Poor nations derailed the last WTO deal. Now economic turmoil means the rich countries could kill it off for the foreseeable future
With America reeling from the worst financial crisis for half a century, poor consumers struggling to afford food, and China’s appetite for raw materials forcing up the cost of oil, now may not seem [...]

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The proposed Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline is “absolutely infeasible” in the foreseeable future because financial, political, legal and security circumstances do not support it, a well-informed American expert says.
“None of the three countries involved in the talks has the resources to fund the pipeline. There are serious security concerns, especially because it passes through Baluchistan in Pakistan. [...]

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But at the same time, the economies of China and India have continued growing, which accelerates the consumption of petroleum-related products and increases the amount and quality of food each person eats. These three facts have conspired to produce a global shortage of crude oil which has exacerbated the world’s inability to feed itself. If [...]

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The reality is that as far as the current run-up in gasoline prices is concerned, other factors are more to blame: shrinking oil output from such key producers as Mexico, Russia and Venezuela; internal violence in Iraq and Nigeria; refinery inadequacies in the U.S. and elsewhere; speculative stockpiling by global oil brokers, and so on. [...]

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