Since both Beijing and Washington have veto power in the Security Council that should have buried efforts to add new permanent council members, or even the non-permanent variety. But it hasn't.

Some members of a special committee of 10 African heads of state are already contacting U.N. members in a last-ditch attempt to drum up support for the African Union's expansion proposal.

This calls for the addition of two African states as permanent members with the same power of veto as the current five (United States, Britain, France, China, and Russia) plus the addition of five non-permanent seats.

Meanwhile, on Thursday representatives of the G-4 (Germany, Japan, Brazil, India) met with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss their proposal for adding six permanent seats (themselves plus the two representatives from Africa) in the Security Council, and four non-permanent seats.

In contrast with the Africans, the G-4 feels that insistence on the veto would make its campaign a non-starter, and it has decided to shelve that particular issue for 15 years.

A German diplomat told United Press International Friday they were urged by Annan not to abandon their efforts. Changing the composition of the Security Council is part of a broad-based reform of the world body that is already under way. But the Germans argue that reforming the Security Council will demonstrate that the United Nations means business.

"If the U.N. is not able to reform the centerpiece of the organization then it will not capture public perception," the German diplomat said.

A third group calling itself Uniting for Consensus and including Italy, Pakistan, Colombia, Argentina, and others, is against any increase of the permanent members, but advocates adding more non-permanent members and making it possible for them to serve for more than the present two-year period.

All three groups were hoping to have their respective proposals adopted by the 60th anniversary U.N. summit in New York on Sept 14, but analysts see this time frame as over optimistic. Annan himself said this week that no change is likely "before the Christmas break," leaving the summit facing the prospect of having little more to do than celebrate the past.

But are the "reformers" flogging a dead horse? Is all this political capital being squandered for no purpose? The Bush administration clearly thinks so.

Washington favors a limited increase of permanent members - Japan and perhaps one other country - and a few more non-permanent members eventually.

But the Americans insist the Security Council is the part of the United Nations that needs reform least, and that priority should be given to fixing the broken bits, such as U.N. financing, the peacekeeping operations, and the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the latter being controlled by countries that have human rights records ranging from poor to abysmal.

The German diplomat believes it boils down to numbers. Acceptance of any of the existing proposals means getting 128 out of a possible 191 General Assembly votes. Which is why, says a U.N. source, "these are days of almost frantic lobbying in the U.N. and the tension is very high."

The key to success is seen as strong African support: G-4 sources calculate that they need between 30 and 40 African votes (out of a possible 53) to ensure comfortable passage of their proposal. One snag is that the African Union, at its summit in Addis Ababa last week enjoined its members to back the organization's proposal despite wide disagreement over the veto issue; and the current drive is to persuade the Africans to break ranks.

If any proposal receives approval in the General Assembly, it will require an amendment of the U.N. Charter to take effect. That in turn needs ratification by all the member countries, including the five permanent members of the Security Council.

On the face of it, the United states and China could then block the resolution. But a strong vote in the General Assembly would raise the level of political pressure for change, and both Beijing and Washington will be faced with the choice of going against international political opinion, or giving in to it.

A hard decision for the Bush administration whose opposition to the G-4 is determined by specific political choices. The Bush administration will not rebuff Italy, a strong ally with 2,500 troops deployed in Iraq, to support Germany's Security Council aspirations.

Nor will it support India at the expense of America's ties with Pakistan, already a rather shaky ally in U.S. efforts to finish off the Taliban in Afghanistan. After a promising start, Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva has been a disappointment to Washington.

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