STWR - Share The World's Resources

Bollywood (and for that matter Hollywood) has to learn to re-write the script for its blockbusters. Robert Zoellick and Pascal Lamy have emerged on the scene. They are both waiting to be hired as script writers. Is Michael Moore and Mahesh Bhatt listening?

If the new proposals for the upcomming WTO talks are accepted, they will accerbate the process of mass displacement of farmers from agriculture in the developing world, writes Devinder Sharma. 

Developing countries want a louder voice in the workings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

It is six years since the IMF's fateful meeting in Hong Kong, just before the global financial crisis. I was there. What a peculiar meeting it was. To those paying attention, it was clear that a crisis loomed. Capital market liberalization was the culprit, exposing countries to the vagaries of international capital flows--to both irrational pessimism and optimism, not to mention the manipulation of speculators.

From September 10-14, trade ministers from around the world will meet for the next stage of what is supposed to be the Development Round of trade talks. At their last meeting in Doha in November 2001, ministers recognized the inequities of the previous round of trade negotiations, the Uruguay round. This round was supposed to redress those imbalances.

It's a quiet anniversary, the 60th year of the International Monetary Fund and its sister institution, the World Bank. It seems only the protestors who will gather in Washington D.C. for the organizations' annual spring meetings will be calling attention to the birthday of the most powerful financial institutions in the world.

The collapse of negotiations at the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Cancun last weekend is neither surprising nor lamentable. It is mostly a case of perception catching up with reality.