British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was aiming to build new international alliances for a fight against global poverty yesterday, using a UN speech to press nations, businesses and individuals to back ambitious plans to revive a stalled global development plan.
His call for a push on aid and diplomacy followed a two-day summit with US President George W. Bush, where the new British chief pledged support for military action in Iraq and Afghanistan and tough measures to tackle terrorism.
British officials have insisted Brown's foreign policy will be marked by his desire to mix the use of force and sanctions with backing for development and economic aid programs. Brown has called it a balance of ``hard power and soft power.''
PHOTO: AP
His attempts to lead the international community in efforts to break an impasse on stalled world trade negotiations and on halting violence in Sudan's Darfur region are read by some as a bid to atone for predecessor Tony Blair's unpopular backing for the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Officials said Brown hopes to harness the popular global support won by campaigns such as Make Poverty History and Live Earth to support his development drive.
In a speech to the UN yesterday, Brown planned to press an audience of business leaders, non-governmental organizations and international delegates over failures in meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
A report card published earlier this month showed that progress toward achieving the benchmarks on reducing global poverty and increasing access to childcare and education, agreed to at a UN summit in 2000, was poor, Brown's aides said.
Brown has held talks with U2 singer and anti-poverty campaigner Bono about the goals and plans to enlist businesses, including Google and Wal-Mart, to help governments achieve the development goals, British officials said.
Speaking to reporters at New York's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, Brown said he would also demand backing for efforts to authorize a 26,000-strong combined UN-African peacekeeping force for Darfur.
The leader's Downing Street office said Brown hoped initial troops could be deployed by October in an attempt to halt the fighting between ethnic African rebels and the pro-government janjaweed Arab militia in the western Sudanese region.
US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, said on Monday that Security Council members hoped to finalize a resolution within 24 hours.
Former president Bill Clinton also held brief discussions with the British leader at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Monday evening about his UN speech and work to helping developing nations, Brown told reporters.
Brown was due to appear on NBC television's Today show on Tuesday morning and meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Reginald Dale, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the British leader's decision to meet Bush and Ban on the same visit had caused some disquiet.
"They are angered that his visit is a twofer," Dale said. "Some Republicans believe Brown has deliberately gone to the UN to attempt to draw the sting out of meeting Bush for his domestic audience."
Talks on Sunday and on Monday at Bush's Camp David retreat in Maryland saw the British and US leaders pledge harmony over Iraq.
"There's no doubt in my mind he understands the stakes of the struggle," Bush said, heaping praise on Blair's successor.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS