Cancun, Sept 12: Rich countries under pressure to slash farm subsidies searched on Thursday for weaknesses in a new alliance of poor nations bent on rewriting world trade rules they say are rigged against them. Developing countries, increasingly assertive within the 146-member World Trade Organization, in turn brusquely rejected demands led by the European Union and Japan for new guidelines to govern overseas investment.

"This is an exercise in futility," Malaysia's trade minister, Rafidah Aziz, said of the plan for investment rules.
The rhetoric reflected the deep divisions on a host of issues that ministers meeting in this Mexican resort need to narrow by Sunday to revive stalled global trade talks the World Bank says could lift 144 million people out of poverty.
Outside the conference hall, the day passed off peacefully as activists mourned a South Korean who stabbed himself to death on Wednesday in protest against the WTO's policies.
Agriculture is the most critical issue in Cancun because it is the mainstay of most poor countries, which blame the $300 billion doled out mainly by the United States and the EU to their farmers each year for pricing them out of world markets. Bureau Report