World leaders divided on UN reforms

UNITED NATIONS – World leaders united on Wednesday on the need to ban incitement of terrorism but fell short of ambitions for a fundamental reform of the United Nations at a summit on the agency’s 60th anniversary.

The 15-member Security Council held a rare top-level session to adopt a resolution on terrorism proposed by Britain following the July 7 London bombings. “We have a solemn obligation to stop terrorism at its early stages,” US President George W.Bush told the session.”We must do all we can to disrupt each stage of planning and support for terrorist acts.”Bush also issued a more nuanced appeal, saying that war alone would not defeat terrorism if the world ignored “the hardship and oppression of others.”Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the gathering of kings, presidents and prime ministers that despite some progress, negotiators had failed to achieve the profound overhaul of UN policies and institutions he sought.He conceded that in many areas, including enlargement of the Security Council, members remained sharply divided.”We have not yet achieved the sweeping and fundamental reform that I and many others believe is required,” Annan said.”Our biggest challenge and our biggest failing is on nuclear-proliferation and disarmament,” he told the opening session of the three-day summit, which has turned from solving crises to highlighting the world body’s difficulties.Negotiations on a summit document the world leaders are to endorse dropped disarmament proposals from Norway and South Africa, backed by about 80 nations.The United States objected to calls for nuclear disarmament but stressed the danger of terrorists and rogue states obtaining unconventional weapons.French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin served a reminder of the topicality of the issue, warning Iran that it faced referral to the UN Security Council unless it met its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.Tehran insists it has the right to enrich uranium for what it says is a civilian nuclear programme, but Western nations suspect it of a clandestine drive to develop an atom bomb.The foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany were seeking a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in what could be a last-ditch effort to “test the temperature of Iran’s new leadership” on the nuclear issue, a European diplomat said.Annan said it was a breakthrough that the international community had agreed for the first time it had a responsibility to intervene to protect civilians against genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing.But billions of people still depended on radical action to achieve the Millennium Development Goals that include halving extreme poverty by half by 2015, Annan told the gathering, which was overshadowed by a scandal over abuses of the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq.Bush referred obliquely to the 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.The president also insisted the United States was committed to the Millennium Development Goals, despite Washington’s earlier demands that references to the phrase be deleted from the summit document.And he pledged to drop all trade barriers if other countries did the same.Tanzanian President Benjamin William Mkapa said it never occurred to him that the UN members would have problems in agreeing to eradicate poverty.”When a jumbo jet crashes, we will rush in with assistance but we forget that each day 30 000 children die unnecessarily from poverty-related preventable causes – equivalent to 100 jumbo jets crashing every day,” Mkapa said.In a veiled criticism of the United States, the world’s richest nation, Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende said the Europeans had agreed to boost development aid spending but “we need to see more equal burden-sharing”.Most of the delegates spent their times meeting each other, including a handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whose nations have no diplomatic relations.- Nampa-Reuters”We have a solemn obligation to stop terrorism at its early stages,” US President George W.Bush told the session.”We must do all we can to disrupt each stage of planning and support for terrorist acts.”Bush also issued a more nuanced appeal, saying that war alone would not defeat terrorism if the world ignored “the hardship and oppression of others.”Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the gathering of kings, presidents and prime ministers that despite some progress, negotiators had failed to achieve the profound overhaul of UN policies and institutions he sought.He conceded that in many areas, including enlargement of the Security Council, members remained sharply divided.”We have not yet achieved the sweeping and fundamental reform that I and many others believe is required,” Annan said.”Our biggest challenge and our biggest failing is on nuclear-proliferation and disarmament,” he told the opening session of the three-day summit, which has turned from solving crises to highlighting the world body’s difficulties.Negotiations on a summit document the world leaders are to endorse dropped disarmament proposals from Norway and South Africa, backed by about 80 nations.The United States objected to calls for nuclear disarmament but stressed the danger of terrorists and rogue states obtaining unconventional weapons.French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin served a reminder of the topicality of the issue, warning Iran that it faced referral to the UN Security Council unless it met its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.Tehran insists it has the right to enrich uranium for what it says is a civilian nuclear programme, but Western nations suspect it of a clandestine drive to develop an atom bomb.The foreign ministers of France, Britain and Germany were seeking a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in what could be a last-ditch effort to “test the temperature of Iran’s new leadership” on the nuclear issue, a European diplomat said.Annan said it was a breakthrough that the international community had agreed for the first time it had a responsibility to intervene to protect civilians against genocide, war crimes and ethnic cleansing.But billions of people still depended on radical action to achieve the Millennium Development Goals that include halving extreme poverty by half by 2015, Annan told the gathering, which was overshadowed by a scandal over abuses of the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq.Bush referred obliquely to the 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.The president also insisted the United States was committed to the Millennium Development Goals, despite Washington’s earlier demands that references to the phrase be deleted from the summit document.And he pledged to drop all trade barriers if other countries did the same.Tanzanian President Benjamin William Mkapa said it never occurred to him that the UN members would have problems in agreeing to eradicate poverty.”When a jumbo jet crashes, we will rush in with assistance but we forget that each day 30 000 children die unnecessarily from poverty-related preventable causes – equivalent to 100 jumbo jets crashing every day,” Mkapa said.In a veiled criticism of the United States, the world’s richest nation, Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende said the Europeans had agreed to boost development aid spending but “we need to see more equal burden-sharing”.Most of the delegates spent their times meeting each other, including a handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whose nations have no diplomatic relations.- Nampa-Reuters