A hurricane helped shape agreement on addressing Haiti's deforestation.
That last outcome would leave Mr. McConnell, who relishes the role of deal maker, in an ideal position to be the Republican point man and shape any agreements between a Republican controlled Congress and a Democratic White House.
In the sciences and at the business school, areas of the university where financial support for graduate students tends to be higher than in the humanities and arts, many students saw a union as an encroachment, an outside body that would shape the agreements they struck with their professors and interfere with their relationships.
Audubon New York, a leader among the environmental groups that helped shape the agreement and move it forward when negotiations faltered, called the agreement an historic moment in the struggle to save the Sound.
Traditionally, the U.A.W. picks a lead company to shape an agreement, then follows up with the others after the first pact is approved by members.
To shape the agreement, more than 3,000 residents were interviewed by the ARIA Group, a conflict mediation service with experience in Northern Ireland and the Middle East.
The impetus of Mr Obama's tour itself may generate a breakthrough in the shape of agreement between the TPP's two biggest economies, America and Japan.
Still, negotiators who have spent the last year working out the technical details of a potential treaty are now coming up hard against political pressures at much higher levels that will ultimately shape any agreement.
Had they not resigned from the cabinet Sunday, and voted against him in a failed no-confidence vote yesterday, the parties could have helped shape the agreement Mr. Barak hopes to negotiate with the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat.
The chances of completing it at all do not look good.When Mr Lamy invited trade ministers to the WTO's lakeside headquarters to try and shape an agreement, the odds were no better than evens.
