Full Coverage: Hong Kong

04.12.2006 Nobel Prize Laureate and Managing Director of Grameen Bank, Professor Muhammad Yunus, announced at the ITU TELECOM WORLD 2006 opening ceremony at Hong Kong that Grameen will team up the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and other partners, including Cisco Systems, QUALCOMM and a newly formed consortium, Enclusion, to launch a virtual, global 'ICT Empowerment Network' as part of their collaboration through the Connect the World initiative.

11.01.2006 The Hong Kong authorities are urged to drop charges - expected to be heard today - against 14 people accused of "unlawful public assembly" at the World Trade Organization meeting in December.

26.12.2005 War on Want fights poverty in developing countries in partnership and solidarity with people affected by globalisation. It campaigns for workers' rights and against the root causes of global poverty, inequality and injustice. Read the WTOlog by War on Want's Media Officer John Coventry.

22.12.2005 The National Social Watch Coalition and ActionAid India provide the latest information and news from Hong Kong. The information has been provided in the form of two newsletters in PDF - wto news5.pdf and wto news11.pdf.

22.12.2005 The National Social Watch Coalition and ActionAid India provide the latest information and news from Hong Kong. The information has been provided in the form of two newsletters in PDF - wto news6.pdf and wto news8.pdf.

20.12.2005 The final text salvaged from around-the-clock global trade talks here sets a deadline to end farm export subsidies by rich nations, a long-time demand by developing nations, but also binds poorer countries to more dramatically open their markets to multinational corporations.

19.12.2005 The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has condemned the police brutality and inhuman treatment of WTO protestors by the Hong Kong police. The AHRC has alleged that the police used excessive force on unarmed protestors.

19.12.2005 India on Sunday welcomed the revised draft declaration released at the sixth WTO Ministerial and said the strategy to forge a grand alliance of 110 developing countries had paid off.

19.12.2005 The Global Call To Action Against Poverty (GCAP), which is the world's largest anti-poverty alliance, has hit out at the rich nations for allowing inequities to persist in world trade and trying to seek out a better future for themselves at the cost of the world's poor.

18.12.2005 "An outrage"..."This situation is worse than medieval"..."abuses of fair and transparent negotiating process" - Peter Hardstaff of the World Development Movement reports from the the trade negotiations in Hong Kong.
More coverage from OneWorld Partners:
+ 'A sense of calm anticipation'
+ 'New draft gives little cause for hope'
+ EU, US steer talks towards disaster
+ EU backtracking on subsidies
+ Leaked UK media strategy shows 'political cowardice' on trade
+ WTO draft text on agriculture reflects interests of rich nations
+ US cotton market access offer as 'empty promise'
+ WTO talks in stalemate
+ Developing Nations Push Back at WTO Meet
+ OneWorld South Asia

15.12.2005 OneWorld South Asia's Dr Nilay Ranjan, who is currently attending the World Trade Organisation meet at Hong Kong has sent in snippets from the city. Read on about the Indian stand on subsidies, Korean farmers, globalisation and a UNDP meet on services trade.

15.12.2005 The success of this week's trade talks in Hong Kong hinge on the willingness of the US, Japan and the European Union to cut their $1 billion a day agricultural subsidies. But, wonders Mark Engler, is market access really the answer to poverty?

15.12.2005 On the second day of the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong, discussions on scrapping agricultural subsidies appear to have stalled as a result of political wrangling. However, the European Union, the United States and China did urge the 149 member countries to push further liberalisation of global trade forward.

15.12.2005 India on Wednesday called for a multilateral trade negotiation process that does not disrupt the growth strategies of developing countries. Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said that development was not adjunct to the global trading system but intrinsic to every aspect of the ongoing negotiations under the Doha Development Round.

14.12.2005 Arriving in Hong Kong from 12 countries across Asia, The People’s Caravan for Justice began a week of protests against the World Trade Organisation’s ministerial meeting by calling for people to be put at the heart of international trade rules.

14.12.2005 The charity Christian Aid has cited leaked documents to say that the European Union (EU) will push developing nations to privatise services such as water, healthcare and banking at the trade ministers meeting in Hong Kong this week.

14.12.2005 In a bizarre waterborne protest yesterday, hundreds of South Korea's notoriously militant farmers stripped off to their boxer shorts, donned orange lifejackets and leapt into Hong Kong harbour in a back-door attempt to sink the world trade talks.

14.12.2005 Ministers from the World Trade Organisation's 149 member nations are holding talks in Hong Kong aimed at reducing global trade barriers. The ministers will try and reach agreements abolishing import tariffs and national subsidies for agriculture, industry and goods and services. At the Doha conference, four years ago, it was agreed that subsidies and import tariffs would be abolished by the end of next year.

12.12.2005 Christian Aid is today urging poor countries to prepare for a walk-out of the World Trade Organisation talks in Hong Kong unless the European Union executes a dramatic change in its aggressive liberalising trade policies.
* Draft WTO text fails consumers
* 'We are the people' march in Hong Kong
* Stop the WTO negotiations! Save jobs!

12.12.2005 More than 5,000 protesters launch the People’s Action Week at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Hong Kong.