CINA

AFP (12.11, Hindustanitimes.com) reported this:

Amid Hong Kong's biggest-ever security operation, anti-globalisation and other protesters took to the streets on Sunday in a rally against this week's World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Hong Kong.

Thousands of protesters from all over the world joined together to call for the end of the world trading body and to end third world poverty.

"Sink the WTO" and "Keep WTO out of agriculture" read many of the banners as the demonstrators marched from Victoria Park in the Causeway Bay district to the downtown government headquarters two miles away (about three kilometres).

Organisers, the Hong Kong People's Alliance on WTO put the turnout at 4,000 (Junge Welt, a German "socialist" newspaper is writing 10,000 protestors..), lower than their expectations of 7,000, but no independent estimates were available.

Police and plain-clothes officers ringed the park and thousands more were ready along the demonstration route in anticipation of possible violent clashes with radical protesters but the march passed off without incident.

The protest began in a carnival-like atmosphere with speeches by political and NGO leaders and dozens of concern groups preparing colourful costumes and props.

One group carried a papier-mache model of a dragon with a tongue of flames that spelled "WTO". Another hauled a huge model of a raging bull.

Others carried giant balloons bearing slogans such as "Stop Trade Slavery".

Many railed against globalisation while others complained that the WTO's aim of reducing agricultural subsidies threatened the livelihoods of millions.

"Cheap food imports are destroying our own agriculture," complained Masaaki Sakaguchi, secretary general of Japan's National Coalition of Workers, Farmers and Consumers for Safe Food and Health.

"There are lots of chemicals on the food we import," Sakaguchi added. "Keep food local and keep it safe."

About two hours after the march began, the last demonstrators arrived at the government offices, where activists began a rally calling on Hong Kong's rulers to dismantle the city's trade policies.

"The WTO puts people out of work and forces overseas workers to seek work here," said Alijah Purwati, of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Council, representing the estimated 150,000 Indonesian domestic helpers employed here.

Along the march route many shop owners, also worried that the procession could turn violent, had shuttered their stores. Shoppers and other pedestrians gave the protesters a wide berth.

"The march went very smoothly. I'm very happy. We always said it would be peaceful and it was," said Elizabeth Tang of protest organisers the Hong Kong People's Alliance on the WTO.

Sunday's march was to be the first of three large demonstrations planned during the summit. Another will be held on Tuesday, when the ministerial conference kicks off, and a final one is scheduled for the last day next Sunday.

Authorities were taking no chances with security, putting 9,000 police on duty and locking down entire city sections in anticipation of violent clashes.

Across town at the summit venue, where 11,000 delegates and journalists will be based during the trade talks, the streets were calm on Sunday.

The normally bustling convention and exhibition centre was all but deserted as hundreds of police scoured the glitzy building's plazas and bomb squads rooted around in drains and manholes in last-minute searches for explosives.

The area around the venue has been blocked off to traffic by three-metre (nine-feet) high water-filled crowd control barriers that stretch along the perimeter of an exclusion zone aimed at keeping out troublemakers.

A steel containment fence was also erected in the street outside the entrance to the convention centre.

Some 10,000 protesters are expected this week. Rally organisers have accused immigration officials of treating arriving demonstrators in a heavy-handed manner after almost a dozen were temporarily detained at the city's airport.

AP wrote that:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5472181,00.html

Please check out also the South China Morning Post (HK)

www.scmp.com

Hong Kong People's Alliance on WTO (HKPA, the main organizers of the protests)

http://daga.dhs.org/hkpa/paw/pawindex.html

and indymedia

www.indymedia.org

...but both (indy and HKPA), until now, have no news about y'day's protest.

PS.:

The WTO summit in HK is just a place to show our disagreement with the ruling system, the capitalism... Actually I don't see it that the movement, the activists there will be able to smash the summit... The main actors will be the representatives of the different (capitalist) states but with their different priorities... We just should keep in our mind: THINK GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL...

But anyway, we should support the struggle there by ...yeah... ACTING LOCAL. KICK THE CAPITALISTS IN THEIR AS... IN FRONT OF OUR OWN DOORSTEPS!!!