Trade wars
Have we seen the end of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)?
Few were surprised when the WTO talks in Cancún collapsed this week.
The talks may be known as the development round, but it was the developing countries who staged a walkout, leaving with nothing. In the words of the International Herald Tribune, there was widespread agreement outside the United States that they had little choice.
Opinions are varied about what went wrong. What is certain is that poorer nations concluded that their rich counterparts were not going to budge on farm subsidies and therefore, whats to negotiate? As one African nation delegate put it: Why are we here? (www.allAfrica.com)
For the record, the developed world pays its farmers about $1 billion a day in subsidies.
The developing world, most people agree, has started to form a united front, and negotiate as a bloc the G21. The BBC says the breakdown of the talks showed that the developing nations now have real power in the WTO.
Anti-globalisers, or whatever one calls them, tend to agree. The poor have flexed their collective muscle.
We think we have achieved some important things for our group, said Celso Amorim, Brazilian foreign minister; firstly, the respect for our group.
However, if a deal had been achieved at Cancún, the World Bank estimates that 144 million people would have been lifted out of poverty. An end to agricultural protectionism, says the NYT, as was agreed in the textile and clothing market, could help the developing worlds income grow by an estimated $1.5 trillion in the next decade.
By losing, analysts seem to be saying, the poorer nations have won a lot. The future is not necessarily bleak.
Some dont agree. It is a very deplorable outcome, said Stefan Tangermann of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), shaking his head at the developing countries decision to walk out. There are only losers, said Pascal Lamy, the EU trade commissioner, and enemy of the developing world. Come back to mother earth, advised EU agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler.
In quintessential North American fashion, US trade representative Robert Zoellick, said, Whether developed or developing, there were can do and wont do countries here. The rhetoric of wont do overwhelmed the concerted efforts of the can do.
Neatly put.
But, surprise-surprise, it is the United States to which many are looking in their hunt for someone to blame even though Europe and Japan are probably the biggest culprits. In fact, the US is looking at itself. The International Herald Tribune ran a lead story on 16 September under the banner The U.S. presidential campaign is seen behind collapse of accord on farm aid.
Oh, no not this again!
Once more, the Diary is forced to ask the question: is the US presidential election the single most important global event?
Heres what a senior US delegate told the IHT in Cancún: Bob Zoellick is a master of strategy, and I think he had little room here. President Bush was not going to upset his farmers before his re-election.
Dont you mean, his re-election campaign, Mr. Senior Delegate?
Anyway, farmers in the US will no doubt be pleased that most of Bushs monstrous 2002 farm bill stayed intact.
The ambassador [Zoellick] has done an excellent job, approved Robert Stallman, head of the American Farm Bureau Federation.
In a notable development, agribusiness, famed for splitting its funding almost equally between Republican and Democratic candidates, has shifted its focus and its dollars onto the Republicans. Last year, political contributions from agribusiness totalled $53 million. Republicans received 72% of the cash.
The New York Times put it bluntly: President George W. Bushs record of abandoning principles to score cheap political points with special interests like steel unions and the farm lobby raises doubts about whether he will have the stomach to defend the broader national interest and do right by the worlds poorest.
Zoellick rejected the charge that this was all about re-electing Dubya. They missed the opportunity to cut our subsidies, he said of the developing nations.
If the opportunity was ever there, that is. Another NYT editorial was even more blunt: the failure of Cancún amounts to a crushing message from the developed world one of callous indifference.
Seattle coffee party
Talking of global trade, lets have some coffee.
Voters in Seattle, coffee capital of the world, and home to previous WTO disputes, have rejected a proposal to tax their favourite stimulant in order to help the poor.
Initiative 77 would have added 10 cents to the price of every latte, espresso and cappuccino sold in the city. 68% of caffeine addicts said, Not on my coffee, you dont!
Coffee drinkers and café owners felt targeted why should we foot the bill?
Apparently, Seattle (a city of a mere 600,000 people) gets through 200,000 shots of espresso every day.
Wowza!
Supporters of Initiative 77 claimed the tax would raise $6.5 million a year for the city government, funding school programmes for children from low-income families programmes that have suffered from large cuts in recent years.
The New York Times couldnt help thinking that in this coffee-crazed city, an espresso tax is like a tax on the citys very soul.
Before the vote, the yes campaigners were confident. Seattleites love our coffee and we also love our children, said John R. Burbank, executive director of the Economic Opportunity Institute. I believe people are more likely to want to consume espresso if their morning purchase doesnt just go to giving them a buzz but goes to children.
Not so, it would seem.
On Sunday, about 200 hundred irate coffee-lovers threw burlap bags, made to look like coffee bags, into Seattles Green Lake a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party.
Price hike strike
Similar goings-on in Italy.
In the kind of public protest only imaginable in Europe (although, amazingly, this was not in France), Italian shoppers went on strike on Tuesday.
They were protesting against rising prices.
In fact, consciously or otherwise, they were protesting against the euro (rejected this week by Sweden). Since Italy joined the single currency, prices have shot up a common problem across Europe. Fruit, it is said, costs about 50% more since the introduction of the euro. Beer and mineral water are said to have doubled in price.
The Intensa dei Consumatori (a collezione of consumer groups), claimed that 47.5% of Italians participated in the strike. Shops across Italy were left empty or half-empty anyway.
The press largely supported the boycott, and made a big show of printing lists of the price hikes.
Its a dogs life
Extraordinary stuff from Thailand.
The Thai authorities announced this week that they plan to empty Bangkoks streets of homeless people.
Next month, Bangkok plays host to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit. The Thai government wants to impress its guests, including President George W. Bush.
Arrested immigrant beggars will be deported, prostitutes will be sent to rehabilitation centres and insane homeless people will be sent to mental hospitals, promised prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Many people will be sent to army boot camps for vocational training.
There are no excuses for being a vagabond, proclaimed Bangkok governor Samak Sundravej. Give them a chance to go back home first, then put (the rest) together in one place and feed them from the state budget like my previous operation against street dogs.
Theres nothing like the compassion of politicians.
Quotes of the week
Your withdrawal from our country is inevitable, whether it happens today or tomorrow, and tomorrow will come soon. O fighters, men and women, you must tighten the noose around the Americans and increase your attacks against them. You must conduct jihad by all means possible, financial and otherwise. A voice thought to be that of Saddam Hussein, broadcast on the Dubai-based al-Arabiya satellite channel.
We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks. President George W. Bush. A recent poll found that 70% of Americans believed Saddam was personally involved in the attacks.
Advertisers will advertise a refrigerator in terms they do not quite believe in but you expect government to be more serious and have more credibility. Former UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix on the USs and UKs Iraq dossiers.
We were in a country with no constitution, no judiciary, no parliament a crazy country. General Seabre, Chief of Staff in the Guinea-Bissau army, explaining why he led a bloodless coup on Sunday.
Mussolini never killed anyone. Mussolini used to send people on vacation in internal exile. Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi
Contact the Diary Editor: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net
