Carol Bellamy, the executive director of Unicef, said after a three-day visit that the rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, had not made any concrete progress on a plan to stop recruiting children, which the rebels had agreed to develop after December peace talks.
She talks of her commitment to a two-state peace deal with the Palestinians, but in her role as foreign minister and chief Israeli negotiator during the past year of peace talks she failed to make any concrete progress on the ground.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told a press conference that there had been a lot of "concrete progress but some differences remain".
With pulsating music, the gyrations of scantily clad dancers and the echoing thunder of cheering spectators, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers gathered yesterday to celebrate a year of concrete progress in the gay rights movement.
Mr. Powell, who was in Indonesia for a security conference of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, said there was an opportunity for "concrete progress," Mr. Boucher said.
Without Mr. Clinton's commitment to make fast-track a priority, the best the summit's leaders could offer was a pledge to make "concrete progress" toward signing an agreement on free trade by 2005.
"It is a long way from concrete progress," the official said.
Bellamy said Yokohama would provide an opportunity to make concrete progress in this crucial area.
A trip to Pakistan without concrete progress would send the wrong signal to other trouble spots about the seriousness of American opposition to military coups and reckless intervention in the problems of a neighboring country.
Meetings are occurring on a daily basis, but little concrete progress has been made since draft legislation was released on October 9. Talking Points: We need your help to resolve outstanding differences so that the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 can pass this year.
In those two decades, Vietnam lifted millions of people out of poverty through market-oriented reforms and made concrete progress towards a more open society.
