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Colombia

Making a bad situation worse: An analysis of the text of the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
26-Mar-2009 CCIC
While trade can support development and the realization of human rights, the authors find that neither the political conditions in Colombia, nor the terms of this FTA meet the criteria that would allow that to happen.
Andean countries, EU to continue FTA dialogue
21-Mar-2009 Xinhua
Peruvian, Colombian and Ecuadorian officials will hold meetings with the European Union next week for a Free Trade Agreement. The discussion on intellectual property is seen as one of the most sensitive in the negotiations, because the Europeans have demanded an extension of the terms for the copyrights and data protection.
US lawmaker details obstacles to free trade deals
12-Mar-2009 Reuters
Panama, Colombia and South Korea need to resolve a number of outstanding concerns before Congress will approve free trade pacts with each of those countries, a US lawmaker said on Wednesday.
EU takes "realist" tone with Colombia
2-Mar-2009 Washington Post
While some in the EU have voiced concern about Colombia’s human rights failures, Europe’s top politicians do not seem interested in linking this problem to the FTA.
Obama to push Panama accord, work on Colombia, Korea
2-Mar-2009 Bloomberg
President Barack Obama plans to ask Congress to approve a long-delayed free-trade agreement with Panama and work to resolve remaining issues with the South Korea and Colombia accords so they can be ratified.
Canada-Colombia free trade agreement condemned
26-Feb-2009 NUPGE
Colombia’s national labour federations and major unions have condemned the free trade agreement (FTA) signed by the governments of Canada and Colombia last year.
IADB chief urges Obama act on Colombia deal
24-Feb-2009 Reuters
President Barack Obama should signal his support for open trade at the Summit of the Americas meeting in April by laying out a plan for Congress to approve a free trade pact with Colombia, the head of the Inter-American Development Bank said on Monday.
EU, Andean Nations struggle forward in trade talks
20-Feb-2009 ICTSD
Intellectual property, a potential regional customs union, human rights, and bananas triggered heated debate last week in Bogota during the first round of negotiations toward a free trade agreement between the European Union and Andean nations Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
“Forget about the Colombian FTA!”
19-Feb-2009 Semana
Interview with Steven Pearlstein, business columnist from the Washington Post and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for having predicted the economic crisis
Strong EU trade provisions on IP seen as threat to poor nations’ medicines access
19-Feb-2009 IP Watch
Efforts by the European Union to insert strong provisions on pharmaceutical patents in free trade agreements it is negotiating with India, Colombia, Peru and ASEAN could imperil access to medicines in developing countries, global public health activists have alleged.
Colombia-European Union FTA on track
18-Feb-2009 Semana
The FTA will not be negotiated taking the three Latin American countries as a block. The new format designed for the negotiations is an unique multi party agreement in which each country’s particular interests will be taken into consideration regarding specific products, but all framed within the same agreement.
Union killings loom over U.S.-Colombia trade pact
14-Feb-2009
Guillermo Rivera Fuquene’s widow says her husband was kidnapped, tortured and killed just because he fought for the rights of Colombian workers and opposed President Alvaro Uribe’s free-market policies.
Colombians blast flower trade
12-Feb-2009
Flowers from Colombia are grown in blood, according to a small delegation from that country asking Canadians to think twice about the origin of flowers they buy for Valentine’s Day.
Colombia-Canada trade pact needs more thought: Activists
10-Feb-2009
The signed free trade deal between Canada and Colombia could devastate indigenous communities in the South American country if implemented in its current form, says an official with a national Colombian indigenous group in Ottawa Tuesday to lobby government and opposition MPs to delay implementation of the economic pact.
The end of free trade?
5-Feb-2009 Socialist Worker
The US will find it harder and harder to maintain neoliberalism abroad and some sort of financial state capitalism at home. As unemployment grows, it will also become more difficult to use access to the US market as leverage to incorporate client states abroad into the fold of US imperialism. We are at a major turning point. Like most of neoliberal ideology, free trade has lost its allure. However, what will replace it isn’t entirely clear. There are many possibilities, and they all depend on the level of class struggle. In the US, the most crucial question is whether workers get pulled into a nationalist, protectionist "Buy American" campaign—or whether they take an internationalist approach in concert with workers in other countries
No such thing as free trade
5-Feb-2009 Vue Weekly
When Canadian Minister of International Trade Stockwell Day signed the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Peru on November 21, it was a happy day for Canada’s oil and gas sector, but the deal was celebrated instead as a landmark for human rights and democracy in Colombia.
Green light for Colombia to discuss FTA with the EU
2-Feb-2009 Semana
In the second week of February Colombia will start to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union. Semana International interviews Fernando Cardesa García, Ambassador of the Delegation of The European Commission to Colombia and Ecuador.
EU: Agrees to trade agreement with Colombia, Peru
21-Jan-2009 Stratfor
EU ministers from member states’ Fishing and Agriculture Ministries agreed to allow modifications that will enable the European Union to negotiate association agreements and business deals on a bilateral level with Colombia and Peru instead of having to deal with the entire Community of Andean Nations (CAN) as a bloc
Europe: ’Double standards on trade’
23-Dec-2008 IPS
Double standards are being applied in the way that the European Union awards trade preferences to poor countries, an African exporters grouping has alleged.
Colombia: Social conflict replaces warfare
10-Dec-2008 Americas Program
Broad sectors in Colombian society are beginning to understand that accusations by human rights organizations against the Uribe government were not exaggerated.