Word: trading
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...comment may have been the obvious palliative to throw out to the legions of labor activists - core Democratic party voters - in Seattle to protest, but it got U.S. trade negotiators in a panic. And with good reason. Within hours of the paper hitting the streets, delegations representing developing countries had dug in their heels, convinced that the world's most powerful trading nation planned to deny many of them their only competitive advantage - cheap labor. They vowed to block any progress on further trade liberalization, and claimed victory when the conference ended in failure late Friday. "Protesters weren...
...Despite the best "what-the-President-meant" spin efforts of his trade negotiating team, the specter of labor conditions being used as a reason to block imports to the U.S. from developing countries prompted their leaders to block any progress. In the end, Washington was unable to win even the relatively nebulous commitment - agreed upon by its most important rival trading bloc, the European Union - to form a WTO working group on the issue of labor rights. Thus the pitfalls of an organization whose decision-making process demands absolute consensus...
...Bill Clinton may not be altogether bad for Al Gore, and the Seattle debacle may, in fact, work to the vice president's advantage: The Clinton administration's tough talk on labor rights won support from union leaders, and the summit's failure means there's no trade-talk framework agreement for the vice president to defend against Democratic party skeptics. U.S. trade representative Charlene Barshefsky, who chaired the Seattle talks, closed the conference Friday calling for a "time out" in the talks, and for the next year at least the principals may slow things down as U.S. elections loom...
...while all of the issues raised, and left unresolved, by Seattle suggest that future trade talks are likely to be a volatile political battlefield, backing away from forcing through a deal in the short run may be something of a political investment for Washington and its G7 allies...
...early Roman and Jewish sources. The recently recovered remains of a modest house in Capernaum give strong signs of being Peter's residence, which was apparently Jesus' Galilean headquarters. Ongoing excavations in Galilee clarify the picture of the small-town world in which he learned the builder's trade and acquired his deep knowledge of the Jewish scriptures. Modern studies have confirmed the good possibility that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem covers the site of his execution and burial. And five years ago, the apparent tomb and bones of the high priest Caiaphas, who presided at Jesus...