Globalisation

The global community is growing closer together. Through advances in technology, cultural exchanges and the free flow of capital and investment, globalisation is a force that is rapidly changing the world.

The term "Globalisation" first began to galvanize people when massive protests shut down global trade talks in Seattle in 1999. French farmer Jose Bove, who rammed his tractor into a McDonalds restaurant and Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, whose book "No Logo" made the bestseller lists, became the conscience of the globalisation-critical movement. But then the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks pushed the issue off the agenda, and has diverted attention from important global trade talks. But now there appears to have been a breakthrough on trade, albeit a small one.

Bringing a binding global trade treaty one step closer, World Trade Organisation negotiators have approved a trade agreement that eliminates farm export subsidies by 2013 and
makes modest cuts in other trade barriers, while leaving
many contentious issues for later. All 149 member nations
and territories of the World Trade Organization, from tiny
Sierra Leone to the 25-nation European Union, endorsed the
agreement after six days of talks that sometimes appeared
on the verge of collapse. The agreement falls far short of
the ambitious deal that WTO negotiators had originally
hoped for from Hong Kong: a detailed set of formulas for
cutting farm and industrial tariffs and subsidies. To that end, the text set April 30, 2006, as a new deadline to work out those details, required if the WTO is to set a global free trade treaty by the end of next year.

In this dossier we take a closer look at some of the key global players, the opportunities as well as the challenges behind the complex phenomenon of "Globalisation".