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	Our Challenge: Voices for Peace, Partnership and Renewal by United Nations News   8 September 2005   United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today stressed that cities and local authorities have a critical role to play in global progress in education, hunger, health, water, sanitation, gender equality and other areas of the development agenda to be discussed at next week's World Summit.   "Ultimately it is in the streets of your cities and towns that the value of what's decided here will be tested," he said to the mayors and other local representatives attending the United Cities and Local Governments Summit at UN headquarters in New York. "It is there, in the daily lives of your citizens, in their safety and security, in their prosperity and sense of opportunity, that our progress will be most visible, and our setbacks felt most keenly."   "While our Goals are global," he added, "they can most effectively be achieved through action at the local level." Calling the present era "the urban millennium," Mr. Annan noted that urban centres of the developing world are engines of economic growth but also reservoirs of poverty so large that one out of every six people on earth now lives in a slum or squatter settlement.   Indeed, he said, half the world's people now live in cities and towns and in the next 30 years virtually all of the world's population growth will occur in the urban areas of low and middle-income countries. "How we manage that growth will go a long way toward influencing the world's future peace and prosperity," he said.   Later today, in a statement to the Second World Congress of Speakers of Parliament, also at UN Headquarters, Mr. Annan emphasized that parliamentarians also have a critical part to play in the issues to be discussed at the World Summit.   They could, he said, focus political attention on the UN reform agenda, encourage their governments to engage in the process in goodwill, and to follow through on their commitments. They could also encourage their citizens to take an active interest in both UN reform and the achievement of development goals.   "As parliamentarians," he added, "you are the embodiment of democracy, a value reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to which this Organization is making a growing contribution, year by year. By your engagement with this Organization, you make it more democratic too."   Local leaders also control, very often, the national purse strings, he reminded them, and for that reason their decisions help determine whether States make available the resources the UN needs to implement reform and promote development.   Juan Somavía, the United Nations Director-General of the ILO, in his address said “in our reading of government, employers and workers, the constituents of the [International Labour Organization] ILO, and seen from the people who elect the parliamentarians, the single most important issue is the question of jobs.”   “What people are asking worldwide,” he elaborated, “is ‘give me a fair chance, at a decent job, and I will take care of my family, educate my children, live in the community where others work in peace’ – that political demand is global.”   He also said that the overall consensus of the parliamentarians attending the Second World Conference of the Speakers of Parliament is that people want to know whether the international policies their governments are pursuing will actually help them live better lives. They also expect local leaders to represent their interests on an international level.“Parliamentarians are elected locally, so they can bring the local reality, the national reality to the international scene,” he added.   8 September 2005   NGOs to offer fresh hope and perspective to World Summit 2005.   United Nations officials today hailed non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as essential partners in the effort to promote a culture of peace, create change in world societies and hold governments accountable for achieving their commitments.   "Governments can do a lot in fighting drugs, crime or terrorism, and they should do more. But they can't do everything," Executive Director of the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Antonio Maria Costa told a press conference highlighting a special UN forum to bring together private entities with governments.   "We need and require the commitment of society at large, whether it is society understood as the education system, or the places of faith, or places of sport," he added. NGOs are "essential partners" in the process of "curbing the threats to security."   The forum, in its second day, is sponsored by the UN Department of Information (DPI) and NGOs, and comes a week before the 2005 World Summit, the largest ever gathering of international leaders at UN Headquarters in New York from 14 to 16 September.   Former Lt. Gen. Daniel Opande of the UN Mission in Liberia, representing the military point of view, said: "My conviction is that civil society has played a leading role exploring the ills that bring conflict." It is also their role to "tell the bad guys who are ruling by the sword, to stop doing what they are doing," he added.   One NGO representative at the press briefing, Gareth Evans, President of the International Crisis Group said that on "all key principles," such as peace building, government use of force, human rights council, arms control, and policy on terrorism, there was very little agreement among UN Members prior to the Summit. "If nothing else, I hope [the results of the forum] can be a wake-up call, a cry of pain from civil society."   Mr. Evans was referring to the marathon discussions by a General Assembly panel that have so far been unable to produce an agreed draft document on issues ranging from enacting UN reform to promoting development to battling terrorism.   Speaking at this morning's session, the UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States, Anwarul K. Chowdhury, encouraged the NGOs to be more engaged in the development process with the international community. "Your role is to monitor international agreements and commitments, share your findings and create a database detailing the performance of countries. You must participate in the inter-governmental process and help governments achieve their commitments," he said.   