| |
| About 50 NGO representatives, sporting black bands and carrying white chrysanthemums and placards, held a peaceful condolence walk in memory of deceased South Korean activist Kyung Hai Lee, followed by a press conference, at the venue this afternoon. |
| |
| The mourners criticised liberlisation of agricultural and services trade at the conference. |
| |
| Earlier in the day, some activists shouted slogans at a US media briefing, forcing the WTO to ban their entry, the organisation's spokesman Keith Rockwell said. |
| |
| But protests seem to be dying down in other parts of the city. Only a handful of Mexican farmers remain at their camps in downtown Cancun. |
| |
| Protesters said farmers, who had put up tents and occupied a part of the gymnasium nearby, had started going back since food was not easily available in the city. |
| |
| A couple of blocks away, in another camp, the number of protesters was less than 100, though they continued to fly a tattered US flag with anti-globalisation slogans on it. |
| |
| The farmers who had not returned home were busy holding meetings to work out a strategy to mark their protests against the asymmetries brought about in the international trading system after the WTO was set up. |
| |
| Organisers said nearly 4,000 Mexican farmers had tried to enter the fortified "Hotel Zone" on Wednesday, the opening day of the five-day meeting, when the 56-year-old Korean farmer committed suicide. But their attempts were foiled by security personnel. |
| |
| Protests inside the convention centre are, however, not ruled out in the remaining three days of the meeting. |
| |
