There are increasing fears that the World Development Summit in Johannesburg will fail to reach key agreements before heads of state arrive next week for what should be the climax of the meeting.

Talks will continue through the weekend and some representatives believe that if the final plan of action is not agreed by 4 September, when the summit is due to end, discussions could drag on for several more days.

BBC News Online correspondent Alex Kirby said the talks are approaching meltdown over the world's inability to confront US intransigence.

We must not end up with a weak agreement because we've been outmaneuvered

Paul Jefferiss Royal Society for Protection of Birds

Some observers believe the US wants a weak agreement, or none at all, to leave it free to act as it will.

One delegate told BBC News Online: "The US has nothing to lose, because it wants to preserve the status quo.

"The EU needs to isolate it by winning the support of the G77 group of developing countries, and the only way to get them onside is through some grand political gesture - more rapid trade reform, a faster phase-out of the EU common agricultural policy, more development aid, something like that."

The EU briefly withdrew all its officials from discussions on Thursday night in protest at the American position.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to announce a concession, possibly an acceptance of the target date of 2015 for halving the number of people in the world without access to proper sanitation.

Late-night session

Delegates worked until 0330 on Friday morning, with European Union delegates striving to increase the speed of talks.

One of their senior negotiators pointed out that it had taken a whole day just to get agreement on the single paragraph on harmful chemicals.

They fear time is running out.

The Europeans have a list of 14 topics they think should be referred to ministers, ranging from human rights and governance to globalization, climate change and sanitation targets.

The EU want the list referred up immediately, but the developing countries group, among others, clearly thinks this is premature and want to settle of the issues between officials.

Weak agreement

Paul Jefferiss, head of environmental policy at the UK's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, told BBC News Online: "We must not end up with a weak agreement because we've been outmaneuvered

"It's been obvious all along that the EU needs a Plan B in the negotiations - something that would let it reject an unsatisfactory agreement but still keep the process alive.

"That makes a weak agreement likelier - and that would be a disaster for the planet, and for people. The EU's been putting off the evil moment, saying: 'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.' Well, we're now at the bridge."

A delegate from an international non-governmental organization was less apocalyptic.

He told BBC News Online: "It's going to be very, very difficult. Sometimes you could imagine yourself back in 1991, before the Rio earth summit, from some of the conversations.

"But there are countries determined to make progress, and it's too early to write the summit off."

Climate change

There are doubts about the summit's priorities, and concern that climate change, judged one of the gravest problems, appears to be an afterthought.

Bob Watson, chief scientist of the World Bank, is the former chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"Climate change isn't being discussed properly here. It affects all the key areas identified by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general - water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity. But it's not obvious that the summit is fully including it," he said.

Copyright 2002 BBC

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