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From 30th November through 2nd December, a WTO ministerial conference will be held in Geneva, a week before the climate summit in Copenhagen. Ten year after Seattle, one year after the beggining of the "crisis of a century", the global leaders are still following their neoliberal agenda. The altermondialist movement is mobilised, and Attac-Activists, coming from all over the world, are going in the protests and are blogging live from Geneva.

Under the motto „Unity is strength“ General Director Pascal Lemy will open the 7th WTO ministerial conference
Posted Monday, 30 November, 2009 - 16:45 by Alexandra Strickner

After a colourful manifestation in Geneva last Saturday, which unfortunately had to be cut short because of riots, today the 7th WTO ministerial conference begins. Here are some pictures of the manifestation:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tni/sets/72157622896646142/

Compared to the preceding WTO ministerial conferences in Hong Kong (2005) and Cancun (2003) everything is very calm. You can see that the WTO is in a crisis. The talks of the Doha round have been blocked for years and with this conference probably not much is going to change in this area. While in the last years the member states of the European Union had sent their ministers to these conferences, so they could watch after the EU commissar, this time many countries have sent only less important officials. The Canadian minister of economy for example makes just a short visit for the opening ceremony and departs already tomorrow.

Climate emergency/social justice: accounts of struggles yesterday in Geneva
Posted Monday, 30 November, 2009 - 09:52 by amelimelo

Yesterday afternoon in Geneva, various special workshops were organised on the general question of ‘free trade and crises’. With the help of Maxime, I lead the workshop ‘climate crisis’.

Representatives of various social movements in Latin America and a spokeswoman from a movement for the rights of the Maori people shared their experiences with us − an avalanche of experiences of ecological and social disasters caused by multinational companies invading the local markets, by the overexploitation of fossil resources, deforestation, and the destructive effect of green capitalism on local communities.

- A representative of Accion Ecologica presented the ITT project which is promoted by the Ecuadorian government and encouraged all social movements across the world to support what seems today to be a real alternative at the negotiation table on climate change

5,000 WTO protesters in Geneva yesterday
Posted Sunday, 29 November, 2009 - 12:56 by amelimelo

As no doubt reported by the French media, yesterday’s demonstration, called by two Swiss coalitions and supported by various international organisations, amongst which Attac France and its European counterparts, did not reach its destination − the headquarters of the WTO. Geneva police preferred to put an end to it prematurely due to (material) acts of violence carried out by two groups at the head of the cortège.