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...issue has long been a preoccupation of major pharmaceutical companies, which lose as much as $75 billion in business every year to counterfeit-drug makers, according to WHO estimates. In 2002, the industry set up a Washington-based agency called the Pharmaceutical Security Industry, run by Thomas Kubic, a former FBI deputy assistant director, to try to tackle the problem. And four years later, the WHO launched an international task force dedicated to the issue. But so far, such efforts have merely highlighted the growing trade. The Pharmaceutical Security Industry tracked more than 1,800 incidents of drug-counterfeiting around...
...fact, Hong Kong, a former British colony that has long been a major Asian trading and financial hub, has for several years aspired to become Asia's premier wine hub. Hong Kong collectors already own 17% of the world's stock of fine wines. But most of that stash - the largest in the world on a per capita basis - has been stored abroad because the city charged an onerous duty on imported wines that at one point reached as high as 80%. Then, two years ago, the market really began to flourish when the government scrapped all wine and spirits...
...There's a major commercial prize at stake. Hong Kong would like to become a wine center for Asia. With half the world's population, Asia accounts for only 7% of total wine consumption, so the market has plenty of room to grow. With zero tariffs and world-class logistics, Hong Kong hopes to become the main entrepot for Asia's wine trade and headquarters for the region's wine experts and merchants...
...system of government, is not in a strong position to become sommelier to its big brother. Authorities in Beijing subject wine imports, including those from Hong Kong, to a 48% tax, and allow Chinese customs officials to seize three bottles from every shipment for "testing" - a major barrier to importing high-priced wines where bottles can be worth thousands of dollars. A Hong Kong industry group is trying to convince Bejing to allow wine imported to Hong Kong to pass into China duty free and without going through Chinese customs...
...operational, and U.S. officials have agreed with that assessment). That, a senior Administration official told reporters this week, was when the White House decided that knowledge of the Qum facility would be a useful card to put on the table when Iran finally agreed to talk to the six major powers (the U.S., China, Russia, U.K., France and Germany). If the Iranians failed to come to the talks, Obama would reveal the secret facility in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September. (Read "Iran's Nuclear Program: Why We Know So Little...