rise in commodity prices?
September 16, 2003... Commodity prices have been shooting up. Time to worry again about inflation? THE price of steel in Japan is rising. By way of example, H beams, which are the standard unit used in construction, have risen from under [yen]30,000 per tonne...

So many peace plans, so little peace; Many peace plans, little peace; A chronology of the Middle East conflict.
September 17, 2003... A chronology of the Middle East conflict 1917: In the Balfour Declaration, Britain expresses its support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", though without prejudicing its non-Jewish communities....

Arafat in their sights.
September 17, 2003... Following Mahmoud Abbas's resignation as Palestinian prime minister and a return to tit-for-tat attacks between Israelis and Palestinians, the Israeli government has signalled that it may expel Yasser Arafat from the occupied territories ...

Tequila sunset in Cancun.
September 17, 2003... The world trade summit in Cancun, Mexico, has collapsed without agreement. Its fate may have been sealed seven years ago in Singapore IN THE end, there were no bleary-eyed negotiators emerging in the early hours of the morning with a...

Nations united in discontent.
September 17, 2003... As the 58th General Assembly of the United Nations opens in New York, the 191 member countries are united in agreement that the UN is not working well and must change--but deeply divided on how AFTER observing a minute's silence in memory...

Curse of the hanging chads.
September 18, 2003... Citing the Supreme Court's controversial decision in Bush v Gore, a federal appeals-court panel has ruled that California's recall election must be delayed owing to the use of error-prone punch-card ballots in nearly half the state. Though the...

Grasso goes.
September 18, 2003... Dick Grasso has resigned as boss of the New York Stock Exchange in response to the growing furore over his giant pay package. The market structure he fought hard to retain, to the frustration of rival exchanges, is now under threat THREE...

Grasso goes.
September 19, 2003... Dick Grasso has resigned as boss of the New York Stock Exchange in response to the growing furore over his giant pay package. The market structure he fought hard to retain, to the frustration of rival exchanges, is now under threat THREE...

Growing economies, gaping deficits.
September 19, 2003... The world economy is recovering its strength, but not its balance THE International Monetary Fund (IMF) enters its annual meeting in Dubai this weekend expecting the world economy to grow by 4.1% next year. The IMF issued the same...

Europe's post-war reckoning; Europe, America and Iraq; Making up is never easy.
September 19, 2003... Gerhard Schroder, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair meet in Berlin this weekend to discuss Iraq. Will this help America's desired United Nations resolution to pass? NOT since pre-war days have European and American leaders engaged in such...

Space race; Satellite-navigation systems; Europe v America, contd.(China is to join the European Union's project to launch satellite navigation system)
September 22, 2003... China is to join the European Union's project to launch a rival to America's GPS satellite navigation system. The news will add to American defence chiefs' worries about the project THE European Union's plan to spend more than €3.3...

Reed rides to the rescue; The New York Stock Exchange; Reed to the rescue.(John Reed appointed as interim chairman and chief executive)
September 22, 2003... The New York Stock Exchange has appointed John Reed, former boss of Citigroup, as its interim chairman and chief executive. The move comes after Dick Grasso was abruptly forced out thanks to the growing furore over his giant pay package ...

Diplomatic constraints, economic freedom.(the United States appeals for help in the administration of Iraq)
September 22, 2003... As President George Bush prepares to address the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, he will be hoping to push through a new UN resolution that would encourage other countries to contribute troops and money to Iraq. Liberalisation of...

Still in charge; now what? Japanese politics; Koizumi's still in charge; now what?
September 23, 2003... Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, has defeated a challenge from within his ruling party and reshuffled his cabinet as he prepares for a general election. If only he knew what to do with his clout JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI has just...

Wrangling over exchange rates; Exchange rates; You can't keep a good yen down.(Japan's monetary policy)
September 24, 2003... The G7 says that markets should set exchange rates. But one of the seven--Japan--thinks they need a little help IN A joint statement on Saturday September 20th, the G7, a group of rich nations meeting in Dubai, emphasised that markets...

Where are the customers' yachts? The Buttonwood column; The New York Stock Exchange.(Column)
September 24, 2003... There has been much gnashing of teeth over the plump pay packet that was Dick Grasso's undoing. How small-minded "WE THE Subscribers, Brokers for the Purchase and Sale of Public Stock, do hereby solemnly promise and pledge ourselves to each...

About morals or money? Internet chatrooms; Microsoft shuts the door.(Microsoft Corp. shuts internet chatroom service)
September 24, 2003... Microsoft has announced that it is shutting its internet chatroom service in all but a handful of countries. The software giant says it is acting because it is impossible to protect children from paedophiles, and users in general from...

A tough sell.(Iraq war)
September 25, 2003... President George Bush told the United Nations this week that other countries should help America in Iraq. But the rifts created by the war linger on, despite signs of conciliation with Germany IF THE opening day of the United Nations...

Total reversal.(federal appeals court's rules for elections)
September 25, 2003... Overturning a previous ruling, a federal appeals court has allowed California to proceed with its election to recall Governor Gray Davis on October 7th. With two weeks to go, candidates are hurling increasingly vicious insults ARNOLD...

OPEC's oil shock; OPEC's production cut; Oil shock.
September 25, 2003... OPEC has surprised the markets with an output cut of 900,000 barrels per day, to take effect at the beginning of November. Observers had expected the oil producers' cartel to hold its quotas steady because production in Iraq has been hit by...

OPEC's oil shock; OPEC's production cut; Oil shock.(Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries conference)
September 26, 2003... OPEC has surprised the markets with an output cut of 900,000 barrels per day, to take effect at the beginning of November. Observers had expected the oil producers' cartel to hold its quotas steady because production in Iraq has been hit by...

Home-front jitters; George Bush and Iraq; Coping with a big-budget war, mostly alone.
September 26, 2003... Few nations appear poised to answer President George Bush's call to help out in Iraq. This will fan worries at home about the cost of the occupation, even as America sets a timetable for an Iraqi constitution IT HAS been a week of dismal...

Too soft, too open, too democratic?(World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meeting)
September 26, 2003... Poor countries want a greater say in the running of world economic institutions. Some think they have said quite enough HAS the International Monetary Fund gone soft? Is the World Trade Organisation too open? Is the World Bank soon to be...

Total reversal.(California elections)
September 29, 2003... Overturning a previous ruling, a federal appeals court has allowed California to proceed with its election to recall Governor Gray Davis on October 7th. With two weeks to go, candidates are hurling increasingly vicious insults ARNOLD...

So many peace plans, so little peace; Many peace plans, little peace; A chronology of the Middle East conflict.(Chronology)
September 30, 2003... A chronology of the Middle East conflict 1917: In the Balfour Declaration, Britain expresses its support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people", though without prejudicing its non-Jewish communities....