EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said “China now must comply by removing these export restrictions swiftly and furthermore, I expect China to bring its overall export regime – including for rare earths – in line with WTO rules.”

The EU Panel, along with US and Mexico had charged that the export duties and quotas imposed by China on various raw materials like various forms of: bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon carbide, silicon metal, yellow phosphorus and zinc, are protectionist measures in breach of WTO rules and that China failed to justify them. WTO in particular upheld the finding that China has committed unconditionally in its Accession Protocol to the WTO not to levy export duties and that this commitment cannot be reduced by reverting to the general exceptions of the GATT.

As per EU panel narration, China applies export restrictions on key raw materials, some of which cannot be sourced outside China. Export restrictions create serious disadvantages for foreign producers by artificially increasing China’s export prices and driving up world prices. EU also contends that such restrictions artificially lower China’s domestic prices for the raw materials due to significant increases in domestic supply. This gives China’s domestic downstream industry significant competitive advantages and puts pressure on foreign producers to move their operations and technologies to China.

The restrictions increased manufacturing costs of European industry such as the chemical, steel and non-ferrous metal industries. This drove up the costs of downstream clients, ranging from producers of beverage cans, CDs, electronics, automotives, ceramics, refrigerators, batteries and medicines and many more.

The EU, US and Mexico are now expected to request doption of the reports by the WTO Dispute Settlement Body within 30 days. China will then have to bring its measures in compliance with the rulings within a reasonable period of time.

Between the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and 2010, more than 90 per cent of China’s imported major conventional weapons were supplied by Russia. Since 2007 there has been a dramatic decline in the volume of Chinese arms imports from Russia. China is today mainly interested in acquiring technology to further develop its own arms industry, which is increasingly capable of meeting both domestic needs and export demand.

Image: Indicative

As of 2009 Russia became the world’s largest producer of oil and second largest of natural gas, whereas China, which shares a 4000 kilometre border with Russia, surpassed the USA in 2010 to become the world’s largest energy consumer. Despite these complementarities, Russian crude oil constitutes a smaller share of China’s overall oil imports compared with five years ago. China has strategically diversified its suppliers. Its largest oil supplier is Saudi Arabia, followed by Angola, Iran and Oman. In the gas sector, Russia’s negotiating position has been seriously weakened by China’s success in finding other partners, especially in Central Asia.

China and Russia do not share a deeper world view. While China and Russia still often take similar positions on significant global issues in opposition to the United States and share a dislike of a unipolar world, for both China and Russia individually their relationship with the US is paramount. Furthermore, there are strategic planners in Beijing and Moscow who view the other side as the ultimate strategic threat in the long-term.

‘The China-Russia partnership is plagued with problems. In reality cooperation is not as smooth as depicted in official rhetoric by top leaders on each side’, says co-author Linda Jakobson, formerly with SIPRI and presently at the Lowy Institute for International Policy. ‘Above all, both countries approach the relationship pragmatically. When interests converge, Beijing and Moscow collaborate, but when interests diverge the strategic partnership has little meaning. Genuine political trust is lacking.’

“Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo’s request for INTERPOL Red Notices will significantly restrict the ability of all three men to cross international borders and is a powerful tool to help in their location and arrest,” said INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble.

“As far as INTERPOL’s General Secretariat headquarters is concerned, Muammar Gaddafi is a fugitive whose country of nationality and the International Criminal Court want arrested and held accountable for the serious criminal charges that have been brought against him.

“INTERPOL will cooperate with and assist the ICC and Libyan authorities represented by the Interim Transitional National Council of Libya to apprehend Muammar Gaddafi,” added Secretary General Noble.

The publication of INTERPOL Red Notices for Gaddafi and the other two Libyan nationals will see INTERPOL’s specialized Fugitive Investigation Support unit at its General Secretariat closely liaise with its National Central Bureaus worldwide to pool and update all relevant intelligence to ensure that they are located, arrested and surrendered to the ICC.

“Arresting Gaddafi is a matter of time. By requesting an INTERPOL Red Notice the ICC ensures that the arrest warrant for Gaddafi is in the hands of law enforcement around the world,” said Prosecutor Moreno- Ocampo.

