1. Techdirt reports that at the same time public interest groups were denied a reservation at the same hotel where the 10th round of TPP negotiations were being held this week in California, film industry lobbyists took negotiators on an extensive tour of 20th Century Fox's studios.

2. The 11th round of TPP negotiations will be held in Melbourne from 1-9 March. Stakeholder registration is now open on DFAT's official TPP site. Interested participants can apply by 17 February.

3. The LA Progressive features an op-ed by Timothy Robertson and Matt Kavanagh (of the California Fair Trade Coalition and HEALTH GAP, respectively), highlighting their concerns with the secrecy of current negotiations.

4. Professor Jane Kelsey believes that NZ could have faced a lawsuit under its existing FTA with China if had blocked a major farm purchase by a Chinese company last month, and that this is a taste of processes under a TPP with investor-state remedies.

5. Reuters report that Washington is still considering Japan's bid to join the TPP negotiations, but that USTR Ron Kirk has welcomed changes to their market access regime for goods and services over the past twelve months.

6. Knowledge Economy International has written an open letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, asking for greater transparency in TPP negotiations.

7. Canadian Trade Minister Ed Fast has told Globe and Mail reporters that he believes there is broad Washington support for Canada entering the TPP.

8. Writing for Forbes, E.D Kain warns that although SOPA was stopped after extensive online protests and ACTA has had some of its most severe provisions removed in its final draft, the IP negotiations for TPP remain shrouded in secrecy.

9. The Emergency Committee for American Trade, a pro-trade and investment group, has supplied comments to USTR in response to Canada, Japan, and Mexico's expressions of interest in TPP. They are available here.

1. The conservative Australian Lowy Institute has published an op-ed piece questioning the Australian government's willingness to enter into a trade pact that would set out to exclude China.

2. NZCIS chief executive Paul Matthews has written for the NZ National Business Review warning that signing up to the TPP may put NZ's current domestic law excluding software from patent protection. Matthews concludes that the government is more concerned about agriculture concessions in the ongoing talks, rather than the technology sector.

3. A coalition of US agriculture and food lobby groups, spearheaded by the National Pork Producers Council, have written to the USTR requesting Japan's immediate inclusion in TPP talks, stating that this will generate enormous interest and support in US agriculture.

4. Public Citizen has now completed a comparative chart of pharmaceutical patent and data provisions in the TRIPS agreement, in existing FTAs between the US and four TPP parties, and in the leaked US  IPR proposal. Both long-form and condensed versions are available here.

5. New Zealand's lead TPP negotiator, Mark Sinclair, has been announced as NZ's new Ambassador to Japan. He will be replaced in future rounds of talks by Dr. David Walker. Dr. Walker has an extensive trade background, including negotiating TPP's precusor, the P4 Agreement, and the NZ-China Free Trade Agreement.

6. The Australia and New Zealand Journal of Public Health journal for December features an editorial questioning some of the costs to public health policy involved in the TPPA and other free-trade agreements.

7. Public Citizen's Peter Maybarduk writes for Advocate.com on the TPPA's ramifications for the provision of generic HIV/AIDS drugs in the developing world, concluding that the current proposed trade rules would offer more political and economic power for the patent-based pharmaceutical industry than ever.

8. The December 14 hearing on TPP undertaken by the US House Ways and Means Subcommittee has put testimony from its witnesses online, including Demetrios Marantis (Deputy USTR) and business leaders who support the TPP. Public Citizen has reported on the hearing and provided its own submission for the record, as has Oxfam America and HealthGAP (Global Access Project).

9. Following the Ways and Means hearing, subcommittee member Kevin Brady (R-TX) has warned that Congress may oppose a TPP deal that extends labour provisions for workers' rights beyond those outlined in the US agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama.

10. Writing in an op-ed for The Hill blog, Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America CEO John Castellani urges the TPP reflect existing US law on biologics, as well as the stronger provisions for pharmaceutical patents and data seen under KORUS.

11. The USTR has released a Green Paper on Conservation and the TPP, suggesting that the TPP will allow member countries to pursue a "coordinated response to harmful illegal wildlife and wild plant trade".

1. An open petition has been initiated on the US government's "We The People" online platform, asking that TPP negotiations be stopped. As of today, the petition has nearly 2,000 signatures, and is aiming to reach around 23,000 signatures by Boxing Day.

2. Aaditya Mattoo and Arvind Subramanian (of the World Bank and Peterson Institute for International Economics, respectively) have written an op-ed for the Financial Times (subscriber-only) warning that setting up the TPP expressly to exclude China, as some perceive US strategy to be doing, would lead to "fragmentation and folly".

