Thursday, December 15, 2005

Hong Kong: what's at play at the WTO

Since the opening of the WTO 6th Ministerial Conference much of the local media focus has been on the Korean farmers. No surprise there: Hong Kong TV and newspapers in the months prior to the conference opening had already spent a good amount of time and space demonizing the farmers.
As it turns out, these toilers of the land have been street theatre par excellence: always highly disciplined, beautifully choreographed and splendidly photogenic. In short, a media editor's wet dream.
But what's been going on inside the conference? Not much in the way of progress, it seems. Still, in hunting around for something, I found this by Laura Carlsen:
For those who have observed the WTO's negotiation process at the ministerials in Seattle, Doha, or Cancun, it looks like an enormous and complicated game of cards. From one minute to the next, strategies change, bets are placed, teams formed and reformed, and the rules of the game shift according to the interests of the major players. While some players with weak hands bluff, other players underestimate the strength of their hands. But in the end the power and negotiating dynamics become clear.
Continue? It's not long: Counterpunch

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