WASHINGTON, March 7: President George Bush has picked US under secretary of state for arms control, John Bolton, a sharp critic of North Korea and other hard line governments , to be ambassador to the United Nations, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday.

"The president and I have asked John to do this work, because he knows how to get things done," Rice told a media conference with Bolton by her side. "He is a tough minded diplomat. He has a strong record of success and he has a proven track record of effective multilateralism," she said.

A self-confessed UN critic, Bolton would replace John Danforth, a former Republican US senator from Missouri who left the UN post in January to return to his home state after seven months on the job. -AFP