United States: President George Bush yesterday named John Bolton, one of a small but influential group of neo-conservatives at the heart of the administration, to be US ambassador to the United Nations.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that Mr Bolton, currently under-secretary for arms control, was picked "because he knows how to get things done".
At a State Department press conference with Mr Bolton by her side, Dr Rice called him a "tough-minded diplomat" with a strong record of success and a "proven track record of effective multilateralism".
Mr Bolton (56), a sharp critic of the UN and of hardline regimes, will replace John Danforth, a former Republican US senator from Missouri who left the post in January. Mr Bolton acknowledged yesterday he had written critically about the UN before now.
"Indeed, one highlight of my professional career was the 1991 successful effort to repeal the General Assembly's 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism, thus removing the greatest stain on the UN's reputation," he said.
Mr Bolton was one of 18 veterans of past Republican administrations who in 1998 sent a letter to President Clinton advocating the "Project for a New American Century" which called for a policy of "removing Saddam Hussein from power".
The other signatories included Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams, all of whom were given top posts in the administration, and other figures prominent in policy-making such as Richard Perle and William Kristol.
Mr Bolton is popular with supporters of Mr Bush's drive for democracy, but has been targeted by both conservative and liberal critics in the past.
Conservative anti-war columnist Pat Buchanan accused the diplomat last year of belonging to a foreign policy "clique" which saw US and Israeli interests as identical.
Nancy Soderberg, a former US ambassador to the UN in the Clinton presidency, alleges in a just-published book that Bolton "stunned" delegates at a UN small arms control conference in 2001 by opposing a small arms eradication initiative with the equivalent of a "stump speech for the National Rifle Association".
Another critic of the Bush administration, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, called Mr Bolton a "neo-conservative mole in the State Department".
He is likely to encounter Democratic opposition when he comes up for confirmation in the 100- member Senate, where 43 Democrats voted against his nomination to the State Department in May 2001.
Yesterday's announcement caused considerable stir among diplomats at the UN yesterday.
Apparently seeking to reply to concerns at UN headquarters, Dr Rice stressed that "the United States is committed to the success of the United Nations, and we view the UN as an important component of our diplomacy".
She said Mr Bolton was "personally committed to the future success of the United Nations and he will be a strong voice for reform" and "will also help to build a broader base of support here in the United States for the UN and its mission".
Mr Bolton said that American leadership was "critical to the success of the UN, an effective UN, one that is true to the original intent of its charter's framers".
This was "a time of opportunity for the UN, which likewise requires American leadership to achieve successful reform1".
European diplomats noted that Mr Bolton led US opposition to EU plans to lift a 15-year arms embargo and sell weapons to Beijing. Last month in Tokyo, he strongly criticised China for not stopping Chinese companies from selling missile technology to Iran. North Korea was so angered by his denunciations that Pyongyang refused to negotiate with him and he was removed from the US delegation.
One of his comments was that North Korea's Kim Jong Il was a "tyrannical dictator".