Bush's Bolton Bringing Chaos to the World Summit

From "World summit on UN's future heads for chaos/ UK leads last minute effort to rein in US objections "by Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor

Saturday September 10, 2005 The Guardian [excerpts]

The British government is mounting a huge diplomatic effort this weekend to prevent the biggest-ever summit of world leaders, designed to tackle poverty and overhaul the United Nations, ending in chaos.

The Guardian has learned that Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, has made a personal plea to his American counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, for the US to withdraw opposition to plans for wholesale reform of the UN. He has asked Ms Rice to rein in John Bolton, the US ambassador to the world body.

Mr Bolton has thrown the reform negotiations into disarray by demanding a catalogue of late changes to a 40-page draft document which is due to go before the summit in New York on Wednesday.

The British government, in a rare divergence from the US, is fully behind [UN Secretary General Kofi] Annan's reforms and fears the summit will fail to build on the agreements on aid reached at the G8 summit at Gleneagles.

Aid agencies and other international groups monitoring the talks expressed fears yesterday that ambitious goals on aid, protection of civilians and curbs on the arms trade will be lost.
Nicola Reindrop, head of the New York office of Oxfam International, said: "Negotiations are on the verge of collapse."