US sets last-minute drive to scrap UN reform plan

[Eugene]

US sets last-minute drive to scrap UN reform plan
17 Aug 2005 21:03:22 GMT
Source: Reuters
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 17 (Reuters) - The United States has launched a
last-minute drive to scrap much of a draft plan for comprehensive U.N.
reform just weeks before it is to be adopted at a world summit, Western
diplomats said on Wednesday.

One option put forward by Washington would be to return to square one
and launch line-by-line negotiations on the document, the diplomats
said, insisting on anonymity so as not to anger Washington.

But another top diplomat involved in the negotiations dismissed the
others' concerns, saying the initiative was a negotiating tactic the
United States fully expected would be rejected by U.N. General Assembly
President Jean Ping, who is leading the talks.

<snip>

'VERY LATE'

Diplomats involved in the drafting process said they feared such an
extensive rewrite at this point would reopen many contentious issues
thought to be settled, and could end up sinking the document altogether.

<snip>

But the section of the document on development and poverty was the
top target of the U.S. revisions, a tactic certain to anger developing
nations, which make up the overwhelming majority of the U.N.
membership, the diplomats said.

Full article: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N17256031.htm

[newswolf56]

1. This is very significant, because it suggests...

the administration through Bolton is about to launch internationally and via the United Nations the global version of the war on working families (and on the social safety net) it has been so viciously waging here at home since the Supreme Cabal awarded Bush the presidency in 2000. Too bad Reuters (with its bourgeois outlook) devoted only a single paragraph to the administration's world-wide assault on anti-poverty efforts.