kallahar writes I found a great site by John Pilger about globalization and how the WTO and similar governing bodies work. We see a lot of the protests on TV, but who really knows the details? "The WTO provides a rules-based multilateral trading system. The alternative is bilateral commercial relations based on economic and political power - small countries are then at the mercy of the larger trading powers. ... Yet critics point out that the WTO's decision making system already puts small countries at the mercy of the larger trading powers. The WTO makes decisions by 'consensus' among its members rather than by voting. In practice this means that the rich nations band together and negotiate policies which they then impose on other member states."

The WTO meets next week in the itty bitty country of Qatar. And yet there are still anti-WTO actions going on there.