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Diplomats frantically try to rescue Earth Summit

Diplomats were meeting behind closed doors in Johannesburg yesterday on the eve of the UN Earth Summit in a last-ditch effort to save it from widely predicted failure as police cracked down on criminals and protesters.

Eight thousand extra police and an undisclosed number of troops have been deployed in and around the plush northern suburb of Sandton, where the 10-day World Summit on Sustainable Development will be held.

They are patrolling on mountain bikes and horseback, and the security services say they are prepared for air and mortar attacks, as well as snipers.

The police said yesterday they had arrested 278 people over the past 48 hours in swoops in Johannesburg, seizing arms, drugs and stolen goods.

On Saturday, police fired stun grenades at around 500 anti-globalization protesters during an unauthorized march against the summit. Three demonstrators received minor injuries, organizers said.

The demonstrators gathered in front of Johannesburg's University of The Witwatersrand to demand the right to protest at the summit when they were confronted by around 50 police in riot gear, who fired the grenades without warning.

The protesters, who said the summit was promoting globalization, retreated after lighting candles and placing them around the police's feet, and burning official summit pamphlets.

The diplomats, from more than 30 key countries, are trying to resolve crucial disagreements between rich and poor nations and between the US and Europe on the three pillars of sustainable development -- poverty alleviation, social progress and protection of the environment.

Some 1,500 ministers from around the world will do the negotiating at the summit proper, with around 100 heads of state or government arriving for the final two or three days.

A notable absentee will be US President George W. Bush, who is sending Secretary of State Colin Powell in his place -- a decision that has angered the thousands of activists in Johannesburg.

Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, a special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said he was confident the summit would produce a "credible" action plan despite the wrangling.

"I expect results," he told reporters yesterday. "There will be an agreement and a commitment to implement an agreement which is credible."

A major disagreement is over objectives for poverty relief, which the EU says are indispensable but which the US refuses to endorse, in line with its reluctance to enter into any new multilateral deals.

Pronk said the follow-up to the first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 was poor on the whole, especially with poverty having increased dramatically in the 1990s despite "higher growth than in the 80s, 70s, 60s or 50s."
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