INTERPOL and the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC have signed a cooperation agreement in 2004. In addition to the Red Notices now issued for these three Libyan nationals, there are currently seven valid Red Notices issued at the request of the ICC.

Since March 2011, through the publication of Orange Notice global alerts against Colonel Gaddafi and other Libyan nationals, including members of his family and close associates, INTERPOL has been warning member states of the danger posed by the movement of these individuals and their assets following the sanctions established by United Nations Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 (2011).

With cyber-security, crimes against children and financial & high tech crime high on the agenda, talks between ICANN President and CEO Rod Beckstrom and INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble focused on Internet security governance and enhancing common means for preventing and addressing Internet crime. Mr Beckstrom’s delegation also included ICANN’s Vice President and Chief Security Officer, Jeff Moss, Vice President of Government Affairs Jamie Hedlund, and Alice Jansen of its Organizational Reviews unit.

“We seek the active engagement of law enforcement in our multi-stakeholder community where all parties are welcome. We recognize INTERPOL as an important international leader in this field,” said Mr Beckstrom. “We are very pleased by its expression of interest in joining the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee as an observer.”

With ICANN the global coordinator of domain names and Internet protocol addresses, and INTERPOL the world’s largest international police organization, Secretary General Noble said ‘Both organizations are international, both are politically neutral, and both are focused on the good of the world. Both also care about improving the security of the Internet for the future.”

”The Internet has no borders, and neither do the criminals who exploit it. As the Internet’s role in society continues to increase in scope and importance, it is vital for INTERPOL to help create bridges between the international law enforcement community it represents and ICANN in order to advance Internet security practices for the benefit to all,” added Secretary General Noble.

As part of efforts to enhance their cooperation, both organizations agreed during the visit that an INTERPOL delegation would attend ICANN’s international conference in Singapore next month, 20-24 June, when INTERPOL’s membership of ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) as an international observer will be explored.

While Bin Laden’s death strikes a crippling blow to an organization that requires members to swear personal allegiance to Osama Bin Laden, the head of INTERPOL called for extra vigilance by INTERPOL member countries’ law enforcement authorities to a heightened terror risk from Al Qaeda-affiliated or Al Qaeda- inspired terrorists as a result of Bin Laden’s death.

With the announcement by US President Barack Obama that the US employed a carefully planned and executed operation against the Al-Qaeda leader in a compound in Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, the head of INTERPOL said that Bin Laden’s death in the tenth year following the 9/11 attacks was ‘a fitting end to a symbol, advocate and sponsor of terrorism globally whose actions resulted in the murder of thousands of innocent victims in the US and throughout the world.’

“The world’s most wanted international terrorist is no more, but the death of Bin Laden does not represent the demise of Al Qaeda affiliates and those inspired by Al Qaeda, who have and will continue to engage in terrorist attacks around the world. We therefore need to remain united and focused in our ongoing co-operation and fight, not only against this global threat but also against terrorism by any group anywhere,” said Secretary General Noble.

“We must remember that since 11 September 2001, there have been deadly terrorist attacks around the globe by a variety of groups and persons. Indeed, no continent or region of the world has been spared from terrorism and we know that there remain those within, affiliated with, and inspired by Al-Qaeda, dedicated to continued terrorist attacks across the globe,” said the INTERPOL chief.

“I am therefore asking the international network of INTERPOL National Central Bureaus and law enforcement agencies in each of our 188 member countries to be on full alert for acts of retaliation should Al-Qaeda try to prove they still exist despite the death of their highest profile leader,” concluded the head of INTERPOL.

Bin Laden, who had topped the US ‘most wanted’ list was the subject of INTERPOL Red Notices, or international wanted persons alert, and also the subject of an INTERPOL-United Nations Security Council Special Notice.

On 24 April night, nearly 480 prisoners were broken out of the Sarposa prison in Kandahar by the Taliban. Interpol says that the same jail saw the mass escape of nearly 900 inmates in June 2008. Afghan govt has failed to send identifying information for circulation to the global law enforcement community.

INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said “with countries spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year in Afghanistan, the ongoing failure to train and equip Afghan authorities to collect, store and share basic law enforcement information such as photographs, fingerprints and DNA was ‘an unacceptable gap in global security.”

“Once our National Central Bureau in Kabul confirmed the breakout, the INTERPOL General Secretariat headquarters immediately alerted the neighbouring countries, but with no strong identifying information, such as photographs, fingerprints or DNA available to law enforcement on the ground, their efforts are significantly hampered,” added Secretary General Noble.

Interpol wants assitance of public to nab the internationally-wanted fugitives, with 20 Infra-SA targets specifically highlighted as part of the appeal to identify their whereabouts.

“Locating and arresting criminals is at the heart of INTERPOL’s work and previous Infra operations has shown the valuable role that the public can play in supporting the police take dangerous criminals off the streets,” said INTERPOL’s Executive Director of Police Services Jean-Michel Louboutin.

“What is also clear from this operation is that no matter how long it takes, or where these criminals attempt to hide, law enforcement is committed to finding them and bringing them to justice,” added Louboutin.

As per Interpol release, some key arrests have already been made through Infra-SA is that of Patrick Van Den Berg, wanted in connection with the murder of his wife and six-month-old baby in Bolivia in 2008, and also suspected of killing a woman in Chile. The 35-year- old Dutch national was taken into custody by police in Peru on 29 March and now awaits extradition.

Other results since the launch of Operation Infra-SA include the arrest in Uruguay of Francisco Sebastian Silva Fernandez, wanted by Argentina for armed robbery, Clara and Caridad Guilarte, wanted by the US for fraud and money laundering arrested in Colombia where police also took into custody Jose Raul Marquez Restrepo wanted by Peru in connection with drug offences.

Interpol has newly established Command and Co-ordination Centre (CCC) at INTERPOL’s Buenos Aires Regional Bureau, providing 24/7 police support capacity.

Speaking at the fourth Annual EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) ID WORLD summit (3-4 April), INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said that regulating migration levels and managing borders presented security challenges for countries and for the world that INTERPOL was ideally-placed to help address.

“At a time when global migration is reaching record levels, there is a need for governments to put in place systems at the national level that would permit the identity of migrants and their documents to be verified internationally via INTERPOL,” said Secretary General Noble.

“The vast majority of migrants are law-abiding citizens who would like to have their identities verified in more than one country using the same identity document. If countries were to issue work and residence permits in an e-ID format that satisfied common standards internationally, then both the migrant workers and the countries themselves would benefit because efficiencies would improve, security at the national and global level would improve and corruption would be reduced.”

The ID WORLD forum heard that such a card required developing a mechanism whereby the biometric identity features of migrants, such as fingerprints and DNA, would be checked systematically against global databases.

“INTERPOL currently helps member countries screen travel documents of international air travelers approximately one-half a billion times a year. It would be a natural extension of this service to assist member countries in determining whether bearers of a globally verified identity card were in possession of a valid identity document or are wanted internationally for arrest via INTERPOL at the time that they applied for a work or residence permit,” added the INTERPOL Chief.

“Issuing migrant workers e-ID cards in a globally verifiable format will also reduce corruption and enable cardholders to be eligible for electronic remittance schemes that will foster greater economic development and prosperity in INTERPOL member countries,” concluded Secretary General Noble.

Key speakers at the ID WORLD forum included Pakistan’s Minister of Interior Rehman Malik, World Bank Integrity Vice-President Leonard McCarthy, European Commission Head of International Affairs, Directorate General Home Affairs, Luigi Soreca, the UAE’s Head of Identity Authority, Ali Al Khouri, and Tariq Malik of Pakistan’s National Database & Registration Authority.

Accepting one of Pakistan’s highest civilian awards as ‘a great honour and privilege’, Secretary General Noble paid tribute to Pakistan’s steadfast and long-standing support of INTERPOL in combating terrorism and transnational crime to protect citizens at home and around the world since it joined INTERPOL in 1952.

