NEW YORK — US President Barack Obama takes center stage at the UN General Assembly Wednesday, with a call to action and a warning that facing the world's many challenges cannot be "America's endeavor alone."
"Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," Obama tells world leaders gathered here, according to excerpts of the speech released by the White House.
"We have sought -- in word and deed -- a new era of engagement with the world. Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges," the president says.
White House aides billed the speech to heads of government and delegations in the UN chamber as a "historic" address that will lay out a "new direction" in US foreign policy.
In the excerpts, Obama outlines a series of grim scenarios from melting ice caps, nuclear weapons and protracted conflicts, to "extremists sowing terror in pockets of the world."
"I say this not to sow fear, but to state a fact: the magnitude of our challenges has yet to be met by the measure of our action," says Obama.
In another day on the diplomatic high wire, Obama will also meet Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev, a week after abandoning a missile shield in Eastern Europe but denying that "paranoid" objections from Moscow were the reason.
Full Story
No comments:
Post a Comment