With the sixth World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting taking place in Hong Kong, the core of on-the-streets protest will be drawn from organisations in Asia. Pambazuka News asked Nicola Bullard from Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based group that researches international finance and globalization issues, about strategy, messages, WTO reform and the links between African and Asia in resisting an unfair deal.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: In April, Focus on the Global South articulated a "strategy of derailment" for the WTO in an article 'The End of an Illusion: WTO Reform, Global Civil Society and the Road to Hong Kong'. The article said: "Essentially, derailment involves zeroing in on the key point of vulnerability of the WTO: its consensus system of decision-making. Concretely, it means working to prevent consensus from emerging in any of the key negotiating areas prior to and during the Sixth Ministerial in Hong Kong." Has anything changed and does this strategy remain the focus of activity?

NICOLA BULLARD: Well, the first thing to say about preventing a consensus is that it’s a short term strategy, aimed to slow down the process in the WTO, and the reason we want to slow it down is because we firmly believe that under the present conditions of unfair agreements, unequal power and undemocratic processes, most developing countries have little to gain in the WTO.

Our larger critique is that the overarching model, based on the assumption that export oriented trade liberalisation will lead to growth and hence development, is based on a faulty model. This critical view is supported by economic data on employment, incomes and growth which show that over the past 10 years, although there has been a boom in the volume of trade, this has not resulted in increased living standards, employment or broader benefits to the society.

In terms of the concrete strategy leading to Hong Kong, we are still working in every way that we can to strengthen the solidarity of developing country groups and to maximise the contradictions and disagreements between the negotiating countries in an effort to stall a consensus: we are working with trade delegations in Geneva, working at the national level to increase the pressure on the domestic front, and working with the media to heighten their awareness of what’s at stake and who is calling the shots in the WTO. So, blocking consensus remains an important objective.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What is the role of mass public pressure in pursuing the goal of derailment and how successful has it been in the run up to the WTO meeting? What role do you expect it to play in the immediate period before the meeting, as well as during the meeting?

Public pressure, mobilisations and demonstrations are key: the work that we do “inside” the WTO, like policy analysis and lobbying, is pointless unless it is part of a larger process of mobilising public opinion, democratising the debates over trade, and bringing real in-the-streets pressure to bear on politicians at the national level. In addition, demonstrations can draw the media spotlight to what is going on inside the WTO. However one of the perennial struggles is to get the press to focus on the content of our arguments against the WTO rather than whether or not there will be violent protests in Hong Kong. However, I think this battle is being slowly won as the press becomes better informed about trade and development.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: What are the key messages that you are pushing ahead of the summit?

NICOLA BULLARD: One of the slogans that many groups agree to is “no deal is better than a bad deal”. By this we mean it’s better for developing countries to walk away from the table than to accept a shoddy deal that is not in their interests.

We are also focussing on the ten year record of the WTO. What we see is a litany of broken promises as the rich countries time and time again refuse to deal with the issues of central concern to developing countries such as ending dumping, protecting their agricultural sectors, access to life saving drugs, an assessment of the impacts of the Uruguay Round liberalisation (that is, the last ten years of trade liberalisation) and consideration of the costs of adjusting to the WTO trading rules. All of these issues, and many more, have been systematically ignored by the powerful countries who stand to gain from the system.

So our overarching message is that the WTO is a faulty system, there is a fundamental design flaw in the trade model it is promoting, and we need a different approach before the damage gets even worse.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: From Africa, it often seems as if some of the most dynamic and powerful resistance to the policies of the WTO and the World Bank and IMF take place in Asia. How much of a mass public awareness is there and if you think there is, what do you think are the factors that have contributed towards its creation?

NICOLA BULLARD: Funnily enough, from Asia we think that some of the most powerful resistance to the WTO comes from Africa! After all, it was the African ministers who walked out in Seattle, it was the G90 that walked out in Cancun, it was four small cotton producing countries – Benin, Mali, Bukino Faso and Chad – that brought the scandal of US cotton subsidies into the public eye, and it was the African countries who fought so hard to get a reconsideration of the TRIPS and health provisions.

Of course they may not be winning these battles but they are certainly courageous, especially when you consider how vulnerable they are to pressures from the EU and the US, threats about not having their debts rescheduled and so on.

