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India and Brazil have opted out of the informal mini ministerial meeting of key World Trade Organisation (WTO) members to be held on the sidelines of the OECD ministerial in Paris on Tuesday.

Since the failure of WTO Members to agree to modalities by April 30, the Chairs of the Agriculture and Non-Agriculture Market Access (NAMA) negotiations have embarked on a 6-week period of intensive negotiations with WTO members

The Group of 33 has issued a paper on 11 May to the WTO's Committee on Agriculture (Special Session) making critical comments on a Reference Paper of the chair of the agriculture negotiations on the issue of 'special products' that he had circulated on 4 May.

Four major groupings of developing countries have issued a joint statement warning that the WTO's Doha negotiations are being threatened by attempts by some members to restrict the use of the instruments of special products and special safeguard mechanism that have been proposed during the agriculture talks for the use of developing countries.

The first session of the Mid-Term Review (MTR) of UNCTAD-XI broke up near midnight on Thursday 11 May without an agreed conclusion after acrimonious negotiations that centred on the issue of 'policy space.'

'Policy space', an issue that featured most prominently at the UNCTAD eleventh session in Sao Paulo in 2004, has re-emerged as a burning issue at the UNCTAD Mid-Term Review (MTR) meeting held here this week.

Many developing countries and their groupings have declared at a WTO services meeting on new disciplines on domestic regulation that there is no need to establish rules based on a 'necessity test', and that the rules should adequately recognize the developing countries' right to regulate their services.

COSATU writes to bring to your attention the disaster awaiting ourcountry, South Africa, and the rest of the countries in the South or the developing nations. As you are aware the World Trade Organisation is negotiating a detailed agreement based on the very unfavourable and anti development framework negotiated in the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2005.

A week-long meeting of the 2006 Mid-Term Review (MTR) of UNCTAD XI started Monday with key delegations and groupings giving their initial positions on the mandate and future role of UNCTAD, including in light of the current United Nations reform process.

This compilation of forty-five case studies documents disparate experiences among economies in addressing the challenges of participating in the WTO. It demonstrates that success or failure is strongly influenced by how governments and private-sector stakeholders organize themselves at home. The contributors, mainly from developing countries, give examples of participation with lessons for others.