The role of multilaterals as ideal delivery platforms for the neoliberal agenda were torpedoed by popular protests and profound disagreements even among WTO members. From the Seattle Ministerial in November 1999 to the Geneva talks in July 2006, festering resentments against Northern dominance repeatedly led to deadlocks in negotiations, exerting pressure on bilaterals – heretofor considered a secondary delivery platform – to compensate for the more coherent but scuttle-prone multilaterals.

Four years after its last minister-level gathering in Hong Kong in 2005, the 7th Ministerial Conference (MC) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is slated to take place in Geneva from 30 November to 02 December 2009. The MC is being held during an unprecedented period of global economic turbulence and ecological challenges. The global financial crisis that originated in rich, industrialised countries in 2008 continues to wreak havoc on many economies including developing economies; and the reality of climate change and its adverse consequences have rapidly moved to the forefront of the most urgent issues confronting the international community today. What then can we expect from this global trade summit?

Yet another Israeli led and U.S. backed massacre is taking place as the world watches in horror. The western media, is desperately trying to peddle the puny rockets of Hamas as bullying, does journalistic back flips in avoiding the utter carnage brought down by the much more powerful –U.S. made and paid for—Israeli missiles.

Thirty three years after the EDSA I People Power Revolution, hundreds of militant activists from Manila once again held a protest caravan against the revival of Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), a project of the ousted dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Church people, environmentalists, scientists, health professionals and women joined the caravan which was organized by the multi-sectoral alliance NO to BNPP Revival.