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This is a report of the four press conferences that were held after the closing session of the WTO

In contrast to statements by several governments who hailed the WTO

The sixth Ministerial conference of the WTO ended on Sunday with the adoption of a Ministerial Declaration in a carefully choreographed closing session designed in a way to prevent delegations from speaking or taking an active role in decision-making

press statement: Anti-WTO activists present at the December 17 standoff with the Hong Kong police outside the HKCEC denounce the heavy-handed tactics used to disperse an assembly of unarmed protesters

The United States went as far as it could in last week's World Trade Organization ministerial meeting and it is now time for the European Union to 'step up' and propose a more ambitious agricultural market access offer in the Doha Development Agenda

The deal patched together at the World Trade Organisation Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong at the weekend is widely seen as a face saving exercise designed to save the talks from collapse. And there is doubt that the many remaining areas of disagreement can be sorted out by the target date of the end of next year.

After a lot of discussions and generally little sleep for the major players, World Trade Organization trade ministers yesterday crossed a major hurdle and adopted a Hong Kong ministerial declaration that calls for achieving full modalities in the Doha agriculture and market-opening negotiations in industrials by the end of next April

The International League of People's Struggles (LPS) and the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN or the New Patriotic Alliance)

The United States this week succeeded in softening the demands of a draft ministerial declaration with respect to cutting its domestic cotton subsidies after many intense meetings with ministers from five West African countries demanding the elimination of these trade- distorting payments.

In finalizing the HK Ministerial the most contentious issue on agriculture and cotton is on export subsidies and a trade-distorting export subsidy. Thus the central question is: what is an export subsidy and a trade-distorting export subsidy?