“For more than 80 years, INTERPOL has been bringing police forces around the globe together, to enhance co-operation and to ensure the security of the world’s citizens. And as a valued member country, Pakistan has consistently and resolutely supported our efforts to fight terrorism and all serious transnational crime,” said Secretary General Noble.

“Pakistan’s commitment to INTERPOL and law enforcement worldwide has been instrumental in the development of many key security initiatives against major crimes.”

In this respect, Mr Noble recalled how following the brutal terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India in November 2008, Pakistan’s Minister of Interior, Rehman Malik, directed INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau (NCB) in Islamabad to issue a global INTERPOL alert for individuals wanted in connection with the attacks and to provide INTERPOL member countries with valuable intelligence related to the Mumbai attacks. The prompt response by Pakistan was greatly appreciated by the international law enforcement community.

The alert, which was sent to all member countries, followed a series of high-level meetings between an INTERPOL delegation led by Secretary General Noble with Pakistani and other countries’ officials. INTERPOL was especially pleased that it was in a position to enhance police co-operation in the sharing of information by Pakistan and India via INTERPOL.

“As a country whose citizens have suffered major terrorist attacks and is far too frequently the target of terrorist attacks, Pakistan has remained at the forefront of the global anti-terrorist struggle. Its law enforcement officials and citizens show great courage and determination in their efforts to keep Pakistan and the world safe from terrorism,” added Mr Noble.

“International police co-operation is seldom recognized in such a formal and significant way, and this is why I am especially proud to accept the Hilal-e Pakistan honour on behalf of the dedicated law enforcement professionals at INTERPOL’s General Secretariat and National Central Bureaus worldwide,” concluded Secretary General Noble.

During his two-day mission (24-25 March) to Pakistan, the Secretary General of INTERPOL will hold bilateral meetings with Minister of Interior Rehman Malik, Minister of Finance Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, and the Director General of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and Head of NCB Islamabad, Waseem Ahmed.

Talks will cover areas of co-operation between Pakistan and the world police body, including Project GIZ, a EUR 2 million initiative co-ordinated by INTERPOL to give direct access to frontline officers to INTERPOL global databases in 39 sites throughout Pakistan. The project aims to reinforce the national and regional exchange of criminal intelligence with INTERPOL’s member countries.

The report was drawn up by an EU team of three Commission officials, two data protection experts and a judicial expert from Eurojust. Their work included a contribution from US representatives, Europol and other relevant parties. The report concludes that “Europol clearly takes its role under the Agreement seriously and has put in place all the necessary elements to fulfill its role in accordance with the Agreement and its implementing technical modalities.” Under Article 4 of the Agreement Europol has been given the task of verifying US Requests for data. The report makes useful recommendations on how the Agreement could be implemented even more effectively, including in regard to information provided by the United States in support of its requests, a point raised in a recent report by Europol’s Joint Supervisory Body. But the review team were satisfied with the implementing arrangements undertaken by Europol and praised the cooperation established with US partners.

Rob Wainwright, Director of Europol, welcomed the outcome of the review. “I am pleased that the dedicated efforts of Europol to implement the Agreement in a professional and effective way have been recognised by the EU review team”, he said. “Where the implementation of this complex agreement can be made even more effective, in line with the recommendations drawn up in this report, Europol has already initiated relevant work with US colleagues and its own data protection specialists.”

Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner responsible for Home Affairs, said: “I am very pleased that we have completed the first comprehensive review of the EU-US TFTP Agreement. Today’s report shows that all the relevant elements of the Agreement have been implemented in accordance with its provisions, including the data protection provisions. Our US colleagues have worked in a very constructive manner with us to make this review possible. We must continue to work together in order to improve our cooperation even further and implement the recommendations put forward by the EU review team as regards increased transparency and more written information to Europol. I would also like to express my support for Europol and its Director. Europol was given a difficult and sensitive task under the Agreement. The review confirms that Europol has taken this task very seriously, and has put in place the necessary procedures to execute it in a professional manner and in accordance with the Agreement.”