The last Ministerial Meeting of the WTO meeting ended in collapse and failure, wreathed in teargas, as the city of Seattle echoed with the sound of exploding concussion grenades. They failed to launch a new round of trade liberalization there, stopped by activists on the streets, and developing countries who'd had enough of being cut out of the high level discussions.

Now they are trying again, this time in the Gulf state of Qatar, 9-11 November, chosen as a place where protesters could not travel to. The Peoples' Global Action network have launched a call for local actions to resist the WTO around this time.

The WTO has been facing major trouble reaching any kind of consensus in order to proceed with a new round. The poorer member states say they are 'depressed', 'despairing', obviously angered that no-one has paid more than lip service to their problems with the last trade talks. This bodes ill for a successful meeting. In short the WTO was facing the biggest crisis of legitimacy of its life. Failure to launch a new round will consign it to irrelevance. All of which was boding well for activists wanting to bring down the institution.

But after the terror attacks, the rhetoric has seriously hardened. Failure to come to an agreement in Qatar is now 'not an option'. The word is out, repeated on every newsstand: Free trade will save the world from terror, and anyone who takes to the streets to say otherwise is on the same side as the terrorists. US trade representative Robert Zoellick, gunning for a new trade round at the WTO, writes: ‘On 11 September, America, its open society and its ideas came under attack by a malevolence that craves our panic, retreat and abdication of global leadership... This president and this administration will fight for open markets. We will not be intimidated by those who have taken to the streets to blame trade – and America – for the world's ills.’ Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi noted the ‘strange unanimity’ between the movements resisting economic globalization and Islamic terrorists, who were both ‘enemies of Western civilization’. They ignore the fact that this movement fights capitalism, patriarchy, hierarchy, and oppression. That pretty much covers the Taliban as well as the capitalists.

There's another complication. Qatar is a crucial state to have on side for military manouvres on Afghanistan. On the one hand, holding the WTO meeting in the Gulf is now a huge security risk. (The Gulf's only free TV network actually shows TV programmes funded by Osama Bin Laden). On the other, given the military situation they can't afford to insult Arab leaders in the region right now by canceling the meeting. And with a world recession on the way, they really need this meeting to succeed.

So far they have stated that the meeting will go ahead as planned. It is unlcear what is actually going to happen. The upcoming Director General of the WTO has said they should delay the meeting two weeks. But with military action expected at the very latest by the end of November, whether they can hold the meeting in the Gulf at all is in real doubt. If they cancelled Qatar, the default location of the meeting would be Geneva.

Actions seem likely to take place 9-11 November in any case, but activists should be aware of these developments, be ready to respond, and also be ready to deflect charges of furthering the terrorists agenda.

The majority of the world's population will suffer as a result of the free trade agenda if they succeed in Qatar. China's workers and peasantry are increasingly restless. Indian farmers are planning huge mobilizations. There's a major, major global revolt brewing in the coming years.

Times are complex, tough, and definitely dangerous for activism, but it's also true that the world has never needed this movement as much as it does right now.