GENEVA (Reuters) – A World Trade Organization panel backed South Korea on Tuesday in a challenge to a controversial U.S. method for calculating duties on unfairly priced imports, after the United States offered no defense in the dispute.

The ruling is the latest in a series of defeats for the United States over zeroing, a method of calculating anti-dumping duties that is opposed by all other WTO members.

GENEVA, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Developing countries and
economies in transition together attracted more foreign
investment than developed countries in 2010 for the first time,
a United Nations study showed on Monday.

The report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) was further evidence that economic recovery
is more robust in developing than in rich countries.

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA (Reuters Life!) – In the Zurich Opera House’s version of “The Marriage of Figaro”, the eternal truths of the war of the sexes and class conflict are never far from the surface in a production that plays up the farcical nature and comedy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s masterpiece.

Director Sven-Eric Bechtolf sets the piece in the 1930s, with the more modern-dress staging underlining the idea that the classic tale of love, desire, faithfulness, faithlessness — and cross-dressing — is one for every generation.

GENEVA (Reuters) – Members of the World Trade Organization have started work on a draft proposal for a register to protect geographical names of wines and spirits as part of a push to secure a global trade deal this year.

Zambia’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization, Darlington Mwape, who chairs talks on the register, told negotiators on Thursday that it had been tough to get this far and laid down a tight schedule of meetings to produce a negotiating text by the end of March.

GENEVA, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Trading powers must get down to
real negotiations right away if there is to be any hope of
concluding the long-running Doha talks to open up global
commerce this year, a top U.S. negotiator said on Thursday.

To reach a deal, said the U.S. ambassador to the World Trade
Organization (WTO) Michael Punke, big emerging countries like
China, Brazil and India should accept that their booming
economies meant they must open up their markets more.