Many Asian countries are much more competitive in the global trading game and often their positions are more aggressive. This is partly because of the industrialisation that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, which saw many of the East Asian “tigers” made tremendous economic leaps by adopting state-driven development strategies, such as directing investment to certain sectors and protecting fledgling industrial sectors. Many of these measures are now illegal under the WTO regime or the bilateral trade agreements which are proliferating in the region. In addition, many sectors of the society, especially workers and farmers and even small local enterprises, realise that the WTO does not protect their interests. For these reasons, there are now large, vocal national campaigns against the WTO and FTAs across the region, including in Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Pakistan and India.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: There still seems to be a school of thought that maintains that the WTO can be reformed. From your perspective, is there any credibility left to this view? Why?

NICOLA BULLARD: The WTO refuses to reform itself, even in the most fundamental aspects of its operations. For example, there are no clear rules about decision making, keeping records, making information available to the members and so on. A long list of proposals made by a large group of developing countries post-Doha on how to improve internal procedures was shelved, never to reappear. As one commentator remarked, a local Scout Club is more transparent than the WTO.

On substantial issues the rich countries have been intransigent – and why wouldn’t they be: the name of the game in the WTO is to maximise access to other people’s markets, while protecting your own. It’s a game that can only be played by rich countries, and these are the very same countries who make the rules. There is no incentive for them to reform the WTO.

Let me give you an example: in Doha the membership agreed to the TRIPS and health declaration which aimed to improve access to low-priced generic drugs to combat life threatening diseases. So, there was a small victory. However, after 12 months of wrangling that “victory” was tuned into a failure because the EU and the US hatched a deal between them which imposed a so-called “solution” which did nothing to resolve the problem and everything to protect the interests of the pharmaceutical companies and the intellectual property regime.

No, there is no hope for reforming the WTO.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: A great deal of euphoria was felt after Cancun. Our own publication, Pambazuka News, carried an article that stated: "Africa emerged from the talks a major negotiating player, no longer the dinner of other trading partners, but defining the direction and outcome of the talks in Cancun." (http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?id=17486) Somehow it seems like that euphoria hasn't been carried forward, not only in Africa, but globally. What happened to the promise of victory?

NICOLA BULLARD: Well, we let our guard down! Cancun was a great victory, but the EU and the US were able to turn the tables when they pushed through the framework agreement at the July General Council meeting the following year. And they did this in a very clever way by bringing India and Brazil into the “inner circle” of negotiations by creating the FIPS – the five interested parties which is the EU, the US, Brazil, India and Australia. By getting the agreement of this group they were able to enforce it on the rest of the members, despite rumblings in the corridors.

PAMBAZUKA NEWS: Lastly, how can stronger links be built between the people of Africa and Asia in pursuing a common agenda with regards the WTO?

NICOLA BULLARD: Of course one can’t talk about Africa as a whole or Asia as a whole: there is so much diversity and different realities in each region. However, many countries have similar problems; rural livelihoods are disappearing, the agricultural sector is being destroyed by dumping, unemployment and underemployment is the norm, incomes are falling due to declining terms of trade, industries are being driven to the ground by cheap imports, and foreign direct investment is proving to be an unreliable development partner. In addition, many countries shoulder a heavy debt burden. However, it’s terribly difficult to build solidarity amongst these countries when they are operating in a trading system which is based on competition, and this competition is particularly destructive when all countries have to trade is cheap labour and cheap natural resources and raw materials.

However, I am optimistic that things can change: there is a new discourse emerging in many different quarters which talks about “policy space” – the idea that countries should be able to set their own economic and development strategy rather than having one imposed by the rich and powerful countries through the WTO and the IMF.

The evidence is clear that trade liberalisation is a dead-end street for many countries and they need an alternative – and they need it now. Civil society stands ready to support any governments that are brave enough to put the interests of their people ahead of the interests of the local and global elite. For our part, all we can do is to strengthen the ties between the people of Asia and Africa, to share information and strategies, and to support each other’s campaigns not only on trade but also on issues such as debt, democracy, and against the ongoing domination of the big powers and the big institutions.

