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LY BD © oF VEN? unity, though he also faced criticism ya from European allies about the pro- posed US national missile system.) However, within days of the Berlin summit, the New York Stock Exchange announced it had invited a group of nine exchanges, includ- ing Australia and Hong Kong, to form a 24-hour global equity mar- ket (GEM) worth $US20 trillion and representing 60 per cent of the world's shares. The move is designed to compete with the London/Frankfurt iX merger, the world's fourth-largest exchange by market capitalisation. It is seen as a key step towards full globalisation of financial markets but it could marginalise smaller countries like Australia even further. The demand for global share trad- ing is unclear, but the new arrangements for cross-border settlement of share trans- fers and common accounting standards are expected to facilitate the transition. These new developments have done nothing to calm public disquiet over the rapid growth of global markets and power of transnational corporations. The new face of public resistance is French farmer José Bové (the so-called "Robin Hood of Roquefort"), who is on trial with nine oth- ers for trashing a newly constructed McDonald's restaurant in the town of Millau last August. He sees the fast-food giant as a symbol of much that is going wrong in the world, and that "it stands for industrially produced food—bad for tradi- tional farmers and bad for your health". Bové's critics claim his motivation is based on what French farmers stand to lose out of the 22% of multibillion-dollar agri- cultural subsidies provided by the European Union. (Sources: Guardian Weekly, London, I1- 17 May; Australian Financial Review, 18 & 19 May, 5 & 9 June; Sydney Morning Herald, / July 2000) ot on the heels of the historic merger of the London and Frankfurt stock exchanges—and the immediate signal from the US high- tech Nasdaq market to want to join the "iX" alliance—comes news that a new system of international accounting standards is now a step closer. At its meeting in Sydney on 17 May, the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) gave its support to a set of rules devised by the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), a London-based group of professional accountants from 104 countries. The new global accounting lan- guage (comprising 30 rules in all) will assist transnational companies in cross-border equity and debt issues and facilitate access to capital markets. Meantime, the so-called "progressive governance" summit of 14 centre-left gov- ernment leaders, including six G7 nations, held in Berlin on 34 June, set out a new agenda for containing globalisation and resurrecting plans for strengthening world financial regulation. It was convened in response to the changes unleashed by fast- paced globalisation and the concerns these have triggered in their national electorates. The meeting's communiqué said that recent financial crises had underscored the need for proper financial regulation and that "market economies must be combined with social responsibility in order to create long-term growth, stability and full employment, to promote social justice and protect the environment". US President Bill Clinton, who attended the meeting, described the communiqué as a “fair statement of the way we view the 21st-century world". (On the eve of the summit, he became the first US President to receive the prestigious Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to European WELL, TACK, DO You STILL THINK THEY WEREN' GENETICALLY MODI FIED 2 oY WORLD BANK PRIVATISES THIRD WORLD WATER RIGHTS everal years ago, Ismail Serageldin, Vice-President of the World Bank, said that the wars of the 21st century will be about water. He was referring to the fact that the world is running out of fresh water sources at an alarming rate, and that con- flict over what remains will be inevitable. To respond to the crisis, the World Bank a 6 = NEXUS THE NEW WORLD AUDIT AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 2000