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France, Ireland, Italy and Portugal yesterday strongly opposed any move by the European Union

As many Ministers and senior officials arrived today in Geneva for several days of WTO meetings, speculation was still rife on how the 'Ministerial Green Room' would be run, what issues would the Director General Pascal Lamy really want to focus on (and what issues may thus be left out), and what the Ministers and officials who are not invited to the Green Room would be doing.

The Chair of the WTO's Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC) Pascal Lamy, at an informal Heads of Delegation meeting Wednesday, outlined to WTO members the process, and substantive issues that are to be tackled at a 'mini-Ministerial' that begins on Friday (30 June).

Threats, deception and manipulation are among the negotiating tactics used by rich countries in the current round of trade talks reveals a new report, The Doha Deception Round: How the US and EU cheated developing countries at the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial, launched today by ActionAid.

A group of over 100 civil society organizations has denounced the mini-Ministerial meeting to be held in Geneva in the next days as not legitimate as it does not allow for the effective participation of all Ministers.

Press statement: Farmer leaders representing the international peasant movement La Via Campesina are in Geneva to express their rejection of the WTO Doha Round. The agreement currently negotiated in

WTO members met this morning after the release of the draft possible modalities prepared by Ambassador Crawford Falconer of New Zealand, Chair of the Committee on Agriculture (Special Session) the previous day.

Key members of the World Trade Organization yesterday sharply differed over what constitutes the level of political 'ambition' in the Doha Development Agenda modalities for agriculture and market-opening for industrials challenging whether 'real cuts' and 'new market access' are part of the overall mandate

The NAMA-11 group of developing countries has strongly criticised the paper relating to modalities for non-agricultural market access(NAMA) for its unhelpful structure, for omitting the views of members or not reflecting their views accurately in some areas, and for creating confusion as to whether the textual language provided on specific issues was supposed to enjoy agreement or were merely put forward by the Chair under his own responsibility.

Trade chiefs of the Group-of-Six nations will meet Thursday in a 'last-ditch' effort to resolve all the remaining issues in the trade-distorting domestic support and market access pillars of Doha Development Agenda farm trade negotiations