Ironically, one issue that might bring many countries together is the impact that the impressive entry of China into the global markets is having, and will continue to have, on smaller and less competitive countries. But it’s too early to tell how this will evolve.

* Interview conducted by email. Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

In the gloomy world of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, developing countries are being asked, in the words of one commentator, to “chase a black cat down a dark alley blindfolded”. Riaz Tayob takes us into the corridors of the WTO and introduces us to the complicated and confusing world of negotiations on issues that affect the lives of millions in the Global South. Agriculture, health, services – it’s all up for grabs and rich countries will stop at nothing to get their hands on as big piece of the pie as they can cram into their mouths. In this context, and with a dash of manipulation and strong-arm tactics thrown in for extra spice, the danger is of a deal that is an empty gift but sold as real, concludes Tayob.

The importance of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) belies its relatively obscure birth in 1995. Since then it has been quietly chugging along, spreading economic terrorism of the fundamentalist kind. Market fundamentalism is dressed up in the clothes of growth, trade and development and yet this emperor is still naked. And the emperor will stay naked irrespective of what happens in Hong Kong, China. Whatever deal is brokered during this round of negotiations in Hong Kong or thereafter, developing countries cannot benefit much.

Past experience shows that developing countries can put their foot down and stop the process. However, until now they have been unable to extract anything meaningful from a show of unity and are still prone to the “divide and exploit” tactics of the rich countries. The systemic imbalances of the process work against developing countries and it is interesting to see how the audacious negotiating tactics of the rich countries has forced developing countries to move from being antagonists to protagonists on the same issues in a short space of time. The one redeeming feature of the current system is that the empty gift development deception so painstakingly cultivated by the rich countries and their coterie of media is being unravelled from within and without.

Essentially three outcomes are possible. Firstly, no deal is brokered at all. The talks then promptly resume after Hong Kong. Secondly, some sort of minimum deal is worked out to narrow the differences and then to pursue further discussions after Hong Kong. Thirdly, a big deal is brokered. The rich countries must consent to this as they effectively have a veto. A development deal that really meets some or all of the developing country interests may happen, after all this is a development round. But this is unlikely if developing countries continue to be clear about their demands for development space, corrections to inherited imbalances and the inclusion of new opportunities. This is because the essence of the round is about rich countries seeking market access in the developing countries and not about development. So while expectations of a deal in Hong Kong may be low, developing countries have high expectations of the negotiating round. However, the ever present danger to citizens of the world is that the liberalisation machinery may get its way after all, as happened with the rejected Cancun text being accepted almost verbatim six months later by the General Council in Geneva. The lesson to be drawn from this is nothing less than constant vigilance. Deep technical and political analysis is required to ensure that development is not a casualty of the Doha Negotiations.

The high level of ambition in these current Doha Development Agenda negotiations is being recalibrated. High ambitions, it seems, are likely to harm the prospects of a deal and all parties who have an interest in the multilateral system need to be constructive to make progress. This sounds reasonable enough, but only if one discounts the entire experience of developing countries in the WTO. Why should countries who are facing increasing poverty and inequality compromise on high development expectations? The rich countries have continuously made excessive demands on the agenda, to deflect attention away from the demands of the poorer countries, to undermine legitimate demands for changes in agriculture and to limit policy instruments that can be used for development. Besides defending their current policy space, developing countries have sought greater balance in the system by redress of built in inequities, access to promised opportunities that are meaningful and a change to agricultural subsidies regulation.

This overly modest set of demands has been greeted with aristocratic extravagance of the rich countries who have demanded over the years inter alia:

- a 0% tariff on manufactured goods by 2020 (so called Non-Agricultural Market Access – NAMA);

- rules on competition, investment, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation (the “Singapore Issues” or the “New Issues”);

- reversals on the rights on intellectual property to prevent adequate access to medicines;

- limits on miniscule developing countries agricultural subsidies (de minimus supports);

- more liberalisation on services including essential and public services.

Recalibration of expectations for Hong Kong is a direct consequence of the rich country strategies. The strategy and tactics are so excessive that developing countries have over the years found themselves being protagonists and antagonists for the same issue. This is a reflection not only of their adaptability and “constructive engagement” at the WTO, but the sheer might and power of the rich countries in the negotiations.

