JOHANNESBURG, Aug 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United States announced plans Thursday, August 29, 2002, to spend more than a billion dollars on easing poverty and protecting natural resources in poor countries. The EU countered by announcing it would shortly unveil two "major" partnerships, one on helping the world's two billion poorest gain access to electricity, the other on providing them with clean water and sanitation.

"The United States is the world's leader in sustainable development," declared Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

She defended President George W. Bush - the big absentee at next week's meeting of heads of state and government - against charges of unilateralism.

Dobriansky suggested that too much focus was placed on U.S. isolation in negotiations to craft the summit's blueprint for action, an arena for fierce political battles over whether goals and deadlines should be set for encouraging sustainable development.

The initiatives are so-called partnerships, in which government funds combine with private capital, technology and know-how. Dobriansky said that government cash, if used wisely, could leverage several times that amount in other sources, according to AFP.

They include expanding access to clean water in poor countries, providing millions of people with access to electricity and making energy use more efficient and less polluting.

One scheme is aimed at helping cut hunger in Africa, largely through technology and education for farmers and traders, and the United States will support sustainable forest management in the Congo Basin.

For his part, Claude Allen, U.S. deputy secretary for the U.S. health and human services department, defended genetically modified food aid for drought-stricken southern Africa.

"Our scientific research has demonstrated that genetically modified food is as safe as non-genetically modified food," he told AFP.

"In fact, genetic modification can remove mild toxins that already exist in some food such as maize so we believe it's even better for consumption."

The World Bank, meanwhile, set up a global panel to assess the risks of GM (Genetic Modification) and other scientific methods used to boost agricultural productivity.

"Nearly 800 million people go to bed hungry every night and over the next 50 years, food production will have to double to meet growing demands," said World Bank vice president for sustainable development Ian Johnson.

"As we move forward, the application of science to agriculture must be fully assessed but equally environmental and social risks, as well as ethical issues, need to be examined."

The United Nations said in a report that AIDS would claim another 68 million lives by 2020 and make sustainable development a pipe-dream unless the epidemic was curbed.

Releasing the document, UNAIDS director Peter Piot said that at the rate it was growing, the epidemic would make it impossible to achieve the summit's aims of eradicating poverty while protecting the planet's resources for future generations.

"In many parts of the world, one can forget about sustainable development if the AIDS epidemic is not brought under control," he told reporters.

A dozen Green Peace activists prevented trucks carrying chemicals from entering the Chloorkop factory 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Johannesburg and hung a fluorescent green banner across the entrance, with the message, "Do not repeat Bhopal, clean up Africa now," in a reference to the world's biggest industrial disaster.

Green Peace spokesman Brad Smith said the Chloorkop plant was polluting the air and water around it.

An estimated 3,500 to 7,500 people were killed and more than half a million seriously injured when toxic gas leaked from a chemical factory in Bhopal, India, in December 1984.

Activists from the British charity Oxfam dumped about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of sugar on a large map of Africa in protest at European Union sugar subsidies blamed for destroying the livelihoods of poor tropical farmers.

Oxfam spokeswoman Penny Fowler said the EU had the highest-cost sugar production of any region in the world, and could only get around this competitive disadvantage by shelling out 1.6 billion dollars a year to European agribusiness.

In a separate related declaration, The EU announced it would unveil two "major" partnerships on the sidelines of the summit, one on helping the world's two billion poorest gain access to electricity, and the other on providing them with clean water and sanitation.

EU Commissioner for Development Poul Nielson said the European Union's so-called Water for Life partnership, to be announced next Tuesday, would help provide "long-term sustainable solutions" to countries facing water scarcity and distribution problems.

"Collectively, the EU is already the largest donor in the field of water, with funding averaging around 1.4 billion euros (dollars) a year. We are ready to increase this amount in coming years."

The EU's Energy Initiative, to be announced Sunday, will aim to improve energy efficiency and networks, with the main beneficiaries being the 78-nation African, Caribbean and Pacific bloc which has a development accord with the EU, Nielson said.

"Collectively, the EU already provides up to 700 million euros a year for energy in developing countries. This amount could increase in coming years as increased awareness of the role of energy service in poverty eradication leads to more requests for assistance from these countries."

The EU and United States have been locked in bitter textual battles at the summit, with the Americans fiercely opposing efforts to set a timetable and specific targets for development and the environment.

Observers and human rights activists, meanwhile, received the U.S. and EU pledges to help the poor with caution, stressing that “actions speak louder and more effective than words”.

For his part, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called Thursday the United States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and promised to urge nations at the Johannesburg Earth Summit to apply it rapidly.

"Kyoto is the minimum standard that should be applied globally. I'm going to make a commitment toward that end at the Johannesburg summit and I call on the United States government to ratify the Kyoto Protocol," he told the German Parliament.

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, industrialized nations were to trim greenhouse-gas emissions - the by-product of burning oil, gas and coal - by 5.2 percent of 1990 levels by 2008-12.

Kyoto was ratified by all 15 European Union members and Japan, but still requires another big industrialized country, Russia, to follow suit in order to take effect under its complex rulebook.

Bush refused to ratify Kyoto last year on the grounds it would cost U.S. jobs, and Australia has also declined to ratify.