Speaking at the conference yesterday, UN Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Shashi Tharoor called for civil organizations to help deliver people every where to greater freedom and achieve better standards of life by working closely with their governments and the UN.   "In no small way, you are the guardians of reform of the international system," he said. "What is more, I hope you use your voices and your expertise to praise the achievements of the Summit, and, of course to call for more where more is needed," he added.   Also speaking yesterday was UN General Assembly President Jean Ping of Gabon who praised non-governmental and private concerns for their desire to help the international community, and called on them to continue their good work in pursuing peace and the protection of human rights.   The General Assembly chief says collective action only way out of poverty, HIV/AIDS.The problems of a world where the poor are increasingly poor, human rights are ignored, HIV/AIDS and malaria claim millions of lives, and inequality proliferates, will only be solved through a cooperation of civil society, governments, and local leaders. ,   “New players, I think here in particular of you, the non-governmental organizations now have a voice in the coming chapter through the force of propositions and actions, each one at degrees and various levels of influence,” he said, praising the NGOs as well as parliamentarian leaders who are holding separate negotiations with UN members to draft their own Document to Summit leaders.   “What joins us all is a refusal of a two-track world where the poor become always poorer and more numerous…where human rights are protected in one place and encroached in another…where HIV/AIDS, malaria and other endemic diseases continue to strike millions of victims, in particular among the most vulnerable…a planet that generates inequalities that could themselves generate threats to our collective security,” he added.   Government methods are sometimes “cumbersome,” he said, but NGOs are more nimble in responding to disasters, and have a reservoir of resources, which gives them an advantage.   The forum, "Our Challenge: Voices for Peace, Partnership and Renewal," is taking place in preparation for the issues to be dealt with by Member States at the 2005 World Summit next week. Over 2,000 civil society groups and activists are attending, along with Member States and UN representatives.   7 September 2005   Top UN relief official calls for major changes in world humanitarian efforts.   The top United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland today called for a major upgrade in the world body’s humanitarian assistance program, and urged public and private cooperation in the fight against the root causes of disaster, conflict and injustice.   In his keynote address at the annual UN / NGO forum Mr. Egeland proposed that the UN develop a more predictable funding base, strengthen response capacity, and develop a more predictable right to access, with improved security for aid workers. Referring to Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s report, “In Larger Freedom,” he urged UN members and NGOs to work cooperatively to meet the objectives of peace and security, development, human rights and United Nations reform.   He also said that the world needs to harness the energies, resources and imagination of all sectors of society, and called for a moral and ethical revolution to match our technical progress, so that the benefits of innovation and technology could be available for all people who need them.
	The Bolton Backfire: Weaken UN, imperil Americans by CS Monitor / Washington Post   September 08, 2005 edition   Why is the Bush administration seemingly hurtling toward confrontation with the rest of the world in the lead-up to the World Summit in New York next week?   Almost the first act taken by Washington"s new energetic, sometimes pugnacious, UN envoy John R. Bolton, was the submission of a list of 750 amendments he seeks in the draft of the summit"s declaration. That text, which deals with issues as important as nuclear disarmament, human rights, global warming, and counterterrorism, had been painstakingly negotiated by world diplomats over preceding months.   There is still time to reach a friendly accommodation on the contested portions of the text. But many nations - most notably the European states that are the strongest supporters of the present draft - now fear that US intransigence on the proposed revisions may be a serious blow to the heart of the UN.   It"s true that the UN also faces a serious issue of mismanagement and corruption in its bureacuracy. That issue must be resolved - whatever it takes. But right now, Washington"s deteriorating relationship with the world"s other peoples concerns me even more: The compact that underlies the way all nations interact within the UN is truly vital to human survival.   President Bush and his aides surely should work hard to reach agreement with other nations on the issues around the World Summit declaration. It would also be good for Bush and all Americans to reflect on the circumstances of the UN"s creation and the many benefits it has brought the US throughout its 60 years.   Back in 1945, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman made decisions marked by broad strategic restraint and great wisdom. Two of these were particularly crucial: first, not to retreat to the isolationism the US had pursued after World War I; and second, to exercise Washington"s continued engagement with the world through a new body, based on principles of national sovereignty, national equality, and human solidarity. That body was the UN.   The past 60 years have been very good indeed to the US. The UN and the compact among nations that underlies it have certainly contributed to those benefits.   During the cold war, the UN helped mediate what would otherwise have been an even more precarious situation of hair-trigger nuclear destruction. After the Soviet empire collapsed, the UN helped ease transitions on several continents - as it did earlier in helping manage instabilities that arose when the West European nations empires splintered. The UN-related economic bodies - the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization - have meanwhile buttressed a global market system that has generally been very good to Americans.   