South Korean protesters chant slogans during an anti-World Trade Organisation protest at Victoria Park in Hong Kong, Dec. 12. (Reuters Photo)

When Pascal Lamy became director-general of the World Trade Organisation in September he described this week’s ministerial summit in Hong Kong as the “last and best chance“ of securing a Doha round trade deal. Since then expectations of the summit have been so thoroughly downgraded that it is in danger of becoming a non-event. This must not be allowed to happen, lest the Doha round itself suffers the same fate as the summit, and shrinks into insignificance.
The decision a month ago to abandon hope of producing a finished blueprint for final negotiations at the summit recognised the reality that the talks are far behind schedule. This should increase, not reduce, the sense of urgency in Hong Kong. Yet with a few notable exceptions--most recently, Japan--the main participants display a puzzling lack of ambition.
Supachai Panitchpakdi, a former director-general of the WTO, calls it a “crisis of immobility“. There is not even a clash of strong competing proposals. Progress in agriculture is stalled by an inadequate offer from the European Union, while there has been little discussion of liberalisation in goods or services.
At this stage there must be a temptation to downgrade expectations of what can be achieved in the round. This would be a serious mistake. Only an ambitious deal would justify the investment of time and political capital in the talks. And only an ambitious deal would create the coalition of winners negotiators need to face down losers at home. If after all this Doha achieves little, politicians will wash their hands of multilateral negotiations and pursue trade-distorting bilateral deals instead.
Renewing the ambition to pursue a significant trade deal will require fresh commitment from the EU and the US. But that will not be enough. Failure at Cancun in 2003 showed that world trade talks are now subject to a new political dynamic, in which developing countries also play an essential role.
The Hong Kong summit should agree a development package that combines preferential treatment with “aid-for-trade“ for the poorest countries. This is welcome in its own right, and should persuade them not to block a deal.
However, more advanced developing countries--notably India, Brazil and (for different reasons) China--cannot expect to get something for nothing in the round. They should make bold offers on liberalisation in manufacturing and services, conditional on greater concessions by others elsewhere.
This would not be to let the EU off the hook in agriculture, but would rather force EU negotiators to consider trade-offs between sectors. That is how trade deals get done. There is no unbridgeable gap between developed and developing world interests. Brazil shares objectives with the US on agriculture, India with the US on services. But time is running out for them to show their hand.
FT.COM

As part of his effort to influence the political forces in Iraq prior to the forthcoming parliamentary election, at the end of November Muqtada al-Sadr had his supporters distribute the draft of a “Pact of Honor,“ and called on Iraqi parties to discuss and collectively adopt it at a conference to be organized before the election.
This conference was actually held on Thursday, December 8, in al-Kadhimiya (North of Baghdad). Despite extensive search, I found it only reported in a relatively short article in today’s Al-Hayat and in dispatches from the National Iraqi News Agency (NINA). There is legitimate ground to suspect that this media blackout has political significance; indeed most initiatives by the Sadrist current are hardly reported by the dominant media, even when they consist of important mass demonstrations.
In the case of the recent conference, the vast array of forces that were represented and that signed the “Pact of Honor“ is in itself already worthy of attention.
Aside from the Sadrists, chiefly represented by their MPs, those represented and who signed the document included: SCIRI, al-Daawa (al-Jaafari’s personal representative even apologized in his name for his absence due to his traveling outside of Iraq), and the Iraqi Concord Front (the major Sunni electoral alliance in the forthcoming election), to name but the most prominent of a long list of organizations, along with several tribal chiefs, unions and other social associations, members of the De-Ba’athification Committee and a few government officials.
Ahmad Chalabi--who definitely deserves to be called “The Transformer“--attended in person and signed the document in the name of his group. It seems that the Association of Muslim Scholars did not attend, as its name is not mentioned in any of the two sources.
According to the reports, the “Pact of Honor“ that was adopted consists of 14 points, among which the following demands and agreements are the most important (the sentences in quotation marks are translated from the document as quoted in the reports):
“Withdrawal of the occupiers and setting of an objective timetable for their withdrawal from Iraq“; “elimination of all the consequences of their presence, including any bases for them in the country, while working seriously for the building of [Iraqi] security institutions and military forces within a defined schedule;
“Suppression of the legal immunity of occupation troops, a demand coming with the condemnation of their practices against civilians and their breach of human rights;
“Categorical rejection of the establishment of any relations with Israel;
“Resistance is a legitimate right of all peoples, but terrorism does not represent legitimate resistance“; “we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing, abducting and expulsion aimed at innocent citizens for sectarian reasons;
“To activate the de-Ba’athification law and to consider that the Ba’ath party is a terrorist organization for all the tyranny it brought on the oppressed sons of Iraq, and to speed up the trial of overthrown president Saddam Hussein and the pillars of his regime;
“To postpone the implementation of the disputed principle of federalism and to respect the people’s opinion about it.“
The conference established a committee that is responsible for following up the implementation of the resolutions and reporting on it after six months.
If anything, the conference was a testimony to the increasing importance of the Sadrist current.
Gilbert Achcar
ZMAG.ORG

