“We cannot unwind integration any more than we can stuff technology back into a box”, Obama said. Each of us as leaders, each nation, can choose to reject those who appeal to our worst impulses and embrace those who appeal to our best.
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Washington has said the U.S. will raise the number of refugees entering the country by 25,000 to 110,000 in the next fiscal year, which begins in October.
Obama is addressing the United Nations for the final time as president. He said a “peaceful resolution” of China’s territorial dispute “will mean far greater stability than … militarization” in the region.
North Korea’s Sept 9 nuclear weapons test was also in focus.
“This is important work, it has made a real difference in the lives of our people, and it could not have happened had we not worked together”, he said.
Mr Obama’s long-standing differences with Russian president Vladimir Putin over his actions in Ukraine have accompanied intense disagreement over Syria’s future and a series of failed attempts by Russia and the U.S. to resolve the civil war there together.
Obama demanded that democracies of the world “speak out forcefully” for “freedom and dignity”. “The answer can not be a simple rejection of global integration”.
As imperfect as they are, the principles of open markets and accountable governance, ofdemocracy and human rights and global law that we have forged, remain the firmest foundation for human progress in this century, he told world leaders on the first day of the Assemblys annual general debate, his eighth. He described “trade wars”, protectionism, and tariff hikes as “failed models of the past” and reiterated his pitch for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive trade agreement among 12 Pacific Rim countries awaiting ratification by signatories. “A quarter century after the end of the Cold War, the world is by many measures less violent and more prosperous than ever before”, Obama declared, adding that the United States has “been a force for good” over this period.
The summit was held a day after the 193 United Nations member-states adopted a global plan to confront the refugee crisis.
Meeting with CEOs of some of the companies and actor George Clooney and his wife, Amal, before the summit, Obama welcomed the pledges as more than an “extraordinary gesture of compassion”. “But please don’t challenge me to a game of basketball!” Obama noted those inconsistencies between what we as a nation profess and what we do. He cited, you know, how the US led efforts to fight Ebola in West Africa and push for a climate change agreement that could come into effect later this year. “A society that asks less of oligarchs than ordinary citizens will rot from within”.
Urging people everywhere “to become warriors for the plant”, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he is confident of reaching the magic number of 55 percent before the next United Nations climate conference, which starts November 7 in Marrakech, Morocco.
He noted that the meltdown of the global financial system, which almost collapsed during the final years of George W. Bush’s administration, was stabilized under his watch.
“The President’s commitment to ensuring that the United States plays a leading role on this issue is not shared by a lot of people in Congress, including by a lot of people in the Republican majority in Congress”, Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters.
The Paris climate deal on curbing greenhouse gas emissions stands out as Ban’s crowning achievement, an ambitious accord that he defended early on in the global push to address climate change.
Discussing the Middle East sinkhole he tried so hard to escape, but which ended up swallowing much of his foreign-policy attention, he was remarkably frank: “So much of the collapse in order has been fueled [by] leaders. resorting to persecuting political opposition, or demonizing other religious sects, (or) by narrowing the public space to the mosque”.
“We have the means to prevent conflict”.
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“We have to open our hearts and do more to help refugees who are desperate for a home”, Obama said.
