“We should all understand that ultimately our world will be more secure if we are prepared to help those in need”, Obama said in his final speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday, adding that pledges of increased assistance made at the meeting should all be welcomed, Xinhua news agency reported.
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Obama urged the world leaders to bring the Paris climate change deal into force as soon as possible, saying “If we don’t act boldly, the bill that could come due will be mass migrations and cities submerged and nations displaced and food supplies decimated and conflicted born of despair”.
World leaders have gathered for the assembly and our Prime Minister will make his speech later today.
But Ban blamed the Syrian government for the most deaths. He said it was continuing to drop barrel bombs on neighborhoods and torture thousands of detainees.
The millions of refugees leaving war-torn Syria and other countries wracked by conflict have led to a backlash in some countries, including in the US, where Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested banning Muslim immigrants. Ban called the bombers “cowards”.
He blamed all sides for killing innocent people, but “none more so than the government of Syria”. In his speech that year, Obama vowed to work within global bodies to confront the world’s crises while pushing an agenda combating climate change and nuclear non-proliferation. Still, he stuck faithfully to his insistence that diplomatic efforts and not military solutions are the key to resolving Syria’s war and other conflicts.
He lamented that while the world has become a safer and more prosperous place by many measures, people have lost faith in public institutions amid frightening problems like terrorism and a devastating refugee crisis.
“It’s no surprise that some argue the future favors the strongman”, Obama said.
Those pictured include (front row, from right): Marijcke Anne Thomson, wife of the General Assembly President; Yoo Soon-taek, wife of the UN Secretary-General; Michelle Obama, First Lady of the United States; Jill Biden, Second Lady of the United States; Mette Holm, wife of Mogens Lykketoft, outgoing President of the General Assembly; Mr. Lykketoft.
In an oblique reference to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who has suggested temporarily banning Muslim immigrants, Obama said buying into the notion that Muslim immigrants pose an inherent risk would reinforce terrorists’ propaganda.
“We cannot unwind integration any more than we can stuff technology back into a box”, Obama said.
He accused Russian Federation of trying to “recover lost glory through force” and said that a peaceful resolution in the South China Sea was more important than “arguing over rocks and reefs”.
Ban also criticized authoritarian and undemocratic tendencies among world leaders bent on clinging to power. He cited the rise of “people power” with mobile phones that now blanket the world, reductions in poverty, political transitions in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and the cease-fire agreement in Colombia.
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The US is hosting a Leaders’ Summit on Refugees on the margins of the General Assembly, to galvanize significant new global commitments to increase funding to humanitarian appeals and worldwide organizations, admit more refugees through resettlement or other legal pathways, and increase refugees’ self-reliance and inclusion through opportunities for education and legal work. “As people lose trust in institutions, governing becomes more hard and tensions between nations become more quick to surface”.
