text: 'Rank Hypocrisy': WTO Deal Bows to Wealth, Squashes the Poor | Common Dreams
  US and EU called out for protecting their own subsidies while demanding world's poorest citizens be pushed back into starvation	- Jon Queally, staff writer	Food sovereignty campaigners protest against the WTO in Bali, Indonesia this week. (Twitpic / @JHilary)In announcing a final agreement in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday morning, head of the World Trade Organization Roberto Azevedo, said: "For the first time in our history, the WTO has truly delivered.""There is a rank hypocrisy at the heart of the WTO that cannot be glossed over. The USA and EU continue to channel billions in subsidies to their richest farmers, yet seek to destroy other countries' right to protect their poorest citizens from starvation. The WTO is an institution that has lost any claim to legitimacy. No amount of spin from Bali can disguise that fact." –John Hilary, War on Want
  Though the so-called "peace clause" was agreed to, as previous Common Dreams reporting indicated, the compromise does almost nothing to protect the world's poor over the long-term. In fact, critics warn, the so-called "compromise" sets up a ticking clock by which the poorest nations will be forced to throw their small farmers under the bus in the name of global capitalism.A street market in the old quarters of Delhi. India sought safeguards, at the WTO, from US agricultural surpluses. (Photograph: Ahmad Masood/Reuters)