Ah, the troublemakers …
December 09, 2005News & Politics
Only later did I find out that the man was Lee Kyoung Hae of Jeompbuk province in South Korea. And he had stabbed himself in the heart and later died.
A colleague of the man, Kim Seok, told told the Guardian, "Korean farmers' lives are devastated by WTO policies." He said, "Their lives are getting worse. There is a huge amount of debt. Sometimes the farmers commit suicide at home. No one knew he was going to do this, but he did it to express his anger."
Just in case you thought trade policy doesn't have any human impact.
Much more on this in the coming week.
From UPI, via Science Daily:
Hong Kong has an official blacklist of militant protesters to be denied entry if they arrive in the city for next week's WTO meetings, security sources said.
Some 300 people are on the list, and will be jailed if they resist deportation in a detention center that has been readied for the purpose, the South China Morning Post reported.
Hong Kong is expecting thousands of activists to protest at the World Trade Organization's ministerial meeting to be held from Dec. 13 to 18 at the city's Convention and Exhibition Center.
The list, composed by Interpol, Hong Kong's Immigration Department and security consultants, named "key troublemakers," including many South Koreans, who have demonstrated at international trade meetings.During the last WTO ministerial, in Cancun, I was standing on the outskirts of a crowd when a man climbed up on the security fence. He said something I couldn't make out from my vantage point. Then he appeared to punch himself in the chest and fall to the ground.
Only later did I find out that the man was Lee Kyoung Hae of Jeompbuk province in South Korea. And he had stabbed himself in the heart and later died.
A colleague of the man, Kim Seok, told told the Guardian, "Korean farmers' lives are devastated by WTO policies." He said, "Their lives are getting worse. There is a huge amount of debt. Sometimes the farmers commit suicide at home. No one knew he was going to do this, but he did it to express his anger."
Just in case you thought trade policy doesn't have any human impact.
Much more on this in the coming week.
