Post Cancun post formerly: Suicide

Post Cancun post

formerly:

Suicide protest at Cancun

Today's New York Times carries a James Brooke profile of the South Korean farmer who killed himself in Cancun last week to protest negotiatiosn to reduce agricultural tariffs, here: "Farming Is Korean's Life and He Ends It in Despair".

"JANGSU, South Korea, Sept. 15 — Before Lee Kyung Hae left for Mexico on his final mission to defend South Korean farmers, he climbed a hill behind his old apple orchard here. In the quiet solitude of his former farm, he cleaned up around his wife's tomb.

"He cut all the grass before departing," Lee Kyang Ja, his older sister, said with surprise today, coming upon the site after climbing a dirt road behind the farm. On Wednesday in Cancún, Mexico, Mr. Lee, a 55-year-old farm union leader, scaled a barricade outside a meeting of the World Trade Organization and then fatally plunged his old Swiss Army knife into his heart...

"...in rural communities like this one in southern South Korea, Mr. Lee, a three-time member of the provincial assembly, was seen as a heroic figure, a defender of debt-ridden farmers struggling to maintain an age-old agrarian tradition in a fast-developing country where manufacturing is king..."

Today's (Tuesday Sep 16) Washington Post has a column by Jefferson Morley on developing world media reaction to the failure of the Cancun ministerial meeting (with links to seven or eight papers):"After Cancun, Rich Man's 'Debacle' Is the Poor Man's 'Moral Victory'.. The column indicates general satisfaction with the outcome among the cited newspapers. The satisfaction seems to stem not so much from the failure of the trade talks, as from a perceived ability of the developing world to stand together against "unfair" set of developed world practice and an unfair agenda.

Geitner Simmons at Regions of Mind posts on barriers to trade between developing countries, here: "Not so selfless.

"Some of the developing countries that led the fight against the United States and the EU on the farm subsidy issue are themselves guilty of heavy protectionism against fellow developing countries -- in some instances, against their very neighbors.

"I got a hint of this when I saw an article from last weekend in The Hindu Times, a newspaper in India, about proposals being considered at the WTO negotiations in Cancun over reductions in farm subsidies:

"The new draft puts India in considerable difficulty since it would require the country to eventually make substantial reductions in import duties on agricultural products..."

Simmons also links to a Progressive Policy Institute report on developing country trade barriers, and cites generously from it.

Kieran Healy points out that Cancun fell apart over investment and capital control issues rather than agriculture, and points to a paper by Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas and Olivier Jeanne’s on “The Elusive Benefits from International Financial Integration" (and to one of his earlier posts on it), here: "Capital Mobility".

Daniel Davies argues that Cancun fell apart over investment and capital control issues it shouldn't even have been discussing, here: "High Noon in Cancun"

"...The WTO is the World Trade Organisation, which was set up in order to facilitate trade in goods and services, something which more or less everyone agrees to be a general good. Free mobility of capital and investment is a much more controversial topic..."