For instance, in the services negotiations, developing countries were very hesitant to undertake further commitments under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The general opposition to liberalisation was well recognised and when the rich countries saw that they were not getting market access into poor countries they sought to change the negotiating process from a bilateral request-offer to one that ensured that all countries liberalised a specific number of sectors. Developing countries faced with this audacious demand now spend a lot of their time defending the original GATS negotiating process. The initial proposals on competition policy started by some developing countries were perverted into something that the developing countries later had to oppose. Contrast this with the European Union (EU) first dropping their demands on the four Singapore Issues in Cancun then, according to Martin Khor of Third World Network, “undropping” it so that it is squarely on the agenda now. Developing countries cannot even get issues of major national interest on the agenda whereas the EU has the liberty to drop and undrop an issue. And they perceive themselves to be more development friendly.

The services negotiations are important for the rich countries because most of their new employment is in this sector. It has been packaged by the first world media marketing it as an opportunity for the developing countries when in fact the rich countries are desperate for this access. The services negotiations have not reached a point where outstanding issues have been sorted out. At this stage a country has very little idea about the scale and size of a liberalisation offer because the rules have not been worked out. In addition, there has been no progress on measures to protect domestic service suppliers if there is an import supply surge. Developing countries are being asked in these negotiations, as Chakravati Raghavan in his candid way has put it, to ‘chase a black cat down a dark alley blindfolded.’ The recent US/Mexico case has shown that if a country liberalises services at the WTO, pursuing national development goals may be made illegal.

It is not as if the stakes are not high for developing countries. The damage that can be inflicted on developing countries as a result of this round is enormous. In agriculture, the legal fiction of subsidies needs to be addressed. The developed countries deception was stylised into different legal boxes that allowed them to continue to pay subsidies. By definition, some subsidies were prohibited (blue box), others were targeted for reduction (amber box) and a door was opened to sanitise trade distorting support by calling it non-trade distorting support (green box) that has no limits and is legal.

The fiction that the green box is non-trade distorting is now well exposed. Pertinent for rich country citizens is that these supports go mainly to large agricultural corporations and not to their small farmers, so the issue is not about rural livelihoods and the well being of their citizens. Private corporations receive direct payments from the tax payers and still charge exorbitant prices to consumers for agricultural products. It shows a high degree of regulatory capture of the rich country political system which has been shown to cause untold misery, suffering and environmental degradation throughout the developing world – for which no amount of aid can compensate.

Peter Mandelsohn, the EU trade commissioner, has recently alluded to the importance of food production as an issue of national security. He said: "I don't believe in a free market in agriculture... If we had a free market ... we'd be in the hands of a relatively small number of producers who could hold us hostage." Internally, he does not want a system that would compromise the ability of Europe to cater for her needs. Externally, holding the entire developing world hostage to a system that compromises their food security is not an issue for discussion.

Implicitly, Mandelsohn recognises that the political control that the current trade deal gives the rich countries over the citizens of the developing countries is far too important to be given up. After all, if you can control the food supply of the poor countries, as the rich world does, then it is easier to exert other forms of control. The more brazenly imperialist US does not give as much credence to the European perspective and recognises that ownership of productive resources in the developing countries provides far more political leverage, and is seemingly willing to compromise more on agriculture but also not by much. The EU and US expect the poor countries to salivate over their offers, because of their generosity. They offer to cut the ceiling of what they are allowed to pay. It has no impact on the actual subsidies they are paying, because they are paying less than what they are legally entitled to pay. In any event, they do not want to place any limits on the Green Box subsidies which are legal and have no ceiling. This keeps the possibility open that they can shift their subsidy cuts from one box to the other, meaning that their offer is actually worthless. Less than 10% of their gross domestic product is in agriculture while in many African countries it is over 50%. The logic of the rich countries is: “why teach a person to fish when you can give them a meal”. This is what the rich countries sell to their citizens as “development.”

