While light is finally appearing at the end of the COVID-19 crisis tunnel, the Australian Government is working closer than ever before with states and territory governments, education providers and community organisations, to deliver support measures for our international student community.

Austrade will provide weekly regional updates on the progression and impact of COVID-19 around the world, to support the international education sector as the situation continues to evolve. These reports are compiled using the latest on-the-ground information and advice.

Australian exporters will soon start reaping the benefits of the Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA), with Australia receiving formal notification that Indonesia has completed its domestic ratification processes.

The EU will insist on progress on fisheries and level-playing fields, in talks with Britain on their future relationship, parallel to the trade deal, Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney said Monday after talks with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier. Negotiations have stalled as the UK pushes for sectorial, streamlined agreements, while the EU wants a comprehensive deal. June is the deadline for any extension to the December 2020 exit date.

Eversheds Sutherland is pleased to announce that 12 IP lawyers from our global practice have been recognized in the 2020 World Trademark Review’s “World’s Leading Trademark Professionals” list. Now in its tenth year, the WTR ...

In every crisis, there will be those who seek to get the most out of it. To that end, there has recently been a raft of trade mark applications worldwide seeking to register trade marks related to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), including ...

After more than 10 years of European legal protection for employees in the event of a relevant transfer, many aspects of the Transfer of Undertakings Directive 2001 (Council Directive 2001/23/EC) and its predecessor have by now been litigated over a...

By Marcus Noland HONOLULU (August 23, 2019)—For three generations, the United States championed a rules-based multilateral trading system. That stance was overturned by the election of an avowed protectionist, Donald Trump, as president. It would be understandable for Asians to wonder if this shift amounts to a permanent change in U.S. trade policy, and if so, how to proceed. Trump’s presidential campaign was notable in that it emphasized two issues—immigration and trade—that had seldom been in the forefront of U.S. presidential campaigns. But public opinion polls revealed that these issues were of growing importance to a sizeable number of voters whose preferences mirrored Trump’s protectionist positions.

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The annual report published by BIS on trade union membership has just been published and contains new statistics for 2010. As in previous years, it tracks an ongoing decline in trade union membership levels and, similarly, a fall in the number of em...

The buzzword for the post-Brexit landscape both in Europe and further afield is ‘uncertainty’. No-one really knows the long term effect that Brexit will have on local and global economies. However, as the dust settles following the ...

The various market associations in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja on Friday met with the FCT Minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, and pledged their support for the efforts of the administration in containing the spread of COVID-19 in the Territory. They made the pledge when a delegation from the Committee of Chairmen and Secretaries […]

COVID-19 lockdown: Abuja traders meet FCT Minister, make demands

Farmers in Afghanistan are growing poppies in government-controlled areas, insisting that there are no real economic alternatives to cultivating the flowers for the opium trade. It's estimated that Afghanistan's poppy fields are the source for much of the world's illegal heroin supply.

European Commission aims to level the playing field between suppliers and large customers by introducing recommendations on unfair trade practices The European Commission recently adopted a Communication encouraging EU Member States to look at ways ...

The Act of 15 December 2016 on Counteracting Unfair Use of Contractual Advantage in Trade of Agricultural and Food Products came into force and effect on 12 July 2017. The law confers additional powers on the President of the Office of Competition a...

For listed and traded UK companies with a 31 December year end, the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential  for further tightening of restrictions on gatherings and travel in the UK raise particular issues as they enter into reporting and AGM seas...

The protection of trade secrets has been on the European legislator’s agenda since 2011. It was felt that the lack of harmonisation in this field is very disadvantageous for cross-border innovation in Europe. After the initial report requested...

On 12 August this year, the Insurance Act 2015 will introduce the most significant changes to insurance law in 110 years – how will it affect the shipping industry? The Act applies to all insurance policies taken out by businesses which are subject ...

Introduction Following the declaration by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 30 January of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in response to the coronavirus crisis (please see our last briefing here), the vi...

Introduction Following the declaration by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on 30 January of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in response to the coronavirus crisis (please see our last briefing here), the vi...

Border Closure Update In an attempt to stem the virus outbreak in Europe, a number of European Union (EU) and Schengen zone Member States exercised their right to temporarily re-introduced border controls between themselves and other Member States. ...

On 2 October 2019, the World Trade Organisation (“WTO”) ruled that the U.S. that the tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of goods imported from the EU imposed by the U.S. in response to the EU’s unlawful subsidies to Airbus were authoris...

