Latest news from Geneva

Three of the six G6 Ministers have confirmed that the G6 talks failed
last night and that the Doha talks have been suspended indefinitely.

Asked if the Doha Round is dead or in intensive care, Kamal Nath
(india's commerce minister) said it is somewhee between intensive care
in hospital and the crematorium.

USTR Susan Schwab and the US agriculture secretary blamed the EU and
developing countries for not putting any market access on the table.
The EU's Mandelson strongly attacked the US, saying it was the only
country that was not willing to show flexibility and for wanting others to pay compensation for reducing what was the most distorting aspect of global trade (ie agriculture subsidy).

Kamal Nath said the gap was not only in numbers, it was a gap in mindset -- that the developed countries want to be compensated by market access to developing countries for what they should have done anyway. He said developing countries reject sacrificing livelihoods of millions of their farmers to provide market access to developed countries' subsidised products.

The Doha talks are thus in very deep crisis. There may not be any new
deadlines. So it could hibernate for months and possibly years.

In fact it will be up to the US whether the Round revives. It will
revive only if the US were to say it is ready to improve on its offer on domestic subsidy.