The Funny Farm

From more than 750 editorial changes proposed by the United States Mission to the Untied Nations, led by John Bolton, to a thirty-six page draft statement prepared for September's U.N. summit meeting. Additions are shown in boldface and proposed deletions from the documents are shown in strikethrough.

We affirm that the targeting and deliberate killing by terrorists of civilians and noncombatants cannot be justified or legitimized by any cause or grievance.

We resolve to conclude a comprehensive con­vention on international terrorism, including a legal definiton of terrorist acts, during the 60th session of the General Assembly.

We commit support national efforts to assist victims of terrorism around the world and to pro­vide them and their families with support to cope with their loss and their grief.

We resolve to:

- Appeal to all states in take action in a multilateral framework unilaterally, bilater­ally, or multilaterally to prevent the prolifera­tion of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery in all its aspects and the possi­bility that terrorists might acquire such weapons.

- Also appeal to the nuclear weapons States to take concrete steps toward nuclear disarmament with the objective of elmmating all such weapons.

- Strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention through continued multilateral and national efforts to improve its verification and national implementation.

- Complete the destruction of chemical weapons consistent with the Chemical Weapons Con­vention in a timely and effective manner.

We urge all States to take and implement confidence building and disarmament measures wtth a view to promoting and strengthening regional and international security

We emphasize the urgent need for an effective, comprehensive, durable, and development oriented solution to the debt problems of developing countries. Debt can be an important source of capital for development. Debt sustainability is essential for underpinning growth.

We strongly support fair globalization and re­solve to make the goals of full and productive employment and decent work for all, including for women and young people, a central objective of our national and international macroeeconomic policies as well as debt-reduction strategies. These measures should also encompass the elimination of the worst forms of child labor.

We resolve to:

- Achieve significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2015 2020, recognizing the urgent need for the provision of increased resources for affordable housing and housing-related infrastructure, prioritizing slum prevention and slum upgrading, and increasing contributions to supporting the United Nations Human Settlements Foundation, and its Slum Upgrading Facility.

- Ensure long term public funding for academic and for industrial research, as well as development of new medicines and treatments to address the great pandemics and other tropical diseases.

-Provide, as a priority, assistance for HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment in African countries on a grant basis, and encourage pharmaceutical companies to make antirctroviral drugs affordable and accessible in Africa and ensure increased support for bilateral and multilateral assistance to combat malaria, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases in Africa.