UN walkout over Ahmadinejad address

The French and American delegations walked out of the United Nations General Assembly as Iran's president delivered his address today.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said anyone who questions the Holocaust or the 9/11 attacks is threatened with sanctions or military action by "arrogant cowards" who are leading the world.

Meanwhile British Prime Minister David Cameron urged the UNto be more ready to take action against oppressive regimes.

In a strong defence of interventionism, Mr Cameron said the Arab Spring uprisings and conflict in Libya demonstrated that the UN needed “a new way of working”.

“To fail to act is to fail those who need our help,” he told world leaders at the general assembly in New York.

Mr Cameron said the popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East had provided “a massive opportunity to spread peace, prosperity, democracy and vitally security” – but only if nations seized it.

“The UN has to show that we can be not just united in condemnation, but united in action, acting in a way that lives up to the UN’s founding principles and meets the needs of the people,” he said.

“You can sign every human rights declaration in the world, but if you stand by and watch people being slaughtered in their own country, when you could act, then what are those signatures really worth?”

The Prime Minister said the international community needed to use a combination of military action or “hard power” and “soft power” like diplomacy and financial aid.

He argued that the people of the Arab world had made clear their aspirations for greater freedom, more accountable governments and an end to corruption.

Mr Cameron also told UN delegates that Palestinians had a right to a “viable state of their own” and that the international community should help them achieve this.

The UK is still weighing its response to an expected Palestinian push for statehood later this week.

But Mr Cameron said that no resolution could provide the “political will” needed for lasting peace and called on both Israel and the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table for direct talks.