“We can only realize the promise of this institution’s founding to replace the ravages of war with cooperation if powerful nations, like my own, accept constraints”, Obama said.
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Leaders and representatives from 193 member countries in the world, including Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena attended the summit, which inaugurated under the patronage of UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon.
“Some argue the future favors the strongman”, Obama said, in remarks that will echo in the 2016 USA campaign as much as the Kremlin, or Tiananmen Square.
“We cannot unwind integration any more than we can stuff technology back in a box”, Obama said.
In addition to his speech, Obama on Tuesday planned to host a summit on refugees.
Some have agreed to accept twice the number of refugees they did a year ago.
In particular, seven countries – Romania, Portugal, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, France, Luxembourg – committed to resettle or admit at least 10 times more refugees than in 2015, according to U.S. officials.
World leaders, though, are grappling with the largest crisis of displaced persons since World War II – more than 65 million people who have fled their homes because of armed conflict or persecution, or because they are seeking asylum or a better way of life.
Countries also boosted financial contributions to United Nations appeals and global humanitarian organisations by about $4.5bn over 2015 levels.
Pledges also included funds for ensuring access to schools for a million refugee children and enabling one million refugees to work legally. Other countries at the summit made similar announcements, with their leaders coming to the podium one by one to tell stories about refugee families and proclaim their commitments.
But rights groups dismissed the agreement as falling far short of the needed global response.
Donald Trump in the wake of the June 12 massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., reiterated his call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the U.S. He also said he would suspend immigration “when there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe and our allies”.
“This crisis is a test of our common humanity, whether we give in to suspicion and fear and build walls”, Mr. Obama said.
Trump has controversially proposed building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico to keep out undocumented migrants.
The Obama administration has emphasized that a half-dozen other countries including Germany and Jordan are co-hosting the refugee summit, but it’s largely been a USA -driven endeavor.
Obama’s plea comes as a record 65million people around the world were displaced from their homes previous year, but no coherent plan among world leaders is in place to resettle the millions of refugees. “We have to have the empathy to see ourselves”.
“The way the president will approach this is trying to apply what we have done that’s worked in the last eight years as a template for how we deal with other crises”, Rhodes said.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party suffered electoral setbacks this month in the face of a surge of anti-migrant parties.
“We have to open our hearts and do more to help refugees who are desperate for a home”, he said. A quarter century after the end of the Cold War, the world is, by many measures, less violent and more prosperous than ever before, yet our society is filled with unease and strife.
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That message fits in well with the theme of this year’s United Nations general debate, titled “Sustainable Development Goals: a universal push to transform our world”.
