U.S. Retreats Under Fire at UN

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NEW YORK, Sept. 9, 2005 – John Bolton, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has backed down under pressure on three of his controversial demands for change in the draft final report of next week’s UN summit meeting here.

Responding to protests from non-governmental organizations and diplomats worldwide, Bolton withdrew revisions that would have excised all 35 references in the document to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The new draft U.S. language, submitted to negotiators this week, also acknowledged that many governments, if not the U.S. government, hope to achieve foreign aid levels equal to 0.7 percent of their gross national income, and to meet the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. Bolton’s initial list of more than 450 proposed changes in the report would have merely deleted references to both the aid level and the Kyoto agreement.

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Click her to view the Summit Web site FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Steven Sinding International Planned Parenthood Federation 011 +44 20 7487 7845 Abubakar Dungus UNFPA (212) 297-5031 Jill Sheffield Family Care International (212) 941-5300 Suzanne Ehlers Population Action International (202) 557-3447 June Zeitlin WEDO (212) 973-0325

The proposed changes still leave many areas of strenuous disagreement among delegations that are trying to craft a consensus document before some 180 heads of state and government convene here Sept. 14. Remaining controversies concern provisions on terrorism, human rights and reproductive health care, among others. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan convened the summit to channel pressure for UN reform into structural and procedural changes that will make the organization more effective in achieving the MDGs by 2015.

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