The rich countries are also pursuing major cuts on tariffs in industrial goods, fisheries, forestry and mining products (NAMA – Non Agricultural Market Access). They propose to cut tariffs by a formula on each and every line of tariffs. Rich countries already have low tariffs and have a proposed a formula that cuts the tariffs of developing countries much more than it would cut their own, in real terms. Yet, in terms of the agreements, the tariff cuts are supposed to non-reciprocal, with developing countries cutting their tariffs less. Argentina, Brazil and India have proposed a formula with a medium cut. The Caribbean nations have proposed a formula that proposes a very small cut for developing countries. Despite the attractiveness of the Caribbean proposal support for their proposal has not been forthcoming. The draft report produced by the Chairman of NAMA predictably sidelines the Caribbean proposal for the Ministerial.

There is an even better alternative method to tariff cuts under NAMA, if tariff cuts are required of developing countries at all. Yilmaz Akyuz says that an average cut in tariffs, as opposed to a line by line cut, will allow developing countries the flexibility to better meet their future needs because they could protect some sectors while opening up others for competition, as long as the changes do not exceed the average tariff limit. What is very worrying about Akyuz's analysis is that the average tariffs of developing countries are already much less than the average tariffs used by the rich countries during their developmental stage. What is even worse is that least developed countries and some others are being asked to place a ceiling (bind) on all their tariffs in exchange for not making any tariff cuts. This is a very serious limitation on their policy flexibility, especially if they are supposed to be getting this round for free. But with usual rich country aplomb, the packaging of the “gift” matters much more than the real contents inside.

In public health, the rich world and the WTO Secretariat in Geneva are all party to a fraud that can directly be linked to the suffering and deaths of millions of our people. In 1995, developing countries secured legal rights to violate patent laws which were protected under the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) agreement. Developed countries then promptly proceeded to prevent countries from using these flexibilities and in 2001 in Doha, developing countries secured an agreement that merely restated the rights they already had. The flexibilities in the TRIPs agreement to promote access to medicines had a limit, however. If a country was violating a patent right using a compulsory license to legally make generics, it could only produce primarily for its domestic market.

African countries with limited local production capacity faced the risk of not being able to secure adequate supplies of generics and sought a waiver. The waiver would allow them to secure enough generic drugs, allowing the producers to produce more than the limits in TRIPs. This may have been a tactical error that history may judge harshly because Africa pursued a waiver instead of relying on the flexibilities provided in article 30 of TRIPs, that gives wider flexibility. By pursing the waiver we undermined the possibility of developing article 30, which is more flexible and provides greater access to drugs. In any event the waiver has proven so onerous to be positively useless as no developed or developing country has made use of it in spite of a huge need for drugs.

The waiver had two components, a signed agreement and the text of a speech read out by the Chairperson of the TRIPs council. The agreement placed conditions on using the waiver and the Chairperson's text had many more onerous conditions. The signed agreement did not refer to the Chairman's statement when it was signed. The WTO Secretariat then fraudulently added an asterisk and a footnote referring to the Chairman's text, in an effort to make the use of the waiver nigh impossible. The developing countries protested about this and to date the Secretariat of the WTO refuses to remove the asterisk and the footnote. The developing countries refuse to recognise the Chairman's text as part of the agreement because it was not agreed to and also undermines the purpose of the waiver. So the dispute on the TRIPs agreement is a false dispute created and orchestrated by the rich countries to protect profits at the expense of millions of lives.

The danger inherent in the TRIPs agreement was made very clear at the Second African Union Extraordinary Session of Trade Ministers in Arusha. South African and Kenyan officials attempted to withdraw the Africa Group proposal. The Africa Group proposal is the basis for opposition to the fraud on the waiver and an attempt to secure a solution that is practical. Using tactics that can only be called highly synchronised, South Africa and Kenya tried to get the Africa Group proposal withdrawn. They did this without making it explicit that this is what they intended. Thankfully with concerted effort by other Africans this was averted. It is interesting to note that South Africa indicated unequivocal support for the Africa Group proposal during its consultation with civil society. The change in position therefore undermines the value of the consultations. With Kenya of course, the change in position occurred at a time when the entire cabinet was fired and yet there was a continuity in the position of TRIPs. The powers behind these changes seem to have an influence on African politics that is as opaque as it is powerful.

