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The Doha Development Round is the current trade-negotiation round of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which commenced at Doha, Qatar in November 2001. Its objective is to lower trade barriers around the world, permitting free trade between countries of varying prosperity. 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 most significant differences are between developed nations led by the European Union (EU), the United States (USA) and Japan and the major developing countries led and represented mainly by India, Brazil, China and South Africa. There is also considerable contention against and between the EU and the USA over their maintenance of agricultural subsidies—seen to operate effectively as trade barriers.

The Doha Round began with a ministerial-level meeting in Doha, Qatar in 2001. Subsequent ministerial meetings took place in Cancún, Mexico (2003), and Hong Kong (2005). Related negotiations took place in Geneva, Switzerland (2004, 2006, 2008); Paris, France (2005); and Potsdam, Germany (2007).

The most recent round of negotiations, July 23-29 2008, broke down after failing to reach a compromise on agricultural import rules.

The International Financial Services Centre in Dublin

The economy of the Republic of Ireland is a highly developed knowledge economy, focused on services in high-tech, life sciences, financial services and agribusiness, including agrifood. Ireland is an open economy (3rd on the Index of Economic Freedom), and ranks first for high-value foreign direct investment (FDI) flows. In the global GDP per capita tables, Ireland ranks 2nd of 192 in the IMF table and 4th of 187 in the World Bank ranking.

Social expenditure stood at roughly 13.4% of GDP in 2024. Following a period of continuous growth at an annual level from 1984 to 2007, the post-2008 Irish financial crisis severely affected the economy, compounding domestic economic problems related to the collapse of the Irish property bubble. Ireland first experienced a short technical recession from Q2-Q3 2007, followed by a recession from Q1 2008 – Q4 2009. (Full article...)

"In all of the fields where individual products have even the slightest element of uniqueness, competition bears but faint resemblance to the pure competition of a highly organized market for a homogeneous product. Consider, for instance, the competitive analysis as applied to the automobile industry. How is one to conceive of demand and supply curves for "automobiles in general" when, owing to variations in quality, design, and type, the prices of individual units range from several hundred to many thousand of dollars? How define the number of units which would be taken from or put upon the market at any particular price? How fit into the analysis a wide variety of costs based mostly upon a correspondingly wide variety of product? These difficulties are great; perhaps they are not insurmountable. The real one is neither of definition nor of interpretation, and cannot be surmounted. Competitive theory does not fit because competition between through the group is only partial and is highly uneven. The competition between sport roadsters and ten-ton trucks must be virtually zero; and there is probably more justification for drawing up a joint demand schedule for Fords and house room than for Fords and Locomobiles. These are, perhaps, extreme cases, but the fact that each producer through the group has a market at a least partially distinct from those of the others introduces forces, absent under pure competition, which materially alter the result. Prices throughout are adjusted in some measure according to the monopoly principle. Furthermore, advertising and selling outlays are invited by the fact that the market of each seller is limited, whereas the very nature of a purely competitive market precludes a selling problem. The theory of pure competition, in explaining the adjustment of economic forces in such an industry, is a complete misfit.

Because most prices involve monopoly elements, it is monopolistic competition that most people think of in connection with the simple word "competition". In fact, it may almost be said that under pure competition the buyers and sellers do not really compete in the sense in which the word is currently used. One never hears of "competition" in connection with the great markets, and the phrases "price cutting", "underselling", "unfair competition", "meeting competition", "securing a market", etc., are unknown. No wonder the principles of such a market seem so unreal when applied to the "business" world where these terms have meaning. They are based on the supposition that each seller accepts the market price and can dispose of his entire supply without materially affecting it. Thus there is no problem of choosing a price policy, no problem of adapting the product more exactly to the buyers (real or fancied) wants. The theory of pure competition could hardly be expected to fit facts so far different from its assumptions. But there is no reason why a theory of value cannot be formulated which will fit them - a theory concerning itself specifically with goods which are not homogeneous. This is the purpose of the later chapters of this book. We turn first to the theory of pure competition."

—Edward Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, 1933

• ... that the developer of Citizen Sleeper was inspired by the feeling of people coming together and their own experiences as a non-binary person struggling to make ends meet through the gig economy?
• ... that Peachtree Arcade, a shopping arcade in the U.S. state of Georgia, was conceived after a local businessman visited the Cleveland Arcade?
• ... that due to business closures across California during the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the exotic dancers at Jumbo's Clown Room created the Cyber Clown Girls show so they could continue working?
• ... that Harvard Business School professor Lauren Cohen is a powerlifting champion?
• ... that small-business leaders such as Guillermo Torrez sympathized with the Movement for Socialism despite its anti-capitalist rhetoric?
• ... that the Darwin Rocksitters Club had "no funny business" as their first, third, and fifth rules?

August 7:

• 1966 - Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia was born on this day.

• ...that in the United States of America the largest reserve requirement for commercial banks is 10% of liabilities?

• ...that the United States Federal Reserve System uses six monetary aggregates as components of the money supply?

• ...that an open market operation is an activity by a central bank to buy or sell government bonds on the open market?

• ...that, although nominal USA national debt has been steadily increasing since 1940, Debt-to-GDP ratio was actually higher during WWII than it is now?

• ... that the United States debt ceiling has been steadily raised since 1981?

• ... the Federal Reserve owns the largest share of the USA national debt?

• ...the term petrodollars was coined by Ibrahim Oweiss to describe dollars that did not circulate inside the United States, and therefore were not part of the normal money supply, and instead were received by petroleum exporting countries (OPEC) in exchange for oil?

• July 21: Technological University Dublin senior lecturer Dr Lorcan Sirr speaks to Wikinews on housing market in Ireland
• July 15: California governor signs new state budget, eligible Californians to get stimulus payments
• July 4: 130 OECD countries agree to back global corporate tax rate
• June 30: 'Each makes the other more difficult to recover from': University of Sussex professor L. Alan Winters speaks to Wikinews on trade, COVID-19, Brexit
• June 16: Wikinews interviews Victor Kline, leader of newly registered The New Liberals party in Australia
• April 23: Irish Finance Minister Donohoe criticises OECD's global minimum corporate tax rate
• April 17: People protest in Berlin against German Court overturning five-year rent cap
• March 5: Chancellor Rishi Sunak announces UK budget 2021
• February 10: Disney to shut down Blue Sky Studios, animation studio behind 'Ice Age'
• January 24: World Trade Organization declares US tariff hike illegal, rules in South Korea's favour