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Puck
The Texan
Joined: 05 Jan 2004
Posts: 5596
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 Wed Sep 14, 2005 10:37 pm Annan: Members fall short of goals |
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Annan: Members fall short of goals
Addresses leaders at U.N. General Assembly
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has told a world summit that United Nations members had failed to achieve the profound reform the global organization needed on its 60th anniversary.
Opening a three-day summit of some 150 kings, presidents and prime ministers on Wednesday, Annan hailed as a breakthrough an agreement on the responsibility to intervene to protect civilians against genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing.
But a declaration agreed after months of wrangling failed to agree a common approach to the spread of weapons of mass destruction or a new definition of terrorism and fell short of poor nations' hopes on trade and aid.
"Let us be frank with each other, and the peoples of the United Nations. We have not yet achieved the sweeping and fundamental reform that I and many others believe is required," Annan told a sprawling gathering overshadowed by a scandal over abuses of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.
U.S. President George W. Bush referred obliquely to the damaging scandal, saying the United Nations must be "free of corruption, and accountable to the people it serves" and practice the high moral standards it preached.
In a combative speech, Bush focused on his priorities of spreading democracy and eliminating barriers to free trade, as well as using military force, to defeat terrorism and transform the troubled Middle East. (Watch Bush address to U.N. -- 6:34)
Addressing a world body whose members are still deeply divided over the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, he insisted Iraqis were on the road to building a model democracy despite yet another day of bloodshed in Baghdad in which more than 150 people were killed.
While Bush emphasized the fight against terrorism and extremist ideologies, Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, one of the co-chairmen, said the main point of the summit should be "to get the fight against world poverty back on track".
Many of the world's poorest countries were falling short of the ambitious goals to halve world poverty by 2015, combat disease and promote development agreed at the 2000 U.N. Millennium summit, he said.
"If we allow this to happen, millions of lives will be lost and we will pass on a more unfair and unsafe world to the next generations", Persson said.
Annan said preparatory negotiations for the summit had opened up more development aid and debt relief, triggered the creation of a U.N. Democracy Fund and led to a convention against nuclear terrorism.
But he called "inexcusable" the second failure in a year to reach agreement on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.
Poverty challenges
In a paper in March entitled "In Larger Freedom", Annan set out challenges for the 21st century that required collective action: alleviating extreme poverty, reversing the AIDS pandemic, global security, terrorism and human rights.
But after protracted negotiations over the last few weeks, nearly every bold initiative suffered cutbacks in the final 38-page document approved by the General Assembly on Tuesday for endorsement at the summit.
Still, the somewhat weakened document saved the summit from failure. U.N. officials highlighted initiatives, including the establishment of a new human rights body, a peacebuilding commission to help nations emerging from war and perhaps most significantly, an obligation to intervene when civilians face genocide and war crimes.
Human rights, anti-poverty and other advocacy groups expressed disappointment at the outcome.
Nicola Reindorp, head of Oxfam's New York office, said in a statement, "We wanted a bold agenda to tackle poverty but instead we have a brochure showcasing past commitments."
According to Nancy Soderberg of the International Crisis Group research group, the developing world seemed stuck in the 1960s while the United States was fighting its own "ideological hot buttons" on climate change, disarmament and levels of development aid.
Among the side events on Wednesday were a special Security Council meeting that adopted a British-drafted resolution urging governments to adopt laws to curb incitement to terrorism.
Presidents Hu Jintao of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin of France as well as Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair were among the leaders of nations with seats on the 15-member council.
For many New Yorkers, Manhattan turned into a traffic hell. Streets closed. Armored motorcades glided by as commuters sat in traffic while snipers stood guard on rooftops.
Even at the United Nations, security was unable to deal with the crush, keeping journalists with credentials in lines for hours.
Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Hitchhiker
Rear Admiral
Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: Ontario, Canada
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| Thu Sep 15, 2005 7:26 am |
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We are going around in circles. Like any relentless herd, however, we're too engrossed in the task to actually realise it.
Huxley pointed out in Island that the modern world spends too much time on cures and not enough on prevention, and I have to agree. We send peacekeepers to embattled regions, try to cope with famine and natural disaster. I'm not saying we should stop doing this, just that we should also focus on what's causing it. If you keep on treating the disease, yes, it will go away, but it will also keep on coming back. Preventing the disease from ever infecting someone means that a cure isn't necessary in the first place.
Playing the UN's WFP Foodforce game really opened my eyes. Sure, it may seem a little unchallenging for those of you who are hardcore gamers with desires to see aliens fly several metres into the air. But it was quite educational, serving its purpose to show how famine is handled.
There is plenty of blame to go around. The UN, everyone's favourite target, is very bloated and indolent. This is probably more due to the fact that the countries cannot get along enough to actually work together, however. A serious reform of the UN's operational procedures would go a long way to waking some people up--I do believe that certain administrators have been sleeping since the League of Nations.
Today's political climate does not help. Countries are too busy bickering over trivial issues like softwood lumber and sovereignty to bother with the big stuff, like the fact that people are dying because humanity has strained Earth's carrying capacity with our rapacious breeding and confrontational social structures. Rather than helping, the member countries are harming by the very way they do business.
Each issue is used as a political maneuver. France does not like America so it blocks something the U.S. proposes, even though it may benefit millions of people. Vice versa happens and the U.S. blocks a French proposal, simply because certain political ideologies do not mix. The UN should be above politics when it comes to environmental and social crises and the member countries should realise that it's not always about them.
The clock is ticking.
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