UN leader Ban Ki-moon arrives at the UN headquarters in New York to address the General Assembly yesterday. RIGHT: A protester holds a sign outside the United Nations.
UNITED NATIONS: UN leader Ban Ki-moon yesterday condemned “shrill” talk of war between Israel and Iran which he said would be devastating.
Without mentioning the two rivals by name, Ban told the start of the UN General Assembly that he rejects “threats of potential military action by one state against another.
“Any such attacks would be devastating. The shrill war talk of recent weeks has been alarming,” he told the 193-nation assembly where the showdown over Iran’s nuclear programme is one of the dominant themes.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is in New York, has shrugged off talk of an Israeli attack on his country’s nuclear facilities. But US President Barack Obama was to warn that the United States would “do what we must” to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon. Iran has denied western accusations that it seeks a nuclear bomb.
President Barack Obama yesterday eulogized slain US ambassador Christopher Stevens as the epitome of US values and an emblem for the principles for which the United Nations should stand. Two weeks after Stevens died in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi amid an outburst of anti-American rage in the Arab world, Obama used his life as the organizing narrative framing his annual speech to the United Nations.
“I would like to begin today by telling you about an American named Chris Stevens,” Obama told world leaders, as he stood against the marbled backdrop of the UN General Assembly hall.
Obama told how, Stevens, the son of a lawyer and a musician from California, had joined the Peace Corps as a young man at the start of a love affair with the Middle East and North Africa - a region that would later claim his life. The president styled Stevens who died aged 52, as a new breed of quiet American abroad, immersing himself in local cultures, learning languages and knowing foreign peoples by living among them. “He worked from Egypt to Syria, from Saudi Arabia to Libya.
Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff harshly criticised the economic policies of rich nations at the United Nations, saying they were failing to end the global crisis and harming emerging markets such as hers.
The left-leaning Rousseff said budget cuts and expansionary monetary policies in the United States and Europe were having severe negative side effects elsewhere in the world, causing Brazil’s currency to appreciate and damaging its exports.
She was the first head of state to address this year’s 193-nation UN General Assembly.
Rousseff’s comments came as she faces growing political pressure at home over an economy that has barely grown over the past year. She has also endured intense criticism from Washington and elsewhere over her recent decision to raise tariffs on about 100 goods, a move that fanned fears of rising protectionism among emerging markets.
The leader of Latin America’s biggest economy addressed those concerns head-on, saying Brazil will continue to protect its industries within legal means.
Agencies
