Raining on his parade

Given that the two-day mini-ministerial was supposed to have broken the impasse at the WTO talks, you’d have thought Commerce Minister Anand Sharma would have been a lot more cheerful at the press conference after the event. Part of the problem, it appears, was that US Trade Representative Ron Kirk briefed the press before Sharma did and emphasised the need for bilateral dialogue. When journalists used Kirk’s briefing to argue no progress had been made, a testy Sharma asked them to refer to the statement issued after the ministerial — problem was, no one had the statement at that point in time.