The Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) was held in Seattle from November 30 to December 3, 1999. Trade ministers and other officials from the WTO's 135 member nations met in an unsuccessful attempt to plan negotiations to further deregulate free trade. Tens of thousands of activists for many causes gathered to protest what they saw as the WTO's favoring of corporate interests over social and environmental concerns.

Here, representatives from Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR) listen to WTO Director-General Mike Moore welcoming delegates at the plenary session, because protests forced the conference's opening ceremony to be canceled. Note their headphones, used for simultaneous translation services.

Caption information source: "Alternative welcome," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, December 1, 1999, page A17.