A group of seven ministers negotiated hard into the early hours of yesterday morning to break the World Trade Organisation deadlock, but the much-need breakthrough remains elusive, with key countries still far apart on some crucial issues.
The seven ministers and their officials were part of what WTO Director General Pascal Lamy has called the "variable geometry" of the talks.
s and a clear enunciation of possibilities and problem areas".

WASHINGTON - July 24 - Despite assertions by global trade ministers, this week’s World Trade Organization negotiations in Geneva will not solve the current global food crisis, according to a new report released today by U.S.-based consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
The report, What’s Behind the Global Food Crisis? How Trade Policy Undermined Africa's Food Self-Sufficiency, found that the steady increase in food cultivation in Africa between 1980s and early 1990s slowed after the WTO went into effect in 1995. Non-food cash crop cultivation was stagnant for the dozen years before the WTO went into effect but grew swiftly since 1995.
le crops like yams, sweet potatoes, rice, wheat and cassava.

World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy today faced serious charges of creating darkness at noon in the crucial Doha modalities negotiations when several trade ministers complained about their exclusion from the hard bargains he is conducting among seven members that also include India.
On Wednesday, Lamy constituted a new group of seven members the United States, the European Union, Japan, Brazil, India, Australia and China to try and resolve some six difficult issues that are eluding any agreement.
ts. Many of developing country colleagues are in the same situation."

By Laura MacInnis GENEVA (Reuters) - Activists abandoned protests at the World Trade Organisation this week in favour of quiet lobbying over a global market-opening deal some say is not worth demonstrating against because it has little chance of approval.
Free trade critics said the demonstrators were conspicuous by their absence and this year's Geneva summit stood in stark contrast to past riotous WTO gatherings in Seattle, Cancun, and Hong Kong.
exporters compete.

A threat by France to torpedo a new global trade deal has deepened the gloom surrounding World Trade Organisation negotiations in Geneva.
Four days of gruelling talks have produced little sign that an agreement is within reach.
to concessions that would damage its farming sector.

Trade facilitation alone could do even more to increase global trade flows than further reductions in tariff rates.
July 24, 2008: The Doha Round of multilateral trade talks has already died a thousand deaths. But, apart from the bureaucracies in Geneva, Brussels and Washington, few are grieving.
on means streamlining the administrative and physical procedures involved in actually moving goods across borders — the reforms that have already contributed handsomely to the increase in global trade, investment and output.

As from today, 21 July, in Geneva and for the next three to four days Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO and Chairperson of its General Council will put all his skills at play to be able to herald an end to this century's first trade negotiations.
In November 2001, when the Doha Round of negotiations was launched, those coming out of the Conference Hall were laughing from ear to ear, oblivious of the obstacles that they would have to tackle as they tread along the serpentine path towards the objective set. For the first time, since the Second World War, emphasis had been laid on Development, much to the satisfaction of the developing world, all categories confounded.

World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy opened an informal ministerial meeting in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday saying that this meeting marks the start of establishing modalities for agriculture that will be a big step toward completing the Doha Round of global trade talks before the end of the year.
"We have a clear objective before us but the road to it is going to require a lot of effort from all of us," Lamy said. "We are at the beginning of an uphill journey, which will take us a few days. But I remain convinced that with patience and determination we will be able to get to our collective objective."

By Lisa Schlein The Head of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, says a successful outcome of the Doha Development Round will help blunt many of the

GENEVA, July 21 (Xinhua) - World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy Monday called for real actions to conclude the Doha Round negotiations by the end of this year with understanding of "each others' interests and limitations."
"The time has come to move from 'discussions' to 'negotiations.' We have talked the talk, now we have to walk the walk to finish the Round," Lamy said in his opening speech at a week-long WTO ministerial meeting aimed at salvaging the Doha Round talks.
s -- and on what can bring us to convergence," Lamy said.

By Laura MacInnis GENEVA, July 21 (Reuters) - The suggestion by top US and EU trade officials that emerging economies need to make big concessions mean

AP •TRADE ministers, hoping to make a breakthrough in the interminable Doha round of global trade talks, will gather at the World Trade Organisation’s

By Laura MacInnis and Jonathan Lynn GENEVA (Reuters) - Developing countries and food exporters from rich and poor nations called on Sunday for the United States and European Union to open up their farm markets and eliminate trade-distorting subsidies.
Global trade in farm products was at the centre of discussions as ministers from three dozen trading powers met in negotiating alliances to prepare for next week's make-or-break talks on a new world trade pact.
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