Spelling it out: George W Bush addresses the UN General Assembly Photo: AFP

How do you keep a leader as verbally gaffe-prone as US President George W Bush from making even more slips of the tongue?

When Mr Bush addressed the UN General Assembly the White House inadvertently showed exactly how - with a phonetic pronunciation guide on the teleprompter to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.

The White House was left scrambling to explain after a marked-up draft of Mr Bush's speech popped up briefly on the UN website as he delivered his remarks, giving a rare glimpse of the special guidance he gets for major addresses.

It included phonetic spellings for supposed friend and French President Nicolas Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee) and Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee), a target of US human rights criticism.

Pronunciations were also provided for Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan), Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a) and the Zimbabwe capital Harare (hah-RAR-ray).