Economics...

OK - I'm not one to rule out a Free Trade Agreement - as long as it actually is that "Free" and "Trade" and "Agreement".

Australia got a good old pineapple serving when it's Government tried to negoitate a Free Trade Agreement during a US Federal election year. Ahm guys, what were you thinking?

What hope has poor Thailand got in it's "negotiations" with the US?

At least in Thailand there are street rallies etc Thousands begin protest of free trade pact
- unlike here in Australia where the most that seemed to happen was "some" newspaper columnists got uptight. I remember that the unions and a few others were also trying to get the message across that the FTA would be the end of the world as we knew it, and the Federal opposition were able to extract some concessions.

But now there is talk of winding back some of those concessions - like evergreening in relation to pharmaceutical patents. But acting PM (and importantly he's also the Trade Minister) says that these changes won't be allowed to have any impact on the PBS or on pharmaceutical competition. So why bother changing the provisions? Just to show who controls the Senate now??

I think we are well aware of that.

Well, good luck Thailand. You may get a better deal out of the US than Australia did; you may not have contributed troops to the "war on terror", but you do still have a "Zero Tolerance" policy on drugs...

So - no needle and syringe programs, no methadone available, no outreach for IDU's. And now, if the US congressional lobbyists get there way, no affordable antirets will be available either.

Speaking of "Congressional Lobbyists", Jack Abramhoff may be gone, and the entire "industry" be tainted (no Shit Sherlock - but why has it taken so long?), but I can't see that it will make any difference until the US campaign funding system is totally overhauled.

It hardly strikes me as a small-d-democratic system when campaign costs for the presidency are in the high-tens-to-low-hundreds of millions of dollars.

So, some things aren't so bad here in Australia.