Trade : USTR threatens countries imposing digital tax regimes (PRIV)
(D. Ravi Kanth, Geneva)
The United States has threatened France for pursuing a "digital tax regime", by proposing to slap tariffs up to 100% against $2.4 billion of French imports in response to the French digital services tax on American tech companies.

Trade : WTO rejects EU's claims of compliance in Airbus dispute (PRIV)
(Kanaga Raja, Geneva)
A compliance panel at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has ruled that the European Union and four of its member states - France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom - have failed to comply with an earlier WTO panel ruling over subsidies provided by the EU and its four member states to the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus.

Climate : Need for transformational approach in tackling climate change (PRIV)
(Prerna Bomzan, Madrid)
At the opening ceremony of the climate talks in Madrid, Spain on 2 December, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that what the world needed in tackling climate change was "not an incremental approach, but a transformational one", that involved "rapid and deep change in the way we do business, how we generate power, how we build cities, how we move, and how we feed the world."

UN : Crisis-stricken oceans doomed to destruction without a global treaty (PRIV)
(IPS, New York)
The greatest single climate-induced threat facing the world's 44 small island developing states (SIDS) is rising sea waters which could obliterate some of the low-lying states, including Maldives, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Palau and Micronesia.