Fireworks at Opening of UN General Assembly

The United Nations General Assembly opened in New York Wednesday with eye-opening speeches from leaders of three of the world's most controversial nations. United States president Barack Obama set the meeting abuzz with his first speech to the UN.

The governing body made of 192 nations is likely to be one of Obama's largest focuses in dealing with the numerous foreign policy challenges he and his administration face. He also faces a daunting task in regaining the trust of the body after it was largely undermined under recent US presidencies, including George W. Bush's administration, which sidestepped the UN and its advice when it invaded Iraq in March 2003.

Obama's standout talking point was when he pitched the Assembly on a different America under his presidency. "We have re-engaged the United Nations," he said, going on to lay out the importance of working together, as well as the policy changes he has already implemented nine months into his first year as president.

He also called out nations, though not by name, that he said have showed "reflexive anti-Americanism" in dealing with some of the more serious issues brought to the Assembly in recent years.

This proved to be a fitting starting point for two speakers who followed Obama: Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi, who spoke directly after Obama, and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Gadhafi (at left) made his first appearance at the annual meeting forty years into his reign as leader of Libya, but also as president of the African Union, which has been pressured recently to take control of several crises across the African continent.

He was allotted 15 minutes to speak, but went for 90 in a speech that urged the Security Council to adopt an African seat, but also strayed to hit on subjects ranging from the Taliban, to Iraq, an Israeli-Palestinian state, and the H1N1 virus. He also at one point said the Security Council should be renamed the "Terror Council" because of the power the veto nations have over the Council. He also tore up paper he represented as the UN Charter, which drew criticism from other leaders, including UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Despite his wide-ranging criticisms of the western world's "agenda" and his displeasure with the UN bodies in general, he did offer a glimmer of approval for Obama when he said he wished the new president would have a lengthy presidency.

Possibly the most important speech of the day, however, was made by Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in his first major speech to the UN and first on US soil since his controversial election in June.

Ahmadinejad defended his presidency and called the election, rocked by massive protests after allegations of fraud, an homage to the people and "fully democratic." In classic Ahmadinejad fashion, he also delivered backhanded attacks on Israel and the United States, eventually prompting walkouts by several western diplomats, including a handful from the US and Canada.

The Security Council did break ground in dealing with one of its long-standing issues: dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions. The five nations with veto power - China, Russia, Britain, France, and the United States, with Germany also signing on - issued a statement threatening further sanctions should Iran not cooperate in talks regarding its nuclear program, the two former being important because of their prior reluctance to take a major stance on Iran's nuclear ambitions because of trade agreements.

The nations set an October 1 meeting deadline by which Iran can decide whether or not to attend a meeting to begin negotiations regarding its nuclear program. UK Foreign Minister David Miliband read the statement, threatening harsh sanctions should Iran not comply. Ahmadinejad has acknowledged he will consider letting his nuclear scientists meet with western scientists to discuss the state's nuclear situation.

While the meeting's importance has diminished in recent years and been mostly a place for disgruntled leaders to voice their opinions or other leaders to push their agendas, Wednesday's meeting laid out many of the glaring problems facing the UN both internally and on the international scale.

It also sets quite the stage for Thursday and Friday's G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, where the organization will again meet to tackle the issues facing the global economy and financial institutions.

The two meetings are major steps in the Obama Administration's intent to improve foreign relations and to better coordinate on a global level with other nations to attack the global economic crisis as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, and other flash-point areas such as Somalia and Myanmar, where organized multi-national efforts are either under way or being discussed to stabilize the respective state governments.

Looking At The London G20

The G20 world summit is coming up on 2 April 2009, and it is arguably the most important G20 Summit in its ten-year history. 19 of the world's largest economies and the European Union will meet in order to discuss the world economy and the stakes have never been higher. At this meeting will be:

• Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee
• Financial Ministers of 19 of the world's largest economies, including the G7
• Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund
• President of the World Bank
• Most of the G20 nations' heads of state
  

With many of the world's markets at their lowest points in over a decade, including the DJIA (6627 at last close), FTSE (3531), Nikkei (7173), and Hang-Seng (11922), it is obvious that in order to save the world's economy from slipping further into recession (or possibly depression). The plan at the London Summitt seems to be to review how things have progressed since the summit in Washington, D.C. in November 2008, and to judge whether what was laid down at that time has been effective.

Much of what has been promised seems to be "reform" related, as in "reforming the current financial system, the IMF, and World Bank". Pressure seems to be higher than ever on the heads of state and financial ministers in attendence to get things done. Many have argued that the Washington Summit did little other than address the sources of the financial collapse (mortgage lenders, banks, etc.) but the guidelines that were laid out have been completely ineffective. It has also been noted that several leaders, including Sarkozy and Brown, have disagreed on occassion on what should be done.

I'm sure that free-trade and globalization will once again be the "solution" to the economic collapse, but it seems as though pressure is mounting from global citizens to look elsewhere for a solution. Another thing I find interesting is how much of a role the emerging economies of Brazil, India, and China will have in the talks. Their presence was felt greatly at the talks in Washington, but are the old economic powers ready to fully admit that they might not be the hegemons anymore? The inclusion of the EU is also something that should be followed, as the IGO could be one of the biggest economic players in the coming years as it includes four of the other G20 nations (UK, France, Germany, Italy) as well as several other quickly-developing nations, including those of Eastern Europe and the old Soviet bloc.

Another focus of the G20, though it will probably be overshadowed by the economic talks, will be on climate change. There's no denying by anyone who knows anything about it that climate change is very real, and it's happening right now. CO2 emissions are the largest source of climate change, and they continue to rise simply because the nations who are working to reduce them have not focused on it enough, and developing nations are not fiscally-secure enough to use new technology and are thus relying upon the technologies that the US, UK, and much of the rest of the west used for years and years to get us into this situation. It is up to the G20, as the world's largest secure and developing economies, to set an example to the rest of the world as to how to handle climate change as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Thinking about the G20 Summit, it seems as though much of the problems we are now trying to solve have only become these major problems because we failed to care enough about tomorrow. Our banks didn't fail, houses foreclose, markets crash, and ice caps melt at ungodly rates by some awful miracle overnight. It is because all people, from the heads of state all the way on down to you and I, failed to assess the risks of what we were doing today and how it would change the way we live tomorrow. Now that everyone has realised that the world is going to shambles, people are finally beginning to realise this. Things aren't going to get done overnight, just as they weren't undone overnight. But people need to know about the G20 and put pressure on the leaders at the G20 Summit to get done what needs to get done in order to attempt to fix the exorbitant number of problems facing our world today.