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The World Health Organization has just warned about the major risks of antibiotic resistance worldwide and said that countries must take action. Countries everywhere need to change the controls on antibiotics, keeping use for serious infection. But the TPPA agreement says that can be liable to legal action if there is a loss of foreign investor profits.
More than 270 healthcare professionals from around New Zealand have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister published in the Dominion Post, warning of the threat to New Zealanders’ health from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA).
Leaked text of the TPPA chapter on investment contains major provisions saying that business interests can sue governments for billions of dollars if a country introduces a law and a foreign investor would lose substantial value or profits. These provisions in the trade agreements (called Investor State Dispute Settlement) apply irrespective of what the business is and say that government regulation must not get in the way of investors’ profit.
“We all know smoking is dangerous, yet cigarette companies have used trade and investment agreements in other countries to...

Beijing is driving the urbanization and aims to increase its urban population from about 54 percent to 60 percent by 2020, said JOC Economist Mario Moreno in the April edition of JOC Insights.China’s relentless urbanization will likely keep imports of U.S. containerized logs and lumber brisk in the coming year.
Exports of the building materials to China, the largest importer of U.S. logs and lumber by a wide margin, rose for 10 straight months on a year-over-year basis through January, according to data from PIERS, the data division of JOC Group Inc.
U.S. export volume of containerized logs and lumber in 2013 is expected to have risen by 13 percent year-over-year to 456,212 20-foot equivalent units. China accounts for a little more than half of U.S. containerized lumber and log exports, followed by Vietnam (7.2 percent), Japan (5.8 percent) and Taiwan (4.5 percent).
More at the Journal of Commerce

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