Health protocols relating to the coronavirus pandemic will be put in place to deal with he new traffic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the importance of implementing China’s agreement to buy US$200 billion of US goods – a key aspect of the interim trade deal between the two sides, sources familiar with the talks have said.US President Donald Trump has threatened to withdraw from the agreement if China fails to live up to its commitment over the next two years.In a phone conversation between the lead negotiators on Friday, Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He and US Trade Representative Robert…

Top Chinese and US trade negotiators will speak as soon as next week on progress in implementing a phase one deal after US President Donald Trump threatened to “terminate” the agreement if Beijing was not adhering to the terms.Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He will be on the call, according to people familiar with the matter. The US will be represented by US Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Lighthizer, one of the people said.The planned phone call will be the first time Liu and Lighthizer speak…

Top trade negotiators from the United States and China spoke by phone on Friday and vowed to continue to support the phase one trade deal, Chinese state media reported, in their first contact since the agreement was signed in January.On the call, China’s Vice-Premier Liu He, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer “vowed to implement their trade deal and boost cooperation on public health”, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.The officials said…

Steven Broad is Executive Director, TRAFFIC, the Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network

The post COVID-19 & Human Health Risks Linked to Wildlife Trade Practices appeared first on Inter Press Service.

ISLAMABAD: The traders community of the country has rejected government's plans to ease lockdown in the country saying the Prime Minister's announcements have created further confusion."Instead of...

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Important changes are underway for Southeast Asia’s relationship with its biggest trading partner, the People’s Republic of China.

There’s one big element missing before we can create a truly transparent, seamless and open international trading framework.

Digital or financial technology – including mobile internet access, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and big data – can make international trade more efficient and support financing options.

The World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement provides a roadmap for developing economies to increase trade while also increasing the benefits it provides to their citizens.

Making it easier for workers to move between countries is key to liberalizing the trade in services and unleashing the benefits it will produce across national and regional economies.

Simmering trade disputes are decreasing the beneficial effects of free trade and could in the long-term damage the rules-based order upon which global commerce is based.

To level the playing field in Asia and the Pacific, women-owned companies need financial backing to support their importing and exporting needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need to support trade to not only move medical supplies but also to bolster economies

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has provided a guarantee for a $25 million trade loan to the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation of Sri Lanka (SPC) to purchase medical supplies as part of the country’s response to the novel ....

The government requested financing from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to support the National Highway Authority (NHA) in constructing new roads and improving existing ones along the backbone from Peshawar to Karachi, to Gwadar Port in Baluchistan, as well as connections between Pakistan and the People’s Republic of China. Following the completion of loan preparatory activities in May 2007 and loan negotiations in October 2007, the ADB Board in December 2007 approved a multitranche financing facility (MFF) for $900 million to support the NTCIP–Tranche 1.

Ensuring food is safe to eat is a public good. People’s health depends on it, and so does the health of economies.

Trade facilitation, by reducing trade costs and raising the efficiency of moving goods across borders, is integral to international trade.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Monday that a UK-U.S. trade deal would be very difficult to agree, saying protectionist sentiment worldwide was making trade agreements harder to negotiate.

The S&P 500 and the Dow fell on Wednesday but the Nasdaq ended higher. The indexes pulled back late in the session after U.S. President Donald Trump said China may or may not keep a trade deal between the two countries. Fred Katayama reports.

Daniel J. Tobiansky, Meredith C. Miles, Franz Goller, and Matthew J. Fuxjager

Performance trade-offs can dramatically alter an organism's evolutionary trajectory by making certain phenotypic outcomes unattainable. Understanding how these trade-offs arise from an animal's design is therefore an important goal of biology. To explore this topic, we study how androgenic hormones, which regulate skeletal muscle function, influence performance trade-offs relevant to different components of complex reproductive behaviour. We conduct this work in golden-collared manakins (Manacus vitellinus), a Neotropical bird in which males court females by rapidly snapping their wings together above their back. Androgens help mediate the snap displays by radically increasing the twitch speed of a dorsal wing muscle [scapulohumeralis caudalis (SH)], which actuates the bird's wing-snap. Through hormone manipulations and in situ muscle recordings, we test how these positive effects on SH speed influence trade-offs with endurance. Indeed, this trait impacts the display by shaping signal length. We find that androgen-dependent increases in SH speed incur a cost to endurance, particularly when this muscle performs at its functional limits. Moreover, when behavioural data are overlaid on our muscle recordings, displaying animals appear to balance display speed with fatigue-induced muscle fusion (physiological tetanus) to generate the fastest possible signal while maintaining an appropriate signal duration. Our results point to androgenic hormone action as a functional trigger of trade-offs in sexual performance—they enhance one element of a courtship display, but in doing so, impede another.

The trade war between the United States and China has turned real estate investors' interest to Southeast Asian countries, in which the Vietnamese industrial market emerges as a bright spot in the region.