Why the Doha Round is failing

The Doha Round fizzer is an embarrassment. The past sixty years of GATT and WTO negotiations have seen a lot of rocky moments but talks have never died. Governments dont't want to damage the brand, so they go on resurrecting their 'determination' in press releases from the G-8 or the G-20. But they've privately calculated the…

Krugman’s take on protection

An attempt to scare people? I suppose he'd know.

ACTA is an attack on the WTO

This agreement was not justified by the claims made on its behalf; the allegations of copyright losses were chimeras if not frauds. Joining the talks has been a shameful turn in Australia's trade policy which has, up to now, been marked by inclusiveness, a respect for evidence in the analysis of policy and for transparency in…

Trade ‘imbalances’ are misleading

Why we should pull out of Afghanistan now

The echoes here of the horrifying, pointless American/Australian war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s are too loud and too precise to ignore.