Why the Doha Round negotiation wasnt concluded until today

Why the Doha Round negotiation wasnt concluded until today Explain why the Doha Round negotiation has failed to be concluded until today. The Doha Development Round or Doha Development Agenda (DDA) is one of World Trade Organization (WTO) efforts to liberalize international trade which was commenced in November 2001 with the objective of lowering trade barriers around the world. This allows countries to increase trade globally; permitting free trade between countries; to open agricultural and manufacturing markets and expand intellectual property regulation. As of 2008, talks have stalled over a divide on major issues, such as agriculture, industrial tariffs and non-tariff barriers, services, and trade remedies. The members of Doha Round are consisting of the developed nations which led by the European Union (EU), the United States (USA), and Japan and the major developing countries which led and represented mainly by India, Brazil, China, and South Africa. The Ministerial Conferences and related negotiations have taken place in: 1. Doha, Qatar (2001) The main issues discussed were the Singapore Issue which comprises the new rules on investment liberalization, competition policy, government procurement, market access, and control on trade and any form of red-tape including e-commerce. The Singapore Issue was agreed by the industrial countries at WTO Ministerial meeting in Singapore in January 1996 without negotiating with the developing countries. Furthermore, it also links to the Non- Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) with the method of reducing tariff rates of manufactured product. Besides that, the issue regarding the liberalization and removal of subsidies for agriculture particularly by industrial countries that are reluctant in reducing or removing subsidies caused the failure of agreement. 2. Cancun, Mexico (2003) The Cancà ºn ministerial collapsed after four days for several reasons such as both the European Unions Common Agricultural Policy and the United States government agro-subsidies could not come to an agreement with the other countries concerning their subsidies in agriculture sector. Furthermore, the developing countries also rejected the Singapore Issue that erodes country sovereignty. Moreover, the government of the developing countries did not have freedom in drafting and implementing development policies for the people welfare and national interest. 3. Geneva, Switzerland (2004,2006, 2008 and 2009) It failed in 2006 because of farming subsidies and lowering import taxes. The developing countries were instructed to reduce tariff rates to the level which will harm the domestic industries. However, USA wanted the developing countries to open up their agricultural market, eliminate special treatment given to local industries, and eliminate special safeguards mechanisms (SSM) but yet they themselves reluctant to open agriculture market. Furthermore, the chance of success in this agreement is getting smaller as the Trade Act of 2002 expires in the year of 2007. The broad authority granted will pass to the US president George W. Bush and this will increase the dominant power of US and this would create conflicts between the interests between developed and developing countries. 4. Paris, France (2005) France disagreed to cut subsidies to farmers, while the US, Australia, EU, Brazil and India failed to come with agreement relating to chicken, beef and rice. Although most are minor points, trade negotiations are facing more problems when dealing with major issues. The delaying tactics played by EU were charged to be the reason threatened to spoil the round. 5. Hong Kong (2005) Industrial countries remain unfair towards the developing countries opening up the agriculture sector, services sector, and manufacturing goods. Besides that, the rules that proposed for countries brought negative impact or so called industry injury in opening economy to rectify matter which the possible sectors including textile, clothing, sugar, leather products that known as sensitive products. For instance, the Malaysia government opens up the textile market if deal with the agreement. However, in one or two years later, due to the openness of the textile market might hurt domestic textile industries in Malaysia. This is so called the industry injury as it brings negative impact or backslides to local Malaysia textile industries. Hence, the government can increase tariff rate for temporary to protect key industries before exposing them to foreign competitions as what Japan and South Korea did it successfully. 6. Potsdam, Germany (2007) In June 2007, due to the disagreement on opening up agriculture and industrial markets in various countries and cutting rich nation farm subsidies, the agreement again broke down. The main countries involved in this were the US, EU, India and Brazil. There are several reasons which result in why the Doha Round negotiation has failed to be concluded until today. First of all, the failure to agree on special safeguard mechanism (SSM) during Geneva 2008 which aimed to protect poor farmers by allowing countries to impose a special tariff on certain agricultural goods when there is a rise in import rise or fall in the price. Under SSM, the United State and EU protect their productions and their domestic markets by giving high subsidies. As a result, the United State farming community enjoys very low cost of production and their products are extremely cheap. The tariff on agriculture products of developing countries have to be reduced and they are only allowed to increase the tariff if their import is rose above 40%. In spite of this, India opposed the policies because it proposed to use such mechanisms when imports of agricultural products and food reached a 10% increase, while the developed countries wanted that these mechanisms trig gered at a 40% increase on import. This would possibly caused millions of agricultural workers to have suffered the negative outcomes of this liberalization. Many developing countries support Indias position because India represents the strong voice expressing many poor countries which concern on the livelihoods of millions of small farmers in the developing countries and they want to protect their infant domestic markets. However, United State refused to accept the safeguards proposed by India and this results the Doha Round failed to be concluded because