WTO begins meeting aimed at launching new trade talks

DOHA, Qatar -- Two years after the last bid to get global trade talks going collapsed in Seattle's soggy streets, negotiators began the arduous task of trying again Friday -- facing pressure this time not from street protests but from the threat of global recession.

The World Trade Organization will also bring the world's biggest country, China, into its fold today after 15 years of negotiations. Taiwan will be approved Sunday.

But the main focus of the five-day meeting is on whether differences that sank the 1999 Seattle talks, like farm subsidies in the rich West, and new ones, such as access to medicines for the poorest countries, can be overcome to reach consensus on launching new negotiations.

Those pushing for a new round said success would send a strong signal of confidence in the world economy and of solidarity in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said a global recession would be "devastating" for the world's poor.

"To halt and reverse this trend we must restore market confidence, create new export opportunities and resume growth," he said. "We need to resist the siren voices of protectionism and work out multilateral solutions."

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said it was "a critical time for cooperation and moving forward, not isolation and retreat."

He also stressed that the meeting's mission was not to solve all of the problems.

"Our role here is to launch new negotiations, not to complete them," he said.