Audio from the action

All the latest breaking audio from the action. Check back for new updates...

17:45 We have received word that the captain of the Ikan Altamira has been ordered by his company to return to the US with his cargo of genetically modified maize. The Arctic Sunrise will continue to monitor it's progress until it is out of Mexican waters.
English

16:30 The cook for the Arctic Sunrise talked to the crew from the Ikan Altamira, which is carrying 40 000 tonnes of genetically modified maize. Two Greenpeace activists are currently locked onto the chain, preventing the Ikan Altamira from moving. The crew apparently respects Greenpeace highly.
English

09:30 Navy ships are circling the Arctic Sunrise and the Ikan Altamira
English
Spanish

07:00 We are chained to the anchor chain of the ship the Alta Mira off Veracruz. The Alta Mira is carrying genetically modified maize - this is the sound clip from the bridge.
Mpg, 00:01:32 mins.
English
Spanish

Sounds from the street

Radio from Greenpeace in Cancun

The underbelly of Cancun
Friends of the Earth organised a tour to take journalists out to see what is going on beyond the boundaries of the rich hotel zone, in which the WTO is taking place. Cancun is one of the areas with the greatest gaps in social and economic status; the poverty level is extremely high, and in this interview Helen talks about what she saw on the tour.
765 kb
1:36 mins
64 kbps, 44100 Hz, Mono
blog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/
http://cancun.mediosindependientes.org/media/all/display/343

reading_from_paper.mp3
We were sitting around one afternoon in the offices of the Greenpeace delegation, and Eric, who is doing our blog here at the WTO, asked Cecilia the Spanish speaking press officer to read us the interesting bits out of the paper. So I just grabbed my mike, hit record, and so we now bring you "Cecilia reads the paper!",
06.09.2003
5.45 min
64 kbps, 44100 Hz, Mono
blog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/

steet_medic_interview.mp3
This is an interview with Aoewen at the Indymedia centre here in Cancun. She and a few others have been training people to be street medics. As I walked past, she was training a young activist on how to rinse the eyes of a person blinded by teargas. I got this interview afterwards, asked her about what it's like to be a street medic, what kind of situations they are preparing for, and what the general feeling on the street is.
2.41 mins
64 kbps, 44100 Hz, Mono
blog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/

gerard_filtered.mp3
Gerard Greenfield went to a meeting of the Via Campesina, (the International Farmers forum) today. About 3000 farmers attended this meeting from indigenous communities from around the world. Gerard describes how the main issue of the meeting today is very much about food sovereignty and free trade. What was very interesting was that there were people from small farming communities from around the world, including South Africa and Thailand. Gerard says “The common theme that is coming out here that is very strong, in statements that are repeated throughout the meetings, especially from the campesina from the indigenous communities whose livelihoods are threatened, is the position: WTO out of agriculture, no patents on life, and yes on food sovereignty.”
2.22 mins
64 kbps, 44100 Hz, Mono
blog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/
http://cancun.mediosindependientes.org/media/all/display/151

Consumers Association
At the Via Campesina march today I interviewed two people from the organic consumers association. They are very concerned about genetically engineered food, and how this food, which is untested although corporations say it is, is making its way into food.

"I'm also concerned about how the WTO is concerned about corporations and profit, and not concerned about the people of the earth, or the air, the water, the land. It’s a process that destroys our beautiful planet, and I think it behoves the people to come together to say no to the WTO"
64 kbps, 44100 Hz, Mono
blog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/

Political analysis
Sebastion Risso, a Greenpeace delegate at Cancun with experience in political meetings, talks about trying to get ministers to recognise the priority of sustainable development.
00:03:34
64 kbps, 44100 Hz, Mono
blog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/
http://cancun.mediosindependientes.org/media/all/display/436

Commentary from the Farmers march
This longer piece has a few interviews with people from on the march, asking them why they are here and describing the march itself. It ends with a statement on Lee Kyung-hae. In English.
00:24:26
64 kbps, 44100 Hz, Mono
blog: http://weblog.greenpeace.org/wto/
http://cancun.mediosindependientes.org/media/all/display/441

Preparing for the WTO
We cover what it's like to be here on the eve of the WTO, and what Cancun is all about, touching a little on the reality of life for the Mexican people. We talk to some people here, some NGO's here. Then we talk to people from the Indymedia centre, the convergence center and the ecovillage.
00:48:50
ftp://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/radio/first_one_hour_piece_final.mp3
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/radio/first_one_hour_piece_final.mp3

Greenpeace interrupts US delegation on first day of Biosafety protocol
As the US delegation tried to give a press briefing today, Alehandro Cavillo of Greenpeace interrupted to say that that todaythe Biosafety protocol comes into effect. If the US pushes it's agenda, this protocol may be overridden by the WTO. One point that Alehandro made was that under this protocol governments have the right to protest their producers, consumers and biodiversity. This right is currently denied to Mexico, which suffers from the dumping of genetically modified grains from the US. The practices of ‘dumping' subsidized exports on the Mexican market has made sure that local farmers can't compete. 600 farmers a day are leaving the land and heading towards the city.
English. 00:04:25
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/radio/action_us_delegation.mp3

Food first interrupts US delegation
While some of the press cried "GET OUT! GET OUT!" counter voices from the press corps cried out "STAY HERE! STAY HERE!". The representatives from Food First struggled hard to yell above the abuse from the floor, to say "If the WTO listened to farmers we wouldn't have to be here. The WTO should listen to farmers instead of killing them."
English 00:00:59
http://ftp.radio4all.net/pub/radio/action_us_delegation_food_first.mp3

The poverty gap in Cancun

Friends of the Earth organised a tour to take journalists out to see what is going on beyond the boundaries of the rich hotel zone, in which the WTO is taking place. Cancun is one of the areas with the greatest gaps in social and economic status; the poverty level is extremely high, and in this interview Helen talks about what she saw on the tour.

