One of the stories I've been following for a while now is the progress of the Internet gambling dispute between America and the tiny Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda.

This story has been going on for years but it refuses to die, mainly because the United States refuses to relinquish its position. This despite the fact its position has been judged illegal by the WTO in a number of different court cases and appeals.

But this week has at least seen a couple of new developments.

First of all, is the news that the anti-globalization group, Public Citizen, is suing to force the US Trade Office to release details of the WTO Internet gambling deal.

For those unaware, this is referring to a situation that occurred last December, when America signed a trade deal with the EU and Canada which caused those classy countries to abandon their support of Antigua at the exact critical moment when the WTO was considering the severity of the financial penalty that would be levied against America for its continued ignorance of the previous WTO rulings.

Not only that, but the terms of those trade deals were classified under national security guidelines, which means that we, the public, don't even know what terms and perks America was willing to give up in order to bribe the EU and Canada out of the dispute. This unnecessary secrecy has a lot of people pissed, including Public Citizen.

While we are discussing it, Public Citizen's website also contains a nifty summary of the entire Antigua vs. America debacle, from its beginnings in 1994 right up to March 2007, when the WTO made its final ruling against America and promised restitution to Antigua - which still hasn't materialized. It's a nice little read, if you don't mind getting yourself angry at the arrogance of American government officials.

Personally, I find it interesting that Public Citizen would find this issue so important. If anything they appear to be against the WTO and globalization in general, but they apparently hate secret trade agreements even more. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, but at this point, we'll take any help we can get to keep this issue in the news.

Another development in this story is the fact that America and Antigua at least appear to be resuming negotiations to resolve the deadlock.

According to a story published today by the Antigua Sun, there is a high-level meeting scheduled for Friday in Washington between Antigua's Minister of Finance, Dr. Errol Cort, and the US Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Susan Schwab.

The article mentions that both sides are hoping for an "amicable resolution" to the dispute, but neither side seems to be willing to publicly state what terms they would be willing to concede.

As mentioned in previous posts, Antigua should hold the strong position in that it may have the legal right to pirate American intellectual property. On the other hand, the ruling in December severely limited Antigua's expected damages. Not to mention the fact that America could very well continue to exercise its self-granted prerogative to ignore international rulings and thus continue to damage Antigua's economy.

But at least there is movement.