A 60-strong trade union delegation at the WTO Ministerial meeting in Geneva will press for WTO rules and negotiations to promote sustained and decent employment growth.

Via Campesina was present with an important delegation at the protest of Saturday 28 November against the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The World Food Security Summit in Rome this week opened up a dispute between what may be investment in farmland to some, but is seen as land grab by others.

In late 2007 a dramatic hike in food prices throughout the world had revealed the imperative necessity of revisiting the rules of the global food game. Now, almost two years later, FAO’s 191 member governments had just adopted, by acclamation, a proposed reform of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS).

The WTO has issued an arbitration report in a dispute between the United States and Brazil over US cotton subsidies, giving Brazil the right to use trade countermeasures against the US, and in certain circumstances to suspend intellectual property obligations.

Crowded into Monumental Baptist Church, several hundred youth, community folk and activists spent three hours with Nobel Prize winner Joe Stiglitz and others just as the G20 Summit began in the city of Pittsburgh.

A draft report prepared by Members of the European Parliament could potentially derail negotiations between India and the European Union on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement involving duty-free trade of goods, services and investment.

The Group of 7 (G7) industrial powers will do all they can to combat recession and avoid distorting free trade in the process as fears of protectionism continue to rise.

In what is turning out to be hard-fought negotiations between rich and poor nations, more than 1,000 government and civil society delegates are gathered in the Ghanaian capital to agree the best ways to deliver and administer aid.

In particular, they said that one major failure was that development issues, concerns and perspectives were not taken into account at the various meetings.