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Protestors head for Cancun

AFP, Mexico City
Hundreds of indigenous people from southwestern Mexico were heading for Cancun to protest the upcoming meeting of the 146-nation World Trade Organisation, which they say favours the rich over the poor.
"We're heading for Cancun so the owners of world power can hear our voice of protest," indigenous leader
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Jose Martinez told several Mexican radio stations.
He said 350 people on Monday boarded buses at villages in southwestern Chiapas state, stronghold of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) that rose up in 1994 to defend the interests of millions of marginalised indigenous people.
"In the name of Zapatismo, we're telling the WTO, the multinationals, the International Monetary Fund and the United States that they are harming the farmers and poor people of the world," Martinez said.
Halfway around the world, a similar protest took place in Bangkok yesterday. More than 1,000 Thai farmers and activists took to the streets to rail against the WTO and new agriculture deals proposed by the United States and Europe to be debated in Cancun.
Activists arriving in Cancun blame wealthy countries for causing poverty by restricting access to their markets, especially for the agricultural products so crucial to developing economies.
The rich world, meanwhile, says poorer countries must agree to broader legal and commercial reforms in return for any concessions on farming.
Cancun is supposed to be a crucial step towards the target of a new global trade deal by the end of 2004.
World trade ministers are set to launch a fresh bid today to rescue WTO trade liberalisation talks, but
officials have warned that there may be little significant headway made at the September 10-14 meeting.
The WTO has come under growing pressure to tackle festering problems in the global agricultural sector, in particular generous subsidies in the West which hurt the competitivity of products, like cotton, sugar or coffee, from developing countries.
US President George W Bush has this week telephoned his counterparts in Brazil, Pakistan, South Africa and India, lobbying for a compromise when they meet this week.
There seems little appetite for compromise, however, either among developing-country governments or the activists who support them.
Poorer countries, many of which are major agricultural exporters, realise that they have the power to derail a deal at Cancun or later, and are insisting on the WTO's commitment to reduce farm subsidies sharply.
Protesters and European environmental campaigners are equally determined to influence the talks, despite being kept at arm's length by heavy security.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told Bush by phone on Monday: "Without meaningful progress on agricultural negotiations, it will not be possible to advance in other areas."