BY SEAN HEALY
After a year-long, increasingly desperate search, the World Trade Organisation's general council has finally confirmed the venue for its next ministerial summit: the Persian Gulf state of Qatar.
WTO bureaucrats and rich country trade ministers hope Doha, Qatar's capital city, will prove the venue for a successful launch of a new round of global trade talks, which failed so spectacularly at the previous Seattle summit.
An earlier invitation was withdrawn because the emirate did not have enough quality hotel rooms for the expected tens of thousands of trade officials. The problem has reportedly been resolved by a decision to house delegates in a series of chartered luxury ocean liners.
However, activist groups and non-government organisations have condemned the January 30 decision to site the conference in Qatar, pointing out that the country bans all political parties, has never had an election and is therefore unlikely to allow any protests or even public criticism at the WTO summit.
"Either the government of Qatar must pledge that free assembly will be respected, including for its own citizens and foreign visitors", a statement signed by dozens of NGOs says, "or the WTO must find another location."
Unfortunately for the world trade body, no other country in the world has come forward to offer itself as a site for the summit.