UN special summit dwells on world organisation’s failings

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told 160 world leaders at the UN summit they had little to be proud of.

US President George W Bush talked about the war on terror and warned of terrorism fed by anger and despair.

“The lesson is clear. There can be no safety in looking away or seeking the quiet life by ignoring the hardship and oppression of others. Either hope will spread or violence will spread, and we must take the side of hope”, he said.

While Mr Bush stressed the fight against terrorism and extremism, Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, one of the co-chairmen, said the summit’s main point should be “to get the fight against world poverty back on track”.

But after months of arguments on ambitious reforms mostly designed to strengthen the role of the UN, agreement was reached only on the responsibility to protect those in danger of genocide.

Mr Annan told the summit on the 60th anniversary of the UN’s founding: “Let us be frank with each other, and the peoples of the United Nations. We have not yet achieved the sweeping and fundamental reform that I and many others believe is required.”

The document before them is broadly a statement of hopes for the future which it will now be up to the general assembly to work on and achieve.

This approach however is seen by many as ensuring that whatever emerges has little teeth.

Mr Bush referred to the scandal over the Iraq oil-for-food programme and said the UN must be free of corruption and practice the high moral standards it preached.