I feel sympathy for Ms. Susan Schwab, the US Representative at the WTO talks which collapsed yesterday. Her predecessor at the GATT round of talks at Uruguay got whatever he or she demanded. He was able to maintain agricultural subsidies at current levels and was able to open up developing world markets without giving anything in return. Africa was really screwed. They were made to open up their services including utilities such as water supplies with disastrous results. Western firms took control, increased prices so people could not afford supplies and made profits on the backs of poor people including children. High tariffs on finished products decimated African industries while Western companies got raw materials such cocoa, coffee and minerals at rock bottom rates and were then able to sell finished products back to the same people at hugely inflated prices. Massive corruption at every level of government made it easier for them to do whatever they pleased. The US reneged on whatever promises they had made of opening up its markets by the clever use of the ' green box ', a magical device which makes commitments vanish into outer space. Now developing countries are refusing to believe what they are told, are reading every fine print and refusing to kowtow to the white ' massa '. Ms Schwab is hugely frustrated. How is the world to function if third world people want to progress so that they are equal to Americans? Peter Mandelson of the EU expressed deep sympathy for the poor of the world who, he feels, will suffer because of Indian and Chinese intransigence. The tears of the crocodile have never flowed so freely as now.