When you want someone to wipe away the teargas...

When your eyes are streaming with tears and you can't breathe because of pepper spray, what do you do? If you're lucky, you get a street medic - a trained activist who will calmly lead you to a quiet spot, talk you through the pain, and squirt water in your eyes. According to Arwen, thats not all street medics do. You can listen to a 2 minute mp3 here which I recorded this afternoon in the back garden of the Indymedia centre in Cancun.

Stories from Mexico

Hola! It’s hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk here in Mexico, and while the tourists are walking around in swimmers and towels, I’ve been modelling the latest resort wear from Cancun; a big pair of ear muffs and a mike.

Yesterday I went to the Global Biodiversity forum. After jumping on a local bus, which had the alarming tendency to fling open its doors whenever it felt the need to get expressive, we arrived to listen to a panel on the issues surrounding genetically modified maize. Alejandro, from Greenpeace Mexico, talked about the state of emergency with massive contamination of Mexican maize by imported genetically engineered maize from the US. (Interview in Spanish.)

Also on the panel were two indigenous farmers from Oaxaca, Mexico, who talked about how central maize is the traditional way of life. “Maize is our life”. They came with corn cobs of yellow, red, black and white – colours I’ve never seen before, because my culture doesn’t have the diversity of maize that Mexico takes for granted.

We interviewed Rosario and Melesio in a separate room, and they opened up a bit about where they have come from. They believe that the situation facing Mexican farmers is so dire that they have come to the WTO to speak for their countrymen. It is the first time in their lives they have ever left their region, the first time they have ever seen the sea. ((Interview in Spanish).

When I got back here today to edit the pieces I recorded, I grabbed a chance to record Cecilia, one of our press officers here, reading aloud from today’s paper. Thankfully for me she spoke in English, and as she read aloud the stories from today’s local news, I realised that all the stories emphasized how serious the issues being discussed at the WTO really are. Of course we get a taste of seriousness almost every hour now, as more and more barricades are being erected, and more and more police crop up on every corner. It occurs to me that if the WTO was a completely legitimate organisation, the feeling of fear that necessitates the erection of such lines of demarcation would not exist.

Excellent radio

If you love to listen to what is going down, rather just reading about it, here are some amazing MP3s, downloaded from the A-Infos Radio Project (Radio4All.net). These links contain audio from from teach-ins and plenary sessions pre and post Seattle 1999. The WTO and the Environment
The WTO induced acceleration of trade has led to an alarming depletion of land, forests, air and water. In all trade disputes the WTO has won based on the clause that environmental protection may not restrict trade

The WTO and Biotechnology, Peter Rosset & Pat Mooney
Biotechnology would not be possible without the legal framework of the WTO

The WTO and Food & Agriculture: Tim Lang & Jose Bove
People in the US are the unwitting participants in a giant experiment of genetic engineering

WTO Series: Lori Wallach, the 5-year record of the WTO
Lori Wallach, Director of Ralph Nader's Global Trade Watch, gives an entertaining, fact filled run-down of the impact of the WTO on food, agriculture, the environment etc

WTO Series: Susan George on WTO, IMF, World Bank
Susan George, Director of the Transnational Institute, is one of the best known and respected writers on Third World debt and the role of the World Bank and transnational corporations in the impoverishment of the South.

WTO Privatizes Water / Maude Barlow, Canada
Maude Barlow makes a moving appeal to protect the world's dwindling supply of fresh water. She is a major public figure in Canada, and is often called Canada's Ralph Nader. She campaigned against the US-Canada Free Trade agreement, NAFTA and the MAI.

Voices from the Phillipines and India

A fantastic resource for radio heads, from ABC.net.au. I found two interviews with Mina Gabor and Dr. Monkombu Sambaivam Swaminathan, but there's a hell of alot of good stuff here - just have a look around!

Mina Gabor is President of the Philippines Small and Medium Business Development Foundation. She believes developing countries have no choice but to take up the challeges posed by globalisation.

Dr. Monkombu Sambaivam Swaminathan is often referred to as 'the father of India's green revolution'. A trained geneticist and agriculturalist, he introduced to India, high yield varieties of wheat and other seed crops in the mid sixties. In 1988, he founded the M.S Swaminathan Research Foundation to continue his pioneering work in agriculture. He does not believe that India is ready to liberalise its food import regimes by 2005, in accordance with the WTO-Uruguay Round Agreement on agriculture.

Listen to Vandana Shiva

The following keynote address was presented on 10 September, 2000, at the Global Capitalism, Local Responses seminar (hosted by the Stegley Foundation and RMIT University’s School of Social Science and Planning) on the eve of the World Economic Forum’s Asia Pacific Summit.

http://www.abc.net.au/specials/shiva/audio.htm, (you'll need RealPlayer) on ABC radio from Australia.

QUOTE:
"And then the person who’s really won out in this game of globalisation — George Soros — he was there too, and this is what he said.