The images of black and brown youth rioting around Paris seem to have convinced many that France has a race problem. We Americans might even be tempted to congratulate ourselves that we’re ahead of France and other European countries, which are only now starting to grapple with racism.
But I am a young black male who has lived in both France and United States, and I can tell you that France’s problem isn’t about race.
I had my first interaction with the French police on a December night in 1991. I had recently moved to Paris, and was strolling back to my tiny apartment in an exclusive neighborhood. I probably looked scruffy in my old army jacket and jeans. Suddenly two unmarked police cars pulled up. Four officers climbed out, asked where I was going, and demanded to see my “papers.“ But when I began speaking French, one of the officers heard my accent. “Oh, you’re American? Please excuse us. Have a great evening.“
I was stunned. Americans had warned me that the French didn’t welcome people of color and constantly harassed Arabs and Africans. But I soon learned that being an African American in France is wonderful. I was generally treated better than I would have been back in the States.
I worried that after the Sept. 11 attacks, and America’s response, the goodwill that Europeans showered on me would diminish, as anti-American sentiments in Europe grew. My white American friends in Europe tried to hide their nationality. But I was given a free pass. For the most part, Europeans exempted me from their stereotype of America as the arrogant and ignorant bully on the world stage.
Throughout the 20th century, legions of black American artists, writers, and jazz musicians escaped racism at home by fleeing to Europe.
I have inherited that legacy. Europeans associate me with the aspects of America they embrace, especially African American art and music, and the historical struggle for freedom and civil rights--exotic, but not threatening. It never seemed to matter that I personally was not artsy or hip. I was “ethnic,“ but I wasn’t an immigrant with a culture and customs that were so different as to be feared. I was Christian, not Muslim. Different, but not too different.
And this, in my experience, is why prejudice in Europe is such a dramatically different beast from prejudice in the United States. In America, prejudice has long been a question of color. In Europe, it’s not about color, it’s about culture. France doesn’t have a race problem. It has a problem embracing the culture and customs of its immigrants and their children.
Debates are now raging about what to do in France, and the rest of Europe is watching keenly. Some say the government should collect racial data to track discrimination. Many advocate American-style affirmative action programs.
Affirmative action might help, as it has in America. But because the issue is culture, not color, the real solution for France and other European countries is much more challenging. Europeans have to learn to understand and appreciate--and, ultimately, embrace--the cultural riches of their immigrants, just as they have embraced mine. And in doing so, they may even discover that some of those riches are as much European as they are African or Arab.
Cultural prejudice can be fueled by different types of fear. In Europe it’s largely a fear of change; in the United States, of terrorism. But the negative results are the same.
Spencer P. Boyer
IHT.COM

