Soon after his appointment as secretary-general of the United Nations in 1997, Kofi Annan lamented that he was being accused of failing to reform. the world body in six weeks. "But what are you complaining about？" asked the Russian ambassador: "You've had more time than God." Ah, Mr. Annan quipped back, "but God had one big advantage. He worked alone without a General Assembly, a Security Council and [all] the committees."
Recounting that anecdote to journalists in New York this week, Mr. Annan sought to explain why a draft declaration on UN reform. and tackling world poverty, due to be endorsed by some 150 heads of state and government at a world summit in the city on September 14th16th, had turned into such a pale shadow of the proposals that he himself had put forward in March. "With 191 member states", he sighed, "it's not easy to get an agreement."
Most countries put the blame on the United States, in the form. of its abrasive new ambassador, John Bolton, for insisting at the end of August on hundreds of last minute amendments and a line-by-line renegotiation of a text most others had thought was almost settled. But a group of middle-income developing nations, including Pakistan, Cuba, Iran, Egypt, Syria and Venezuela, also came up with plenty of last-minute changes of their own. The risk of having no document at all, and thus nothing for the world's leaders to come to New York for, was averted only by marathon all-night and all-weekend talks.
The 35-page final document is not wholly devoid of substance. It calls for the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission to supervise the reconstruction of countries after wars; the replacement of the discredited UN Commission on Human Rights by a supposedly tougher Human Rights Council; the recognition of a new "responsibility to protect" peoples from genocide and other atrocities when national authorities fail to take action, including, if necessary, by force; and an "early" reform. of the Security Council. Although much pared down, all these proposals have at least survived.
Others have not. Either they proved so contentious that they were omitted altogether, such as the sections on disarmament and non-proliferation and the International Criminal Court, or they were watered down to little more than empty platitudes. The important section on collective security and the use of force no longer even mentions the vexed issue of pre-emptive strikes; meanwhile the section on terrorism condemns it "in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purposes", but fails to provide the clear definition the Americans wanted.
Both Mr. Annan and, more surprisingly, George Bush have nevertheless sought to put a good face on things, with Mr. Annan describing the summit document as "an important step forward" and Mr. Bush saying the UN had taken "the first steps" towards reform. Mr. Annan and Mr. Bolton are determined to go a lot further. It is now up to the General Assembly to flesh out the document's skeleton proposals and propose new ones. But its chances of success appear slim.
Who have recently listened to the story in the first paragraph of the text？
A．Ambassadors.
B．UN officials.
C．The world's leaders.
D．Reporters.
An army scientist has helped solve the decades-old murder mystery surrounding the last Russian czar.
The bones unearthed in a shallow grave definitely are those of Czar Nicholas II, said Lt. Col (Dr.) Victor Weedn at an Aug. 31 news conference. Weedn heads the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory in Rockville, Md., which is involved in identifying skeletal remains of U. S. service members who served in Vietnam, Korea and World War II.
The attempt to identify the czar presented a special challenge. The armed forces lab was the perfect place to perform. the type of genetic testing on old, deteriorating bones that was needed in this case, he said.
Until the announcement, scientists had not been able to say for sure whether the bones were those of the czar.
Russian DNA expert Pavel Ivanov, who with Weedn oversaw a team of U. S. military civilians tasked to identify the remains, reached the same conclusion.
Nicholas and his family were rounded up by the Bolsheviks and executed by firing squad in 1918. Their bodies were dumped into a pool of sulfuric acid 20 miles outside the Ural Mountain city of Yekaterinburg.
The shallow grave was uncovered in 1979. Bone fragments believed to be those of the czar, the Czarina Alexandra and three of their five children were unearthed in 1991.
While investigators were able to positively identify the czarina and the daughters early on, a rare, benign genetic condition that first showed up in his generation did not allow them to make a positive identification of Nicholas II.
Rare mutation the key
In the end, it was that genetic mutation which provided the key to solving the mystery, Weedn said. Nicholas' brother, whose remains were exhumed in July 1994, turned out to have the same mutation in his genetic makeup. It is so rare that it makes the identification absolute, he said.
If Russian authorities accept that finding, it will clear the way for the ceremonial burial of the last emperor of Russia.
But the new evidence did not satisfy all skeptics. Emigre Eugene Magerovsky, a retired Russian military intelligence officer, interrupted the news conference to say he was suspicious of how the bones "suddenly" came to light during the Soviet era.
"The Soviets have always been masters of all kinds of shenanigans," he said. He suggested the investigators may have been given two bones from the same corpse, in which case the DNA would have had to match.
Weedn ruled that out, as the tibia and femur from the same side of each body were used in the testing.
Ivanov, a forensic science professor in charge of identifying the remains of the last czar and his family, brought the femur bones—as well as a blood sample from a living relative— to the Rockville laboratory in June.
Much evidence lost
Years of exposure to minerals in the soil destroyed much of the genetic evidence in the bone, Weedn said. Still, through a painstaking process of grinding up bone, reproducing the genetic material from the dust and comparing the results over and over again, the team was able to reach its conclusion.
One mystery Weedn and Ivanov did not address was that of the czar's daughter, Anastasia. Whether she somehow escaped the Bolsheviks' bullets has been the topic of intense debate for more than half a century. The grave yielded bones from only three of the five daughters. Still unresolved is whether Anastasia or Marie might have survived, along with the sickly heir, Alexis.
Weedn, whose laboratory has tested two women who claimed to be Anastasia, found they were not. A third who sought testing has not sent in blood samples for testing, he added. On-again, off-again pairing
Weedn was approached by Ivanov four years ago about becomi