of the disagreement over the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) issue. Next, the other factor that causes Doha Round failed to be concluded is these negotiations insisted on an exchange. The developed countries would open their markets for developing countries agricultural products while the developing countries would open their markets for the developed countries industrial products. These negotiations are known as NAMA (Non Agricultural Market Access). If NAMA is succeeded, this would strengthen the traditional role of developed countries and their transnational corporations as exporters of high-value goods and technology and increase the risk of rapid deindustrialization of the least developed countries, while slowing down the development of the developing countries industrial and technological advancement. Meanwhile, this would have an adverse effect on the ability of governments to design and implement policies in order to promote industry for local capitals and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as part of a sustainable economic development and g ender equity in the long term. Under NAMA, governments agreed to increase market access commitments through a tariff reduction formula that will even out or regulating the tariff levels across products to become more standardize. High tariffs will be subjected to steeper cuts than lower tariffs, and tariffs will be cut on a product-specific basis. Besides, this is a real innovation as compared to past rounds where countries were merely required to make an average tariff cut. This allowed them to pick and choose the products on which to cut tariffs and thus allowed tariff peaks to continue. The tariff cuts promoted in NAMA would open industries to competition with imported industrialized goods, which would probably hinder the local production with serious impacts for the loss of millions of employments. In addition, the global food and fuel crisis is another major factor that caused the Doha Round failed to be concluded. In July 2008, the price of crude oil has increased from USD80 per barrel to USD145 per barrel. The prices of wheat and rice also increased more than 50% from March 2007 to March 2008. The other countries which are already reluctant to compromise on the world trade term will be even reluctant to compromise after the impact. For example, India has to stop the export of its rice to other countries due to the food crisis. This is because the oil price is too high and this will eventually affect the food production. In contrary, US tried to encourage the production of agricultural products by giving farmers generous subsidies. These US products will then flood to the international market and worsen the domestic markets of developing countries. Moreover, reducing tariff would also reduce the income of developing countries. Consequently, the developed nations will not cut subsidies while the developing nations will not reduce their tariffs. Furthermore, the opting for bilateral or regional free trade area (FTA) by some of the member countries in WTO also one of the factors contributing to the failure of Doha Round. For instance, a deal signed by US and Japan that the US will export rice to Japan if Japan reduces its tariffs on US rice imports by 10%. US reciprocated the deal by lowering tariffs on one of the Japanese products import. However, under the Most Favored Nation (MFN) rule, Japan will need to reduce import tariff on all of its rice importers not only to USA. This rule is deemed by many especially the developed countries as unfair because developing countries become free riders under the system. Besides, countries have the alternative of forming their own FTAs with their preferred choice of trading partner. Therefore, countries participating in the Doha Round are definitely less willing to cooperate as they feel that they have the choice of develop their own FTA later. One of the good examples would be Singapor e where it signed a FTA with USA in January 2003. Singapore might deem the relatively slow developments of ASEAN as an impediment to its own growth and thus signed an FTA with US. Therefore, Doha Round still failed to be concluded. Apart from that, the emergence of China, India and Brazil could be one of the factors that caused the Doha Round fail to be concluded. China, India and Brazil are emerging as the leaders of the developing countries recently. Their role in global trade had been increasing and US is afraid that its importance will override by these countries. Thus, US not willing to compromise in the terms under Doha Round because they do not want to give out any benefits to these rival countries. Furthermore, there is also lack of commitment from some of the participating countries. During the Cancà ºn 2003, it was questioned whether some countries had come to Cancà ºn with a serious intention to negotiate. In the view of some observers, a few countries showed no flexibility in their positions and only repeated their demands rather than talk about trade-offs. The rich countries are never committed into helping their poorer counterparts but just interested in their own benefits from trades. Developing countries want to gain more profit and want to protect their infant economies by implementing high tariffs. As a result, Doha Round failed to be concluded because the members of the countries refuse to mutually accommodate each others requests. In conclusion, Doha Round has failed to be concluded until today because most of the countries are interested in own benefits than helping another countries. In fact, developed countries are shielding their agricultural sectors too much while developing countries are less interested in opening up their industrial goods markets. For instance, the most recent round of negotiations which was held from 23 to 29 July 2008, broke down after failing to reach a compromise on agricultural import rules. After the breakdown, major negotiations were not expected to resume until 2009. Nevertheless, intense negotiations mostly between the USA, China, and India were held in the end of 2008 in order to agree on negotiation modalities. However, these negotiations did not result in any progress. Thus, in order to achieve the main objective of Doha Round, the self-interested mentality should not exist. Therefore, it is not easy to create a successful conclusion for Doha Round and that is why Doha Round still failed to be concluded until today.

