World leaders discuss climate change, economic crisis at UN General Assembly

World leaders met in New York at the yearly UN General Assembly Wednesday, to discuss the direction the multilateral organization should take.  For many leaders, finding solutions to climate change and the economic crisis were the top priorities. Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

"This is the most important General Assembly since the one in 2000, where we set the millennium development goals. There are three great issues, three great challenges we are currently facing. The first of them is how to exit the economic recession and that is directly linked to how the world responds to the climate change threat."

Zapatero also said the international community should focus on security challenges in the Middle East and he said the UN should prepare to evaluate the millennium development goals 10 years after they were set.

In a conciliatory tone, President Obama told the assembly that the United States is ready to begin a new chapter of international co-operation, citing issues like climate change and arms control.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva was critical of Wall Street. He had this to say about the economic crisis.

“More than a crisis of big banks this is a crisis of great dogmas. What failed was a senseless way of thinking and acting that subjugated the world in the last few decades.  It was the absurd doctrine that markets could auto-regulate themselves, doing away with any state intervention, which was considered by many a mere nuisance.”

Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, said the UN must be reformed so that every country has an equal say in the Security Council. Another controversial speaker is Iran´s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; hundreds of protesters awaited him near UN headquarters Wednesday morning.  Canada and Israel said they would boycott his speech.