Global anti-poverty summit enters day three in New York
World leaders have gathered in New York to review progress of the millennium development goals which aim to halve global poverty and hunger by 2015.
The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says that is still achievable despite the economic downturn.
Also in the spotlight in meetings on the sidelines are global security, the situation in Afghanistan, and Iran's nuclear program.
Meanwhile, the Middle-East Peace Quartet has tried to encourage a breakthrough between the Israelis and Palestinians.
RT's Lauren Lyster is following the session and brought some news from New York on Tuesday.
“The second day of the summit has already been highlighted by a speech of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who said that capitalism is ‘facing defeat’ and called for global decision-making bodies to be overhauled, saying that they were unjust and undemocratic,” Lyster told.
“This was one of the highly anticipated moments in this anti-poverty summit going on now just ahead of the United Nations General Assembly [session] that begins on Thursday, as there have been ads on bus shelters and buses all over New York protesting Ahmadinejad’s visit to the UN,” the journalist added. “Also, many protests planned on the streets. He is one of the few people that New Yorkers actually know is coming here, despite world leaders and diplomats from 192 countries [attending].”
Aside from Ahmadinejad, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressed the anti-poverty summit on the Millennium Development Goals.
The Russian Foreign Minister reiterated how important Millenium Development Goals are and recalled that back in 2008 Russia provided as much as US $220 million in aid to developing nations which, in 2009, grew to US $800 million. Lavrov pledged that Russia would continue its efforts in the future.
He also demanded unilateral sanctions beyond the framework of the UN Security Council decisions to be stopped.
”Sometimes to resolve the issues set in the UN Charter the world community has to resort to such measures as economic sanctions,” he said. “But it has long been agreed that it is necessary to observe the so-called humanitarian boundaries of the sanctions to prevent their negative influence on the people and the country’s social and economic development.”
“We are concerned about unilateral measures of restraint forcibly introduced by some states against developing countries exceeding what is in the UN Security Council Charter,” Lavrov added. “We are sure this practice contradicts the efforts of the Millenium Development Goals and has to be stopped.”
