Journal of the United Nations
Programme of meetings and agenda
(pdf)

***

http://www.un.org/news/


***


Upheaval on Wall St. Stirs Anger in the U.N.

UNITED NATIONS — Wall Street and the Bush administration’s record of financial oversight came under attack at the United Nations on Tuesday, with one world leader after another saying that market turmoil in the United States threatened the global economy.
...
“The global financial crisis endangers all our work,” said the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, who used his opening remarks at the General Assembly to question the reliance on free markets. “We need a new understanding on business ethics and governance, with more compassion and less uncritical faith in the ‘magic’ of markets.”

President Bush, making his eighth and last address to the United Nations, with which he has had a troubled relationship, sought to reassure world leaders that his administration was taking “bold steps” to stanch the economic crisis in the United States, which, he said, “would have a devastating effect on other economies around the world.”

In other words, more socialism! Never fear, comrade, the government will protect us from ourselves!




Ahmadinejad: 'American empire' nearing its end

(CNN) -- In a blistering speech before the United Nations General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blamed "a few bullying powers" for creating the world's problems and said the "American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road."

At the United Nations, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said countries are turning their backs on "bullying powers."

And while he insisted Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful, Ahmadinejad blamed the same powers for seeking to hinder it "by exerting political and economic pressures on Iran, and threatening and pressuring" the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Those powers, meanwhile, are building or maintaining nuclear stockpiles themselves, unchecked by anyone, he said.

As Ahmadinejad spoke, the only person at the United States table was a note-taker; no U.S. diplomat was present. When President Bush spoke earlier Tuesday, however, Ahmadinejad was in the room.

Bolton on Ahmadinejad's U.N. Address

COLMES: The controversy with Ahmadinejad — the President Bush, today, also said — President Bush, speaking at the U.N., said the United Nations and other multi-lateral organizations are needed more urgently than ever now.
Do you agree with that?

BOLTON: Not necessarily. I mean I think that was kind of a gratuitous line for the crowd there in the general assembly hall. Much more pertinent was what the president said about — to the assembled foreign ministers and heads of state that you can't just pass resolutions about terrorism without trying to do something to prevent the terrorism from happening in the first place.

That's a plea that will fall on deaf ears up there. I can tell you that.

COLMES: Despite that you're a former U.N. ambassador, you don't agree with the president's statement of how urgently that organization is now needed — a place where you can actually or try to — if you use it correctly — have a dialogue with people like your enemies, like five former secretaries of states said we should have which is to talk to Iran?

BOLTON: You know you can ask yourself — and we've got plenty of time to wait for the answer — what exactly the United Nations and the Security Council, in particular, has done to stop terrorism.

They can't even agree on what a definition of terrorism is. It's a form of gridlock in the organization that's not at all helpful to the United States.

Russia Refuses to Discuss Imposing More UN Sanctions on Iran

Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Russia is refusing to discuss further United Nations sanctions to block Iran's nuclear ambitions, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a sign of continuing acrimony with the U.S. over last month's war in Georgia.

Russia pulled out of a planned meeting on Iran tomorrow in New York with the foreign ministers of Britain, China, France, Germany and the U.S., and Lavrov said the subject of sanctions didn't come up in a meeting he had late today in New York with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Lavrov, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, said further high-level talks on Iran wouldn't take place until "some time down the road.'' He said it would "take some time'' for Russia to calm down from the tensions with the U.S. over the Bush administration's support for Georgia.

Georgia is just an excuse, IMO. Russia's got some really nice oil-for-arms deals going, and Iran is among them. Speaking of...


Russia drone shot down, Georgia says

Georgia says it has shot down a Russian reconnaissance drone over Georgian territory, just south of the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The drone was brought down on Monday morning (local time) near the town of Gori, some 30km from the de facto border with South Ossetia, Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said.

"It was flying over the territory between the villages of Khurvaleti and Tsitelutani," he said. "We believe it was patrolling the territory where the Baku-Supsa [oil] pipeline runs."

Russia engages in 'gangland' diplomacy as it sends warship to the Caribbean

Russia flexed its muscles in America’s backyard yesterday as it sent one of its largest warships to join military exercises in the Caribbean. The nuclear-powered flagship Peter the Great set off for Venezuela with the submarine destroyer Admiral Chabanenko and two support vessels in the first Russian naval mission in Latin America since the end of the Cold War.

“The St Andrew flag, the flag of the Russian Navy, is confidently returning to the world oceans,” Igor Dygalo, a spokesman for the Russian Navy, said. He declined to comment on Russian newspaper reports that nuclear submarines were also part of the expedition.

The voyage to join the Venezuelan Navy for manoeuvres came only days after Russian strategic nuclear bombers made their first visit to the country. Hugo Chávez, the President, said then that the arrival of the strike force was a warning to the US. The vehemently antiAmerican Venezuelan leader is due to visit Dmitri Medvedev, the Russian President, in Moscow this week as part of a tour that includes visits to Cuba and China.