India had circulated a letter to the conference saying if "minimal amendments" it wanted to the final document were not carried out, it would not be a position to join any consensus. And 13 countries joined the Indian diplomatic revolt against the world's trading giants, the European Union and the United States.

It was 6:00 PM on Wednesday. And talk of failure was in the air. Then the real drama started. Al Jazeera, the independent Qatar-based Arabic-language television station which won fame for its interviews with Osama bin Laden, announced that President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair had just telephoned Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in New Delhi to seek a change of heart. A failure in Doha would, they said, damage a global economy already sinking into recession. Would he, they asked, agree to postpone their differences to the next WTO summit in Monterrey, Mexico, in two years' time?

He agreed.

And in the main conference hall the plenary session opened with applause when the announcement was made that a new Doha Round of trade negotiations was launched.

In a chorus of mobile telephones, journalists and delegates broadcast news that the deal was on hold, then that it was done. Mike Moore, the outgoing director general of the organization looked exhausted, but relieved. Many had stayed up all night, and waited all day. The sun rose over the desert and then set again by the time the word failure was on everybody's lips.

Anthony Gooch, the spokesman for the EU executive commission waxed lyrical to a colleague over lunch in the bright sun: "We Europeans spent all yesterday being screwed from the back by EU members and screwed from the front by the rest of world. We were on the ropes and about to hit the canvas, and now it's India's turn."

The long wait started shortly before Tuesday's midnight deadline when the Chairman of New Zealand's Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, Graham Kelly, took to the grand piano of the cavernous reception hall in the Doha Sheraton Hotel.

Inside, deep in the recesses of the giant hotel complex, ministers representing 142 nations fretted over two issues that were blocking the talks-tuna and banana quotas. Midnight was approaching, and there seemed no end in sight to the haggling, or the politics.

The chandeliers in the dimly lit reception hall, giant conical contraptions of kitsch gold larger than the roof of a suburban home, seemed to loom all imposing. Everyone was frustrated.

In a far corner, the European Union spokesman, slicking back his neatly combed hair, was trying to put a brave face on the Doha Crisis about what he had pegged all week would conclude with the Doha Round. He was surrounded by cameramen and reporters hanging on every word. He tried to put a brave face on it all. The chips were down.

The World Trade Summit sputtered past the brink of its midnight deadline in a debate over tins of tuna and bunches of bananas. Even before they could resolve the big issues like farm subsidies, delegates were locked in battle over the Europeans' insistence on keeping some special trade preferences for their former colonies in the 77 nations of the African, Caribbean and Pacific group-preferences that are an exception to WTO rules.

Thailand and the Philippines were insisting on dropping the preferences for their canned tuna exports, while Ecuador was demanding the preferences be dropped for bananas. Cameras were flashing, and reporters hung on every word, scribbling furiously.

A giant screen in the hall carrying the schedule of events read: "Ministers in closed session. 11:00 PM plenary session," It was a vague schedule and the plenary only started the next afternoon.

So when would it wind up? Would it reach a conclusion? A frustrated WTO official said only that progress was hamstrung by a couple of "wobblies in the works, or spanners, or call them what you will. This one is up to the ministers, not us."

Every minute counted. With hours to go before the closing deadline, the French delegation threatened to fly home and break the EU cohesion. The Nigerians announced objections to all but one page of the 24-page draft agreement. And the Americans reminded one and all that "The global economy and the markets are in no shape to take a failure here." But the Europeans, as the world's biggest trading power, had to make the call.

It was then that a French official walked out, and strolled into the garden with a mobile telephone: "Yes, Minister. Of course, Minister. Have no doubt, France will hold firm. We will not budge. We will not give an inch. Rest assured... ah, it's not cold here, Sir. It's 'tres' hot and 'humide.' It's the desert out here, Minister."

In a crucial sticking point, France, it then transpired, was refusing to change the mandate of the European Union and accept a commitment to "phasing out" Europe's generous subsidies for its food exports. "Really, it's a sort of deal-breaker point," explained French Commerce Minister Francois Huwart. Hours later as journalists band officials bedded down on sofas, the problem was solved.

And so it seemed the first WTO summit held in the Islamic world, the Doha meeting would be remembered solely for the admission of China and Tawain as its 143rd and 144th members.

WTO Director General Mike Moore was locked in last-ditch efforts to save the talks as the deadline passed. The motto of the WTO, after all, is: "Nothing agreed, until everything agreed." Eventually, most the developing world came on board, leaving India and a hard-core of 13 countries to lead a diplomatic revolt.

Graham Kelly from New Zealand had long since stopped playing the refrain of Gershwin's "I'm in the mood for love." With the tension abated, the wait over, the talks here will now not only be remembered as the session during which China signed up, but as the new Doha Round.