High School vs. University Essay

Every September, high school graduates must prepare for the drastic transformation from high school to university. High school is a teaching environment which a student acquires facts and skills. University is a learning environment in which a student must take responsibility for thinking and applying what you have learned. This step in life students will either adjust to or struggle with. High school students are told university life is exciting, unpredictable, and entertaining. Also, students are informed university life is costly, demanding, and stressful. In order to adapt to the transition, students must understand and recognize the different teaching styles, testing, and grading. Teaching styles change as class sizes vary. Teachers in High school cover course material in depth and over a long period of time. Professors cover textbook material quickly. High school teachers check homework, remind students of incomplete work, and approach students if assistance is needed. Professors do not check completed homework and will assume students can complete the same tasks on tests. It is left up to the student to communicate with their professors in order to receive extensions ensuring the student will not be penalized. Professors do not approach students or notice students who are struggling. Therefore, students may approach professor in given office hours for one-on-one help. Finally, in university due to large class sizes and minimal lecture time keeping up with assignments and readings is critical. Cramming the night before a test and receiving a good grade is more likely to occur in high school, where testing in subjects is very frequent. Preparation for testing becomes more crucial in university because tests are infrequent, covering large amounts of material. Also, students in high school may be awarded a make up test normally without an explanation. Whereas in university, in order to receive a make up test a reasonable explanation must be given. Review classes are given in high school to help prepare students and give them a clear idea of the material that will be tested. Rarely, are review sessions provided for university students, if they are, professors expect participation from students who attend. Success on tests can be mastered by applying acquired knowledge to new situations or to solve new problems. The grading system becomes very important as students enter university. High school students are used to courses that are usually structured to a â€Å"good-faith effort†. In high school grades are given for most assignments. Students are also given grades for consistently good homework, which may help boost marks when test grades are low. Students who may not have a good overall mark occasionally have the opportunity to complete extra credit projects. Comparing this to university grades on tests and major papers usually provide most of the course grade. Extra credit projects are not normally allowed to raise a grade in a university course. Therefore, the â€Å"good-faith effort† is important in regard to the professor’s willingness to help students achieve good results; it will not substitute for results in the grading process. Adjustment is required for a high school graduate to be successful in university. Before entering university, high school students must be aware of these differences. Therefore, they must know how to adapt to new teaching styles, to successfully prepare themselves for testing, and the changes in grading systems. Recognizing these differences before entering a university can help prepare students for greater success.