So why - at a time when it is increasingly evident that in Iraq, as in the fight against violent extremism elsewhere, the US needs international cooperation more than ever - should the Bush administration and its man in New York be threatening to cause serious disruption to Washington"s relations with the world body?   Mr. Bolton - named by Mr. Bush as a "recess appointment" ambassador to the UN last month, bypassing the wait for a Senate confirmation - startled the representatives of most other nations in New York with his list of amendments to the summit declaration.   On one issue he wants amended - the list of "Millennium Development Goals" that the UN adopted back in 2000 - a key Bolton spokesman got downright ornery, accusing UN officials of "manipulating the truth" when they claimed the US had previously endorsed these goals and now seemed to be backtracking from that earlier commitment. (The UN officials look right on that one.)   The tiff over this key issue in international development efforts epitomizes the deeper discord over whether the US really judges that responsibilities within the world system should be reciprocal and based on the principles of human equality and human solidarity - or not. The UN majority today thinks they should be. Bolton and his boss, the president, apparently disagree with that majority.   Yes, it"s true that the UN itself is far from perfect. But at the end of the day, the United Nations is just that: a confederation of the world"s largely independent nation-states. It has very little independent existence of its own, and can only ever be as strong as the commitment it gets from its members.   Under Bush - especially since he made the near-unilateral decision to initiate a war against Iraq in 2003 - the commitment of the world"s most powerful nation to the UN and its principles has eroded drastically.   To reduce American support for the foundations of this vital institution any further would be crazy. A UN that is any further weakened means the increased insecurity of everyone in the world. And, yes, that includes Americans.   September 1, 2005   "Bolton voices opposition to U.N. Proposals, fears effort will inhibit U.S. Authority", by Colum Lynch. (Washington Post )   John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has voiced firm opposition to U.N. reorganization measures that the Bush administration fears would inhibit U.S. authority to use force and place new legal obligations on countries to intervene where genocide, ethnic cleansing or war crimes were being committed.   Bolton outlined his positions in a series of letters to U.N. delegates participating in negotiations to draft a 39-page statement to be read by world leaders at a summit on development and U.N. reform that begins Sept. 14. The six letters, intended to clarify proposed U.S. amendments to the draft, constitute the most detailed public picture of Bolton"s thinking on a range of issues since he became ambassador, including on the fight against poverty and terrorism, the promotion of human rights and the streamlining of the U.N. bureaucracy.   Together, the letters reflect Bolton"s long-held opposition to international agreements that he considers incursions on U.S. sovereignty and provide a glimpse at how he is working to influence the internal negotiating process. that has been dominated by foreign policy professionals in the State Department.   Bolton argued that the Security Council already had sufficient legal authority to send foreign troops to halt atrocities in places such as the Sudanese region of Darfur. He insisted that the U.N. charter "has never been interpreted as creating a legal obligation for Security Council members to support enforcement action." He also urged the deletion of language calling on nations to prevent "incitement" of mass atrocities, saying it runs counter to the U.S. First Amendment protections of speech.   Bolton wrote that the United States "stands ready" to intervene in select cases where governments fail to halt mass killings on their soil. But he said that world leaders should not "foreclose" the military option by the United States and other governments "absent authorization by the Security Council."   The U.N. doctrine of humanitarian intervention, known as the "responsibility to protect," has been promoted by Secretary General Kofi Annan, European governments and human rights advocates, who had been pressing U.N. members to accept greater responsibility for intervening in countries where atrocities are taking place. They have also been pressing to ensure a more central role for the Security Council in authorizing military action, a position that the Bush administration has strenuously opposed.   Bolton also pressed for changes in the U.N. document that would ensure that U.S. or Israeli forces would not be exposed to terrorism charges if they killed or injured civilians during military operations. Bolton wrote that the "scope" of the terrorism provision should be limited to "terrorist actions," not "military activities that are appropriately governed by international humanitarian law." Arab governments have insisted for years that the Israeli army has engaged in "state terrorism" against Palestinian civilians.   Bolton urged the U.N. members to deliver a strong statement condemning terrorism but to defer any discussion on a definition of terrorism to the General Assembly, which is negotiating a convention on terrorism. The United States argues that the convention should exclude any acts by armed forces during a conflict.   Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University economist advising Annan on the world summit, on Wednesday charged that the United States was engaging in a last-minute campaign to "gut" the summit document "with arguments that change by the day."   Sachs accused the Bush administration of backtracking on previous pledges to encourage an increase in foreign assistance by wealthy governments.   He cited President Bush"s endorsement of the Monterrey Consensus, a 2002 summit in Mexico that urged wealthy governments "to make concrete efforts" toward reaching a target of contributing 0.7 percent of their national income to poor countries.
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