WTO-SPECIAL: Subsidies Concession Largely Symbolic, Groups Say

The final text salvaged from around-the-clock global trade talks here sets a deadline to end farm export subsidies by rich nations, a long-time demand by developing nations, but also binds poorer countries to more dramatically open their markets to multinational corporations.

WTO-SPECIAL: Modest Deal Offered to Poorest Nations

The world's least developed countries were handed a modest development package out of the tough global trade talks winding down here, but the offer is heavily qualified and some doubt that it will even dent the countries' sweeping poverty levels.

WTO-SPECIAL: Farmers Get Violent as Trade Talks Fail

It was a fight over rice. South Korean farmers battled police outside the halls where the week-long ministerial meet of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was ending Sunday, with little progress on the issue of export subsidies that rich nations pay to keep their agriculture going and undercut farmers in developing countries.

WTO-SPECIAL: Draft Text Is a Raw Deal, Activist Warns

World Trade Organisation (WTO) officials released a draft text Saturday of the meeting's final outcome pact, although disagreements among the group's 149 member countries - most sharply between the richest and poorest - could still scuttle the document.

WTO-SPECIAL: Young French Farmers Fight for Subsidies

Noëlle Poisson-Hedouin has been working 16 hours a day since she came here on Monday, all for one purpose - to stop delegates from 149 countries meeting at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) from forcing France to cut its farm subsidies. She only has one more day to go to "success".

WTO-SPECIAL: ‘Do Not Sacrifice Development’

Some 90 civil society organisations have asked developing countries "not to sacrifice their development by accepting the inadequate offers and extreme demands of developed countries."

WTO-SPECIAL: Failure to Reach Agreement Would Benefit South

Social action movements that have been following the World Trade Organisation (WTO) debates in Hong Kong from a distance are of the opinion that if the meeting ends without a firm agreement, it will mainly be of benefit to the countries of the developing South, which need more time to strengthen their bargaining position.

WTO-SPECIAL: EU Zeroes In on Services

A thrust by the European Union, to secure advantages in the services sector and link this to the cuts in trade-distorting farm subsidies and tariffs demanded by developing countries, has stymied chances of a multilateral treaty at this week's sixth ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) here.

WTO-SPECIAL: EU Takes Offensive at Trade Talks

The European Union, under pressure to offer greater cuts in its farm subsidies at global trade talks here, has challenged its counterparts on a number of issues from food aid to tariffs to support for state-run commodity cartels. And the strategy is working.

WTO-SPECIAL: Historic Union in Hong Kong

In a historic move, 110 developing country members of the 149-nation World Trade Organisation (WTO) have joined hands to make the Doha Development Round a reality - as a development round. The round was launched in the Qatari capital four years ago.

WTO-SPECIAL: Developing Nations Push Back

Once downtrodden at international meetings, developing countries, led by India and Brazil, are showing renewed assertiveness in the face of pressure from industrialised nations that are lobbying to open new markets at a global trade meeting here.

DEVELOPMENT: Poor Countries to Lose in EU Budget

Developing countries are set to be the biggest losers as European leaders meet in Brussels this week for a crucial summit to reach agreement on the European Union's next seven-year budget.

WTO-SPECIAL: Cotton, Acid Test for Doha Round

Zambian cotton farmers are "dressed in rags since they cannot afford to buy clothes, made of the cotton they are producing,’’ said Irene Banda, a human rights activist, describing the real consequences of unfair trade policies and dumping practices that affect a historically sensitive commodity.

CHALLENGES 2005-2006: Another Year, Another Food Crisis

For several years now, Southern Africa has faced acute food shortages that look set to continue in 2006. According to the United Nations, several countries in the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) will still be relying on food handouts next year to prevent millions of their citizens from starving to death.

WTO-SPECIAL: US, EU Spar Over Food Aid, Subsidies Sidelined

The second day of global talks to liberalise trade among nearly 150 nations devolved into a row between the United States and Europe over U.S. food aid to poor nations, amid European accusations that Washington's programme is a farm subsidy disguised in a humanitarian cloak.

WTO-SPECIAL: Zero Tariffs Today, Zero Fish Tomorrow?

One of the most contentious issues at this week's World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit here is the trade in what is technically called non- agricultural products.

WTO-SPECIAL: More Aid-for-Trade Carrots Offered Poor Nations

Rich nations are talking about a fresh trade package for the world's poorest countries as a way out of the shaky World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks, now underway here.

WTO-SPECIAL: ‘Importing Food Is Importing Unemployment’

When J.B. Penn, United States under secretary for agriculture, came visiting last month he was told that for India, like any other mainly farming country, importing food was as good as importing unemployment.

WTO-SPECIAL: Red Carpet for Delegates, Activists Get Harassment

After months of rumours that opponents of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) will wreak havoc on the city, activists here say Hong Kong authorities have launched a targeted campaign of harassment.

WTO-SPECIAL: Stalled Talks Get Underway

A high-profile meeting that seeks to knock down global trade barriers for international businesses started here Tuesday, amid tensions between developing and industrialised countries over the lavish support that rich nations give their farmers, while demanding that developing countries further open up their markets to goods and services.

MEXICO: Free Trade Only One Factor in Rural Plight, Says Study

A study sponsored by the regional United Nations agency ECLAC suggests that anti-globalisation and rural activists are wrong to blame NAFTA for most of the ills that afflict the Mexican countryside.