Seizing a chance to challenge the world, US President Barack Obama says the global community is failing its people and that fixing this is not “solely America’s endeavor.”
“Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone,” Obama said in a passage of the speech he was delivering yesterday to the UN General Assembly.
The White House released excerpts in advance that carried a remarkably blunt tone.
It comes in Obama’s first speech to this world body, a forum like none other for a leader hoping to wash away any lasting images of US unilateralism under former president George W. Bush.
In essence, Obama’s message was that he expects plenty in return for reaching out.
“We have sought in word and deed a new era of engagement with the world,” Obama said.
He said if the world is honest with itself, it has fallen woefully short.
“Extremists sowing terror in pockets of the world,” Obama said. “Protracted conflicts that grind on and on. Genocide and mass atrocities. More and more nations with nuclear weapons. Melting ice caps and ravaged populations. Persistent poverty and pandemic disease.”
“I say this not to sow fear, but to state a fact: The magnitude of our challenges has yet to be met by the measure of our action,” he said.
Obama’s speech was the centerpiece of a day in which he was also holding pivotal meetings with the new Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Obama foreshadowed his message to world leaders in a speech on Tuesday to the Clinton Global Initiative.
He spoke of nations interconnected by problems, whether a flu strain or an economic collapse or a drug trade that crosses borders.
“Just as no nation can wall itself off from the world, no one nation — no matter how large, no matter how powerful — can meet these challenges alone,” Obama said.
“The United States has dramatically changed the tone, the substance and the practice of our diplomacy at the United Nations,” said Susan Rice, Obama’s ambassador to the UN.
But multilateralism has its limits, particularly as national interests collide.
Obama needs the sway of Moscow and Beijing in getting tougher UN action against Tehran over its potential nuclear weapons program, but neither government is showing interest.
While other world leaders could push for peace in the Middle East, it was Obama who intervened in pulling together the Israeli and Palestinian leaders on Tuesday.
Obama’s day started with his meeting with Hatoyama, who has said he wants to shift Japan’s diplomatic stance from one that is less centered on Washington’s lead.
Later, Obama was meeting Medvedev. Their meeting comes just days following Obama’s decision to scrap a Bush-era missile defense plan in Eastern Europe that Moscow had deeply opposed, swapping it for a proposal the US says better targets any launch by Iran.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
At first, Francis Ari Sture thought a human was trying to shove him down the steep Norwegian mountainside. Then he saw the golden eagle land. “We are staring at each other for, maybe, a whole minute,” Sture said on Monday. “I’m trying to think what’s in its mind.” The bird then attacked Sture five more times on Thursday last week, scratching and clawing the 31-year-old bicycle courier’s face and arms over 10 to 15 minutes as he sprinted down the mountain. The same eagle is believed to be responsible for attacks on three other people across a vast mountainous area of southern Norway
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for