Future historians may well conclude that the United States lost its mind--and its moral sense--after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
Rage and fear are not wise counselors. In response to Al-Qaeda’s attacks, the Bush administration threw away the rule book of international law and, by its violent, unchecked and unilateral actions in the so-called war on terror, has contributed to a new age of barbarism.
The unprovoked invasion of Iraq was, of course, a gross breach of international law, for which the U.S. and its British ally are paying dearly. But nowhere has the breaking of the law been plainer than in America’s harsh treatment of prisoners taken in the conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
The terrible pictures from Abu Ghraib continue to haunt the conscience of the world. Routine practices used against prisoners included hooding, sleep deprivation, painful stress positions for long periods, forced nudity, attacks by unmuzzled dogs and near-drowning (so-called water-boarding). If the United States breaks the rules, this gives a license to every petty despot and every sadistic police chief to do likewise.
The detention of hundreds of men for years in the legal limbo of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay is itself a shocking abuse of power. Another shocker is the U.S. practice of what has been called “extraordinary rendition,“ that is to say, sending terrorist suspects abroad to be held, interrogated and possibly tortured in (mainly Arab) prisons.
In recent weeks, international attention has focused on yet another scandal, namely the allegation that, in hundreds of clandestine flights, criss-crossing European territory and airspace, the CIA had flown a large number of terrorists suspects to secret prisons in Eastern Europe for interrogation and possibly torture.
On her recent visit to Europe, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced a barrage of questions about these reports. She did her best to defend herself and to reassure America’s allies. “The United States government does not authorize or condone torture of detainees,“ she said.
The facts, unfortunately, tell a different story. It would seem that ever since 9/11 the abusive treatment of detainees in American custody has been common, even systematic.
Nevertheless, the hope today is that Dr Rice’s repeated statements in Europe, together with the legislative amendment which Senator John McCain is seeking to pass through Congress banning the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners, will cause America to mend its ways, even at this late stage when a great deal of damage has already been done.
Many lives have been broken or lost and much unspeakable misery inflicted, but among the major casualties is America’s image in the world. It used to be a nation built on law, a beacon of justice and freedom for the whole world; it is now seen as a cruel, vengeful, law-breaking power which, in pursuit of its interests, rides roughshod over the interests and common humanity of anyone who dares to challenge it.
It may be that the Bush administration is beyond redemption and that the long, hard and difficult task of restoring America’s reputation will have to await the arrival of a new team in Washington, free from the dangerous hubris of men like Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the baleful influence of their neoconservative allies.
AGENCEGLOBAL.COM

Emirati boys practice football in front of Dubai's landmark Burj al-Arab hotel (AFP File Photo)

If you’ve been wondering what happens to that extra money you’re paying at the gas pump, take a stroll amid the skyscrapers and super-luxury hotels of this desert emirate, which is becoming the global economy’s biggest boomtown.
The pace of development in Dubai makes you dizzy: This tiny country is planning the world’s tallest building, the world’s biggest shopping mall, the world’s largest fleet of jumbo airplanes. It is building a $4.3 billion World Trade Center, an $11 billion Festival City, a $10 billion theme park known as Dubailand. One measure of the boom here is that the real estate listings in Monday’s Gulf News ran to 148 pages.
The hotels are so fancy they’re giving themselves extra stars beyond the usual five--the trademark Burj al-Arab, built in the shape of an Arabian dhow’s sail, calls itself the world’s first seven-star hotel, for example. Giorgio Armani, who’s joining the Dubai mania by building his first hotel here, enthused in the local paper this week: “Dubai is the new New York.“ And that may be an understatement.
The Dubai investment craze helps answer a question that has been puzzling economists over the past few months--namely, what’s happening to the estimated $400 billion current account surplus harvested this year by oil exporters? Economist Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley described the issue in a recent commentary as “The Case of the Missing Petro-Dollars.“ Well, as Roach noted, some of that missing money is right here in Dubai, fueling what’s either a development miracle or an Arabian asset bubble, depending on how you look at it.
What’s clear is that the current oil boom is leading to different patterns of investment from those of the 1970s. That’s the conclusion of the Bank for International Settlements in its December quarterly review. The bank found that a smaller share of the oil windfall is being invested in Western banks this time around--and that about 70 percent of investable funds generated in the current oil boom can’t be tracked by conventional measures.
The BIS speculates that the petrodollars are going into hedge funds, private equity funds and regional stock markets. Certainly far more is being pumped into the stock markets of the Persian Gulf countries themselves. A recent study by the International Monetary Fund calculated that the Qatar stock market’s capitalization nearly tripled from 2001 to 2004, the Saudi market’s more than tripled and the United Arab Emirates market increased sevenfold.
Who’s not sharing in the current petrodollar windfall at the same rate as in the 1970s? If you guessed the United States, you’re right. The BIS noted that evidence suggests “a smaller share of investable funds has been channeled into U.S. securities in the most recent cycle.“ And a recent study found that OPEC holdings of Treasury securities fell from a peak of $67.6 billion in February to $54.6 billion in September. For economists, the question isn’t “Why do they hate us?“ Instead it’s “Why don’t they invest with us?“ The basic reason, surely, is that investors think they’ll do better in the booming emerging markets than in a flat U.S. equity market.
David Ignatius
WASHINGTONPOST.COM