There is a real problem with transparency, accountability, good governance and democracy at the WTO. The WTO processes are simultaneously crude and sophisticated in their dictatorial tendencies. The draft texts for discussion in Hong Kong have been prepared by Chairpersons who have been accused of ignoring developing countries proposals and putting in elements where there is no consensus. Overall the bias of these chairpersons is toward the rich countries. The rich countries make a point of complaining that they have been sidelined by the chair in an effort to create an impression that the chairpersons texts/reports are not biased. Developing countries have not been as easily hoodwinked as the rich country media on this. The representative of Venezuela, upset at the text presented by a Chair, asked him “where does your responsibility [for the text] end and where does ours [the members] begin.”

From the very beginning developing countries have to start negotiations from a point of weakness that has been built into the process. The fact that Pascal Lamy is now the Director General of the WTO should also not be forgotten. He was unanimously selected for the job and has moved from being the bully boy in the school yard to the teacher with the whip. What is clear is that he has not seemed to have changed his tendency to tell developing countries what is good for them. He did this in his previous position as EU Trade Commissioner and continues to this day. In what must have been one of his lowest moments in his career, he addressed the AU Trade Ministers meeting in Arusha. He said that expectations must be recalibrated and that African countries should develop a bottom line. This was not a problem. However like Father Christmas he came carrying the “gift” of “aid for trade” and the promise of an increase in assistance for African countries. Now it can be seen as genuine, but in the context of North-South relations it can also be seen as an attempt to buy up the ministers. After all, many African states are aid dependant and are easily influenced in this way.

The danger of a deal that is an empty gift, well packaged by Lamy and his de facto political bosses in Washington and Brussels, is real. The Lamy factor should not be underestimated. The WTO may be a medieval institution, as Lamy once called it. He now has the power of the medieval lords behind him to drive a deal whatever the cost to developing countries. Developing countries should remain vigilant and ensure that they get what they want from the round. They do need to do a lot more to expose the injustices that they face in the process because without such exposure, the rich countries maintain and extend their power. If they do this more and more, then any failure of this round can be clearly blamed on the rich countries instead of them.

* Riaz Tayob works for the Southern and Eastern African Trade Negotiation Institute (SEATINI) www.seatini.org

* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org

In Hong Kong there is a chance to make decisions that will lift billions of people out of poverty. Trade can be part of the solution to poverty but at the moment it’s part of the problem. More than 31 million people around the world have joined the Global Call to Action Against Poverty this year and they will not give up until poverty is ended. Hong Kong is a chance that must not be missed. The whole world will be watching. I thank you.

N R Mandela (One of the 31 million people who have taken action in support of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty this year).

The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), described as the world's largest anti-poverty coalition, is the recipient of the 2005 International Achievement Award for Excellence in Communication given by Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency. Consisting of over a thousand non-governmental organisations (NGOs), grass roots movements and civil society groups representing more than 150 million people worldwide, GCAP is leading an intensive campaign for a substantial shift in national and international policies that will eliminate poverty and achieve and exceed the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the targeted date 2015.

More facts have emerged on why the over N30 billion grant made available to Nigeria for the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by an international financial institution, Global Fund, was suspended. A letter addressed to the Federal Ministry of Health by the Fund, said "serious concerns have been raised about grant implementation and the ability of the principal recipient to achieve the goals of the grants".

On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has become a universal standard for defending and promoting human rights. Every year on 10 December, Human Rights Day marks the adoption of the Universal Declaration. The theme of Human Rights Day 2005 is "End Torture Now!". Torture is a crime under international law. According to all relevant instruments, it is absolutely prohibited and cannot be justified under any circumstances.

The European Union is expected to release the first 50-million-euro tranche of a 3-year aid package to Kenya after the enactment of corruption laws, news reports said Wednesday. The much delayed Public Procurement bill was signed into law by president Mwai Kibaki only at the end of November, after the E.U. had warned it would withhold the 120-million-euro package if the law was not enacted by the end of the year.

"The following statement has been drafted by a group of human rights organizations and advocates from around the world. The group functions as a civil society "human rights caucus" around the WTO. The statement will be released on December 10 - International Human Rights Day - in Hong Kong on the eve of the WTO Ministerial Meeting. We invite all human rights supporters to co-sign the statement with us. This call for endorsements comes in English only, but the text will be translated to French and Spanish in the coming days."

Endorsements should be sent to Tamara Herman at globalisation@dd-rd.ca.
The deadline for endorsements is NOON (EST), December 9, 2005.

