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Today's "7" refers to the number of countries now left in WTO Director General Pascal Lamy's Green Room: U.S., EU, India, Brazil, Japan, Australia and China. Some see this as a sign of crisis. But as they were rushing out through the WTO lobby at 11pm tonight, ministers made it clear that they would keep working throughout the night.

Today was the real start of the negotiations here. And surprisingly, it did not start in the Green Room where negotiations are scheduled to take place, but in the Press Room!

The WTO ministerial meeting kicked off to a dull and uneventful start today.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is preparing for another crucial week of meetings. The Doha Round of trade negotiations is in its 7th year and, a few weeks ago, was portrayed as virtually dead. This weekend though, trade ministers from around the world have started meeting all around Geneva.

It sounds like a perfect eco-solution: plastic from plants, not petroleum. And indeed, plastics made from cornstarch and other crops, such as potato starch, castor oil and soy protein, are popping up everywhere. Sony uses them in its Walkmans; they comprise parts of Toyota's Prius; Wal-Mart packages fresh fruits and vegetables in them.

The WTO is out of step on a lot of fronts. The latest proposal on food aid shows yet again how disconnected the Doha negotiations are from what is needed on the ground - particularly as we face the current global food crisis.

A Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD) group within the Mexican Chamber of Deputies invited me and other analysts to a July 10 seminar to comment on the draft bill for a “Law on the Conservation and Sustainable Exploitation of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.” The bill’s proponents in

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday began etching the regulatory framework for the underground storage of carbon dioxide. Capturing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants and injecting it deep in the earth is touted by many as a potential weapon against climate change.