3. Japanese physician Dr. Tetsuro Irohira has written an open editorial on the challenges he says joining the TPP could pose to Japan's universal medical insurance scheme.

1. ANU's Kyla Tienhaara writes for the Canberra Times about Philip Morris Asia's notice of claim against the Australia federal government under Australia and Hong Kong's bilateral investment treaty, and the alleged lack of transparency involved in the investor-state tribunal process that may result. Philip Morris's claim concerns the government's Tobacco Plain Packaging ('TPP' - not to be confused with the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement) Bill, which would strictly proscribe the packaging and presentation of all tobacco products in Australia. Philip Morris's initial notice of claim can be found here. Similar investor-state dispute resolution provisions are expected to be included in the TPPA.

2. Canada's Globe And Mail reports on NZ Trade Minister Tim Groser's tough response to Stephen Harper's indications of wanting to join TPP talks. Groser insists that Canada will need to do away with its agricultural supply management scheme as a bottom line of any negotiations.

3. Free-trade opponent Ian Fletcher has produced a video for the Huffington Post on why he believes Obama's intention to move forward on TPP is a 'disaster'.

4. Xinhua reports that former Japanese Agriculture Minister Masahiko Yamada may seek an opposing candidate to run against the pro-TPP Prime Minister, Yoshihiko Noda, in election next year - unless he halts Japan's attempts to participate in negotiations.

1. Computerworld NZ has a feature on what TPP might mean for NZ's current IP laws, where Trade Minister Tim Groser is adamant that the negotiations on IP have produced a "balanced deal". However, policy group InternetNZ believe documents released at APEC offer insufficient light to know if this is so.

2. Similarly, Groser has told the Dominion Post that "the fundamentals" of NZ's Pharmac public drug-buying agency "are not up for negotiations" as part of TPP, and indicated it would be six months before negotiators knew whether Canada, Japan, and Mexico would join talks.

2. Peru's Medicinas Para Todos have produced a video about the risks posed to easy medicine access under TPP, in association with Accion Internacional Para Salud and REDGe.

3. Bloomberg reports on possible threats to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's US-led global effort against HIV and AIDS from the TPP, with Public Citizen's Peter Maybarduk warning that it could keep prices for treatment prohibitively high.

4. The Jakarta Post reports that ASEAN is contemplating consolidating free-trade agreements between its regional trading partners as a counter-reaction to the ambitious TPP framework.

5. New Zealand Herald economics editor Brian Fallow writes about the challenges involved in admitting Japan to the TPP at this stage and what this may mean for NZ and the US in terms of agriculture.

6. The Sydney Morning Herald has published an opinion piece by Dr Russell Marks of La Trobe University, who argues that the TPP is built on discredited economics.

7. Professor Jane Kelsey has produced a composite report about the implications of the APEC leaders' meeting in Honolulu for TPPA, available on TPPDigest here.

Welcome to the new-style TPP Digest. The archives of press releases, draft negotiation texts, and position statements are being updated all the time - the front page will provide a digest of media and new developments once a week.

1. The Globe And Mail reports on Canada's surprise announcement at APEC that it wants to join the TPP, and what this means for existing protections on its poultry and dairy.

2. The International Trade Union Confederation has published its lengthy statement to the APEC leaders this weekend past in Honolulu, including substantial recommendation on what they would like to see from a finished TPP.

3. Two weeks ahead of the New Zealand general election, unions, including the CTU and the Maritime Union, have re-affirmed their opposition to TPP unless it is in the country's best interests.

4. Joint Statements from TPP members which were made at APEC are now available as a subsection under "Positions By Country" on the left-hand menu. Press briefings during APEC from The White House and USTR are available on the US's country page.

5. The US's indications that Japan were willing to negotiate on TPP at once with all goods and services on the table has been refuted by PM Yoshihiko Noda, who is now embattled at home from strong opposition with his own party on joining the talks (Mainichi Daily News).

6. The Jakarta Post anticipates further tension on economic co-operation in the South Pacific at the East Asia Summit, with the possibility that China will attempt to counter the US's strong push for TPP to be the dominant FTA framework in the region.

7. Professor Jane Kelsey has written a series of eyewitness accounts of APEC for Scoop (1 2 3 4), and writes for the NZ Herald on the APEC meeting here.

8. Meanwhile, Deputy NZ PM Bill English and NZ Trade Minister Tim Groser have returned from APEC claiming that the joint statement was an ambitious document that "exceeded all expectations".

9. The Sydney Morning Herald runs a political editorial urging that Australia avoid entering into a trade arrangement designed primarily to alienate or "get" China.

10. Australia's ABC News speaks to the Asian Development Bank's Iwan Azis, who believes that acheiving the standard of TPP the US is seeking will be "very difficult" in practice.