Red Pepper News

WTO: around the web

For up-to-date and radical analysis of the WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong, the Focus on the Global South website is an excellent place to start. Choike, a Southern-based civil society portal, also has a wide range of news and analysis - it's WTO page is here, and it  includes useful briefings from the Third World Network. The World Development Movement has the best coverage of the UK NGOs, including blogs from Caroline Lucas (Green MEP) and various WDM campaigners. For more on the WTO protests, Via Campesina is organising solidarity amongst farmers' movements, whilst the Hong Kong People's Alliance has brought together local campaigners. Indymedia, the activist news site founded at the Seattle anti-WTO protests in 1999, is also worth a look.

WTO Fiasco: Lamy Spins Deception Deal at Hong Kong

Focus on the Global South: The unholy trio of the EU, US and Pascal Lamy succeeded in their attempt to force developing countries into accepting a Ministerial Declaration that further forecloses the development of countries of the South.

After 6 days of acrimonious negotiations the final day of the Hong Kong Ministerial ended with the adoption of a highly flawed text that doesn’t reflect what several developing countries have been demanding over the last 5 days. The resistance of countries such as the G90, Venezuela, Kenya and Cuba were systematically thwarted by immense pressure from the developed world. Venezuela and Cuba registered a reservation on the NAMA and services components of the text at the closing plenary. Its legal standing remains unclear. 

IMF attacks democracy

 

Jo Kuper in Washington writes: In an extraordinary demonstration of the IMF’s habitual bullying of poor countries, and its opposition to democratic scrutiny of its activities, senior IMF staff threw two MPs out of the meeting of the Group of 24 Ministers from Developing Countries on Friday 23 September. Dr. Dradjad Wibowo MP from Indonesia and Hon. Mohammed Jagri MP from Ghana had been invited to attend the meeting by the G24 Secretariat to present a petition calling for democratic oversight of World Bank and IMF policies, and to question World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and IMF Managing Director Rodrigo Rato. The petition has been signed by over 1000 MPs from 54 parliaments and is supported by a broad range of civil society groups.

Stop the WTO corporate agenda before Hong Kong

The Geneva Peoples’ Alliance (GPA), an NGO and social movement coalition from across Europe, is calling demonstrators to Geneva on 15 October to coincide with the forthcoming meeting of the WTO General Council. It is the last chance to voice popular protest against the WTO ahead of December’s round of trade talks in Hong Kong, which are aimed at further liberalising the global economy. Read on for the GPA statement.