Human motivation Essay

SCENARIO: The scenario developed for the purpose of this paper is that a person has gone through the bitter experience of losing a loved one. In this case, the other person moved away and long distance relationship was not possible due to inevitable circumstances. Now the person who has been left behind has to recover from the sorrow of their loved one moving away, conclusion of a relationship that was a couple of years old, as well as move on with his/her own life. He/she has support from family and friends; however, they prefer to be on their own for now to recover from the close attachment that was developed over the course of two years. Moving away of a loved one has left a gap in the life of the subject. For a while, they were low on self esteem considering the move as his/her own fault. To recover from this depressive state they need to motivated and lured back to life and routine. COMPONENTS OF MOTIVATION: In the given scenario the biological component would be an individual’s need to mate with a partner. While momentarily, the subject is associating this need with their loved one, however, once they are able to move then situation shall be different. The learned component is that the subject now realizes that they have been loved and experienced that emotion. In future, while establishing bonds and relationships, duplicating that emotion can be one important motivational factor or component. Finally, the cognitive component in this case is that subject is to realize that moving on is must. They have given their best to the relationship and that is all they could do. Their self-esteem suffered and getting it back is important motivational component. APPLICATION OF THEORIES: Now, viewing the scenario in light of the motivational theories and possible ways to motivate the subject to move on and get back to life. 1. Instinct theories: Instinct theory in this case points out to the elementary aspect of human relationships. That is, a person’s need to find a mate. The subject is going through a low period. However, this is expected to end as soon as they realize that they need to fill the void in their life with someone special and are willing to give anyone else a chance. This instinctive need to mate is a great motivator in itself (AllPsych, 2003). 2. Personality theories: Personality theories of motivation describe each personality and person on different dimensions. While their focus is on finding similar traits in personalities of different people, categorizing an individual makes it simpler for psychologist to approach the subjects (Boeree, 2007). In this case, the subject can be analyzed on their personality traits such as if they are optimist or pessimist, free will or determinist, has had early or late personality development etc. Once that is determined, it will be easier to understand that what motivates the individual, what amount of effort does their personality require to overcome a trauma and so on. 3. Drive/learning theories: Drive theory is also somewhat similar to the instinct theories. These theories propose that each person is driven towards a certain kind of behavior due to internal biological demand. Their actions are to reduce that drive. In this case it is applicable such that a healthy individual has to fulfill their sexual needs. Reduction of this drive is again a motivator or an incentive for the person to move on with their life (AllPsych, 2003). 4. Growth and mastery motivation theories: The growth and goal mastery theories of motivation suggest that after a person has had an unpleasant experience, they learn from that and make a conscious effort as to not to repeat the behavior in future (East Lothian Council, n.d). In this case it would be that perhaps the subject might be hesitant to commit or fully give himself to a relationship unless they have over came insecurity. It motivates them to carefully choose who they want to be with 5. Humanistic theories: Most applied Humanistic theory; Maslow’s Need Hierarchy is a good example of application of humanistic approach. The subject in this scenario will be at the level of ‘Love and Belonging Needs’. Unless needs of that level are not fulfilled, he wont be able to reach a higher level of self esteem. The subject needs help and support of family and friends or perhaps even a therapist to realize that they need to move on and let themselves go in order to move further over pyramid. Not dwelling on past is the key here (AllPsych, 2003). 6. Cognitive theories: Cognitive theories purpose that an individual’s behavior is dependant on not just their personality and needs but also on dynamic environment that they live in, the external factors acting upon them and so on (Psychological Solutions, n. d). If the subject is able to evaluate and understand the present situation from this view point, they shall come to realize that there is little role for them to play and the dynamics of the environment were unfavorable. However, if they are seeking professional help then a therapist should be able to point out that this might not be true for each experience in their life and motivate them to move on. BIBLIOGRAPHY AllPsych. (2003). Motivation In Psychology. Retrieved June 1, 2007 from: http://allpsych. com/psychology101/motivation. html East Lothian Council.(n. d). Goal Theory Of Motivation. Retrieved June 1, 2007 from: http://www. exc-el. org. uk/content/index. php/main/teaching_and_learning/everything_you_wanted_to_know_about_teaching_and_learning_but_were_afraid_to_ask/motivation/motivational_theories/goal_orientation_theory Boeree, G. (2006). Personality Theories. Retrieved June 1, 2007 from: http://webspace. ship. edu/cgboer/persintro. html Psychological Solution. (n. d). Cognitive Theories of Motivation. Retrieved June 1, 2007 from: http://www. psychsol. com/html/word_docs/Motiv%202%20-%20ohp. doc.

Oedipus Essay - 788 Words

Robert Anthony once said, The problem with worry is that we attract the very thing we are trying to avoid. This quote directly relates to the Greek tragedy Oedipus the King by Sophocles. In this play, Sophocles gives Oedipus the tragic flaw, hubris (excessive pride in oneself), which eventually causes him to run into his fate that he wanted to escape. Excessive pride in oneself has been the downfall of multiple characters like Oedipus. Oedipus wont accept the fact that he cannot escape his fate because of his uncontrollable arrogance. Pride has played a role in his life when he was first told about his fate. Oedipus once went to an oracle to find out about his real father. According to the oracle, [Oedipus], You are fated to couple†¦show more content†¦If Oedipus set his ego aside and let the carriage pass, he could have prevented the prophecy from fulfilling itself. Even though characters believe that they can avoid their fate, they truly cannot. Jocasta gave birth to a child when she was married to King Laius, and one day an oracle came to Laius and predicted his future. Jocasta was speaking to Oedipus about the prophecy that an oracle had told King Laius, An oracle came to Laius one fine day†¦ and it declared that doom would strike him down at the hands of a son, our son, to be born of our flesh and blood. But Laius...was killed by strangers, thieves, at a place where three roads meet...my son-he wasnt three days old and the boys father fastened his ankles, had a henchman fling him away on a barren, trackless mountain†¦ My baby no more murdered his father...(Sophocles 201). Jocasta and King Laius had a free will which was to pin their childs ankles and hand him over to a shepherd to finish him. However the shepherd was unable to fulfill the task, he explains, I pitied the little baby, master, hoped hed [God] take him off to his own c ountry, far away, but he saved him for this, this fate. 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