Word: apec
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...Already that political will seems to be faltering. A legally binding pact will be impossible to achieve at the climate-change summit in Copenhagen, said U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders at the just-concluded APEC meeting in Singapore. Back in the U.S. - cumulatively still the world's biggest polluter - a bill to cut, by 2020, emissions to 20% below 2005 levels faces a bruising and uncertain journey through the Senate. Washington and Copenhagen: whatever happens in the rain forests, it is in these two distinctly nontropical cities that the fate of our remaining rain forests...
...past, government and business leaders gathering for meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum had to resort to collective fashion blunders to demonstrate unity. Representatives of this diverse group of 21 Asia-Pacific nations, who together represent roughly 40% of the world's population and 54% of the world's GDP, have bravely donned the traditional dress of the host country, from cowboy hats to ponchos to garishly colored batik shirts, to show that despite their differences, everybody could be made to look a bit ridiculous for a group photo...
...anxiety over APEC's economic future has rejuvenated an idea once dismissed as unwieldy and unrealistic: the knitting together of a free-trade zone, similar to the European Union, straddling the Asia-Pacific region. Proposed by APEC's Business Advisory Council, this zone would include most of Asia (but not India) and a sliver of Central and South America, as well as big non-Asian economies like the U.S., Russia and Canada. If all of APEC's member countries participated - a big if - its combined annual GDP would be $37 trillion, 21/2 times that of the E.U., the world...
...chatter of the formation of an Asian trading bloc could make things awkward for U.S. President Barack Obama during his scheduled appearance at APEC in Singapore. But some American businessmen support the idea - as long as the U.S. is included. Creating a common set of trade rules would simplify the bewildering spaghetti bowl of bilateral trade agreements that have been signed between various Asian countries in recent years, executives say. Others, worried about their prospects in a China-led free-trade zone, are eager to see APEC take the lead. Says Kevin Thieneman, the Southeast Asia and India country manager...
...Still, pressure for reductions in regional trade barriers is building, partly due to frustration over the failure of the World Trade Organization to complete the Doha Development Round, which is supposed to lower trade barriers globally. Leaders at the upcoming APEC summit are expected to commit to the completion of a basic framework for an Asia-Pacific zone by the end of 2010. While the details have yet to be hammered out, such an agreement would be an unprecedented step forward. One thing is for certain: this year's APEC must generate more than an amusing photo...