U.N. Summit Leaders to Adopt Weak Document

World leaders gathering for a U.N. summit to mark the 60th anniversary of the United Nations won't be adopting the sweeping blueprint that Secretary-General Kofi Annan envisioned to tackle poverty and overhaul the world body.

Instead, the more than 160 presidents, prime ministers and monarchs attending a three-day U.N. summit that starts Wednesday will have before them a 35-page document that was continuously watered down during intense negotiations to win support from all 191 U.N. member states.

Nonetheless, Annan and the many ambassadors who spent day and night over the past week trying to reach agreement on hundreds of contested passages were relieved that there was a document for their leaders to approve.

Mark Malloch Brown, the secretary-general's chief of staff, said the situation "was heading off the rails" on Tuesday morning, with 140 passages and 27 issues still undecided.

The UN adopts a weak document? Say it isn't so. Once again, the UN underwhelms the expectations. I know that I was pinning my hopes on the UN taking strong action. [that's sarcasm for you humor challenged folks out there.]

What's the point of winning support from all 191 member states when many of them are dictatorial regimes without popular support of their populations. You can't say that they have support of an electorate since they don't even hold elections, or the ones that do hold elections are such shams that it defies expectations or logic.

That means that whatever is contained in this document had to be signed off by Cuba, Sudan, China, and Iran to name just four countries. Anyone besides myself wonder why we bother trying to get consensus documents at the UN when they don't mean anything?

UPDATE:
Also within the linked document is this wonderful tidbit:

The secretary-general said he would have preferred stronger language in parts of the text, but "there were governments that were not willing to make the concessions necessary. There were spoilers also in the group; let's be quite honest about that."

While Annan refused to name any countries, Oxfam's Nicola Reindorp said: "Leaders will arrive to find that Cuba, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, the United States and Venezuela have held the summit hostage."

"There is very little to celebrate in the latest U.N. Summit outcome document," she said in a statement. "We wanted a bold agenda to tackle poverty but instead we have a brochure showcasing past commitments."

That's some group of countries. A bunch of dictatorships - and the US. All lumped together as if all were equally responsible for a sham document. Sorry, but I don't buy it. The US is protecting its interest and doesn't want to throw good money over bad. The other countries want to protect their dictatorships' very survival. Democracy is bad news for them, except where they can use it at the UN to stop human rights in its tracks.