THE current failure of the World Trade Organisation talks means that more emphasis is being placed on bilateral trade deals between the EU and some of the world’s poorest countries.

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IRELAND’S Damian Foxall is racing in home waters today as the six boats of the Volvo Ocean Race pass the south and west coasts as part of the 1500-mile Leg 8 from Portsmouth to Rotterdam.

WTO talks were in peril today with the EU trade chief saying they were “going backwards", and cotton, banana and sugar growing nations threatening to reject any trade deal that failed to protect their farmers.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has promised to support a proposal that would ease the impact of the European Union’s planned cut in sugar prices for Caribbean producers by slowly phasing in tariff reforms, the Guyanese government said today.

Caribbean countries will violate Caribbean Community rules if they take advantage of an oil pact they signed with Venezuela promising fuel on easy terms, the leader of Barbados said.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said yesterday that decades of preferential access have not boosted Caribbean exports to Europe, and urged countries to end their economic dependence on single agricultural crops.

Caribbean airline BWIA suspended several flights to the Caribbean and Europe today, the latest effort to save the carrier from financial collapse.

Three Caribbean trade ministers will visit Europe next week to lobby against an EU proposal to slash Caribbean sugar subsidies, an official said yesterday.