The World Trade Organization barely began its ministerial meeting yesterday, with police firing tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters that paralyzed downtown Seattle. During the morning rush hour, Seattle’s main commercial district looked like a riot zone as hundreds of police officers wearing helmets and carrying wooden batons confronted thousands of protesters who sat down or locked arms in normally busy intersections in an effort to stop the trade meetings. At one point during the protest, police officers fired red pepper spray and used long wooden batons against demonstrators who had chained themselves together, laying across streets leading to the convention center in an effort to block delegates from the meeting. Police actions continued throughout the day. A state of emergency was declared at 7 p.m. yesterday as police forced protesters away from the downtown area.

Hours before arriving in Seattle early this morning, President Clinton endorsed a major goal of labor unionists who have been involved in anti-WTO demonstrations. Yesterday, tens of thousands of union activists gathered in the stadium in Seattle to make their views known against the World Trade Organization. Clinton told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that for the first time, he has embraced the concept of imposing sanctions against countries that violate international labor standards, and said Americans should not buy products from companies that exploit workers. He also said the majority of the demonstrators in Seattle were making a valuable contribution to the WTO meeting, this as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressed the Seattle Rotary Club last night, urging a reaching out to demonstrators. Annan said that people feel, quote, “vulnerable and lost” in a fast-changing world where economic crisis and issues are global, but politics remain local.

This news from Britain: Riot police broke up a major protest yesterday by hundreds of demonstrators who ignited a fire outside a major London train station in a show of force against the WTO summit in Seattle. For two hours, protesters overturned vehicles and disrupted London’s evening rush-hour commuter travel with their attack on the plaza outside Euston Station in the center of the capital. A police spokesman said at least three people were arrested, several bystanders injured, when demonstrators hurled bottles, iron bars, paving stones and other debris as police moved forward to push them back from the station entrance. Correspondents at the scene said up to 2,000 protesters took part at the height of the evening rush hour.
Meanwhile, yesterday in France, demonstrations were held against the World Trade Organization, as well, through the efforts of numerous nongovernmental organizations, activist groups, unions and political parties. In all, there were more than 75,000 protesters in 80 towns. The protest in Paris alone brought together more than 20,000 people.

This news from Washington: Yesterday, Exxon and Mobil completed the largest industrial merger in history, shortly after the federal government approved the deal and ordered the two companies to sell an estimated $2 billion to $3 billion worth of gas stations, pipelines, terminal ports and a refinery. The $81 billion merger combines the nation’s two largest oil companies into a new energy behemoth whose combined revenues last year were $146 billion. The merger also reunites two of the biggest chunks of the old Rockefeller oil empire that was shattered in 1911 for antitrust violations.

Yesterday, politicians and religious figures joined scores of protesters illegally camped at a U.S. Navy base in Puerto Rico as islanders nervously awaited a U.S. decision on whether bombing exercises at the site would resume. Activists in this U.S. territory of 4 million people fear President Clinton may order new exercises at the range in coming days, and are preparing for a possible clash with federal authorities. Puerto Rico demanded the U.S. Navy leave the island after a bomb was dropped off target April 19th, killing a security guard on the range. The Pentagon has asked Clinton for permission to continue bombing for five more years.