“In a world that left the age of empire behind, we see Russian Federation attempting to recover lost glory through force”, Obama said.
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“We must seek to increase global funding and humanitarian assistance, offer opportunities to resettle refugees and alternative legal routes for the admission, facilitate the access of the refugees to education and regular jobs”, they also said, noting the importance of increasing the number of countries providing significant levels of humanitarian assistance and resettlement”. He said, the refugee crisis is a test of the global system where all nations ought to share in their collective responsibilities.
“We can not avert our eyes or turn our backs”.
President Barack Obama, in his final speech to the United Nations Tuesday, made an impassioned plea on behalf of a liberal world order that he admitted was under growing threat from wars in the Middle East and rising nationalism at home and in Europe. “To slam the door in the face of these families would betray our deepest values”.
The US has agreed to take in 110,000 new refugees in the 2017 fiscal year – which begins on 1 October- compared with the 85,000 refugees it expects by the end of September.
The UN said it was suspending humanitarian convoys in Syria a day after aid trucks were hit by air strikes near second city Aleppo late Monday, killing around 20 civilians.
On Monday the Syrian military declared the ceasefire over and 18 United Nations aid trucks were destroyed as they tried to bring relief to war-ravaged citizens near Aleppo.
The participating countries have also pledged an additional $4.5 billion in refugee aid, Obama said.
With four months before leaving office, Obama called for a “course correction” to ensure that the unstoppable forces of globalization don’t lead nations to entrench behind their borders and ignore the most vulnerable.
“I think that’s really important as a start up”, she said.
In what appeared to be a dig at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, he added: “The world is too small for us to simply be able to build a wall and prevent (extremism) from affecting our own societies”.
Obama commented as the White House announced that more than four dozen US businesses have pledged $650 million to help refugees. Obama was hosting the summit with the leaders of Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, Jordan, Mexico, and Sweden, as well as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
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He also ticked off other issues – extremists who push people “into camps of “us” and ‘them, ‘ ” mistrust that divides citizens from their leaders, and the rising seas, record heat and extreme storms resulting from climate change. “And danger defines the days of many”.
