Well, after many months of planning and organising we are finally here in Jo'burg for the Earth Summit.

Just moments after landing yesterday, we were straight into a six hour meeting to finalise plans for Friends of the Earth's push to get binding rules for multinationals onto the political agenda. So we are already tired but raring to go.

Today is day one. Although we still remain optimistic that some good outcomes could come from these talks, there are already signs that some things are going backwards.

Agreements made last year by the World Trade Organisation, which were already bad, are now even worse. Is this yet another corporate takeover?

We can't help wondering if this has anything to do with the fact that the number of trade ministers the rich countries have here vastly outnumber those from the developing countries.

There are lots of issues about whose voices will be heard in these negotiations. There is a question of exclusion of non-government delegates because the conference venue is far too small to fit everyone in.

Today they announced a new system whereby they would give day passes to the first 1500 people who turned up, which would get them into the talks tomorrow. We all legged it to the queue, but of course it was already a mile long when we arrived.