united nations

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel sought to shred the credibility of Iran’s new president on Tuesday, using his annual speech at the United Nations to cast the Iranian as a man who could not be trusted and to press the international community to keep up sanctions to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

Relentless diplomatic pursuit is needed in seeking solutions to global challenges, from achieving peace and security to advancing social progress and economic prosperity, says Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa. Addressing the 68th UN General Assembly in New York on Friday, Marty underlined that Indonesia had an enduring belief in the efficacy and effectiveness of diplomacy, maintaining peace and security, advancing social progress and economic prosperity, and in promoting democracy, human rights and tolerance.

Mortified that the world may be warming up to Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taking an unpopular message to the White House and the United Nations this week: Don’t be fooled by Tehran’s new leadership. Netanyahu contends Iran is using conciliatory gestures as a smoke screen to conceal an unabated march toward a nuclear bomb.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have agreed on a resolution that will require Syria to give up its chemical weapons, but the text will not threaten the use of force for a failure to comply, officials said. The office of the American ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, announced the deal.

The world has a new global voice, and it belongs to Dilma Rousseff. The Brazilian president’s fiery speech yesterday at the United Nations condemning the US spying program solidified her position on the world’s podium as a civil liberties champion unafraid to stand up to Washington, analysts say.

On a day when President Obama told delegates at the United Nations that he welcomed the opportunity posed by diplomatic overtures from Iran’s new president, Israeli diplomats in Washington sounded a very different note online, mocking the moderate cleric as scarcely different from his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, told world leaders Tuesday that his government is prepared to “engage immediately in result-oriented” talks with the United States, but also complained about American economic sanctions and military intervention in the Middle East. In a widely anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Rouhani said that Iran and the U.S. “can arrive at a framework to manage our differences,” adding that his government has no desire to increase tensions between the two longtime adversaries.

President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, appeared to open the door for diplomatic solutions in the Syrian conflict and with Iran. In his 50-minute speech to the General Assembly, Obama pressed the United Nations and its member states to take action to resolve the Syrian conflict, saying that the "crisis in Syria and the destablization of the region goes to the heart of the broader challenges the international community must now face."

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