Please include the name of your organization (with french and spanish
translations if available), and the country in which it is headquartered.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers works to prevent the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, to secure their demobilisation and to ensure their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. The Child Soldiers Newsletter is published three times a year, with the support of the Human Security Program at Foreign Affairs Canada.

A recent special report by the International Relations Centre contends: "World maps illustrating areas of high poverty largely overlap those of high HIV/AIDS prevalence. It's no coincidence that both poverty and the HIV-AIDS pandemic have run rampant in these last two decades of neoliberalism, since the root causes of both can be found in the economic model." Read more by clicking on the link provided.

Despite being a resource rich country with 3% annual growth per year (11% in 2004), the development impacts of the activities in the oil sector in Angola have had a limited effect on the rest of the economy and poverty is widespread. Inflation is very high (31% in 2004, down from 76% in 2003), and the country has been able to develop hardly any local industry. Oil companies have therefore been criticised, particularly by NGOs, for not taking due account of the developmental impact of their extraction of resources. A report from the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway examines this issue and asks what the responsibility of oil companies in Angola is and which of these responsibilities the companies take.

"The big relief is that the debate around the information society no longer needs to be tied to the WSIS process," said communications expert David Souter at Panos London's final briefing in Tunis. Very true, writes Murali Shanmugavelan in this article on the Panos iWitness web page. The information society is broader than the agenda of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) could ever have hoped to cover. And the resulting non-binding Tunis Declaration has produced little in concrete terms for developing countries.

This guide is intended to enable teachers to enhance and develop quality reading programmes at the primary school level that lead to improved reading outcomes. This manual is based on the results of work with teacher trainers as well as studies carried out by UNESCO in China, Ethiopia and Jamaica. Literacy is one of UNESCO’s three special target areas to accelerate progress towards Education for All by 2015; the others are Teacher Training and HIV/AIDS prevention education.

New guidelines prepared by UNESCO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) offer tools and sets of useful orientations to assess the quality of higher education provided across borders. They aim to protect students and other stakeholders from the risks of misinformation, low quality provision and qualifications of limited validity.

This report stresses the urgent need to look beyond aid projects, debt relief and trade reform, and focus on local natural resources to address the crisis of poverty in all parts of the globe. ‘Traditional assumptions about addressing poverty treat the environment almost as an afterthought,’ said Jonathan Lash, president of the World Resources Institute (WRI). ‘This report addresses the stark reality of the poor: three-fourths of them live in rural areas; their environment is all they can depend on.’

The draft Ministerial text for the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial Conference to be held in Hong Kong on 13-18th December was issued on Saturday 26th November. The text was presented by the WTO Director General Pascal Lamy and the General Council chair. "This draft text for Hong Kong is heavily imbalanced and biased towards the rich countries", warns Peter Aoga from EcoNews Africa. "Particularly the part on services is a major flaw, and, if agreed, would prove disastrous for African and other developing countries".

A humanitarian assistance programme to help stranded and distressed migrants abandoned to their fate return home on a voluntarily basis has been launched by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva. The programme will help address the growing need to provide assistance to irregular migrants stranded in either transit or destination countries, often far from home without any means to move onwards or return home.

BBC listeners and readers share their personal experiences of the African continent. "Why do I love Africa? Because we are all related. All Africans are brothers and sisters says Jonathan Tommy. Biologically, where ever you are from in Africa, we are related. In Africa if you are from the same house - you are related, from the same village - you are related; from the same country - you are related. Even from the same regional grouping like west, east, north and southern Africa - we are related as long as you are an African we are all related. We refer to each other as brother and sister in Africa. We do not have cousin or nieces - all we have are brothers and sisters. That is why I love Africa - so let us stop killing one another."

A report released by global development, advocacy and relief organisation Oxfam International a few days ago concludes that several countries, including SA, could bring multiple cases against the European Union (EU) and the US - and win. The report showed SA had legal grounds to drag the EU before the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over illegal subsidies for six products, including citrus juice, wine and butter, Hilton Zunckel of trade consultancy Floor Incorporated said. SA could also take the US to the world trade body for its illegal subsidisation of maize and sorghum, Zunckel said.

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