Dead Parrot Trade Talks

Increasingly the Doha round of trade talks resembles the classic Monty Python sketch in which a customer holds up a dead parrot in a cage while the shopkeeper insists that the parrot is only “resting.” When the parrot drops off its perch in the cage, the customer insists that it is now clear that the parrot is dead. The shopkeeper, however, insists that the bird is only “stunned” by the fall.