(Gotta love the MR. instead of President)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1557562,00.html>>>>>>>>>>snip
Less than three weeks before world leaders are due to meet in New York for an unprecedented summit aimed at reforming the United Nations and preparing it to face the challenges of the 21st century more effectively, Washington has suddenly proposed hundreds of amendments to the working document. In effect they are telling officials to tear it up and start again. The amendments begin ominously on page one of the 40-page document where, among a list of core values such as freedom, equality and the rule of law, the US - in a none-too-subtle snipe at the Kyoto protocols - wants to delete "respect for nature". The amendments continue in a similar vein over the remaining pages, weakening references to the millennium development goals (agreed by 191 members of the UN five years ago as a strategy tocombat poverty), deleting a statement that force should be a "last resort" when dealing with security threats, and so on.
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Although no one disputes that the UN is in need of reform, the American notion of reform looks more like a settling of scores than an attempt to improve its workings.
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t is difficult to see, though, how this can be squared with the efforts of Condoleezza Rice who, since she took over as secretary of state, has been trying to repair diplomatic damage caused by the Iraq war, or the appointment of former White House counsellor Karen Hughes to improve America's faded image abroad. While Ms Rice is busy building bridges, Mr Bolton seems equally busy blowing them up.