UNITED NATIONS – A revised American draft for a resolution that vaguely threatens punitive measures against Khartoum met with resistance when it was circulated among Security Council members yesterday.

The objections to the softened version came even as the World Health Organization estimated that 10,000 people die each month in Sudan’s Darfur region.

America’s U.N. ambassador, John Danforth, said that the 30-days delay of implied council action against Khartoum in the proposed resolution does not mean the world is giving up on yet another 10,000 victims.

“It’s not giving them 30 more days to obey,” Mr. Danforth told The New York Sun, referring to the resolution’s time clock on Khartoum’s cooperation. “Every day, every hour is important, and what we have to do on an accelerated basis is to maximize the African Union presence, and also to make sure that the commitment is there for the humanitarian support.”

China’s ambassador, Wang Guangya, however, told reporters that any threat of sanctions, especially the American proposal to “consider” measures against Sudan’s petroleum sector, might lead to a Chinese veto. China, one of five permanent members of the council, has strong ties to Khartoum’s oil industry.

“We need a good prescription which will help the patient not kill the patient,” Mr. Guangya said. He said that beside sanctions, he opposed the resolution’s call for an international commission of inquiry “to determine whether acts of genocide have occurred in Darfur.”

Secretary of State Powell testified last week that genocide was committed in Darfur, and yesterday foreign ministers of the European Union, meeting in Brussels, called on Secretary-General Annan to launch an inquiry “as soon as possible” to determine whether the term applies to events in Sudan, which the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, called “a humanitarian catastrophe with genocidal potential.”