U.N. Summit Ends With a Declaration

U N I T E D   N A T I O N S, Sept. 8 -- The world’s presidents, prime ministers and kings ended their historic three-day summit with a New Millennium resolution — a declaration of their intent to solve humankind’s problems, to send every child to school and deliver millions from destitution by 2015.

The eight-page Millennium Declaration, negotiated for weeks, isa catalog of the world’s troubles — poverty, war, AIDS, pollution,human rights violations and much more — and a promise to deal with them.

“We recognize that, in addition to our separateresponsibilities to our individual societies, we have a collectiveresponsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equalityand equity at the global level,” the declaration reads.

“As leaders we have a duty, therefore, to all the world’speople, especially the most vulnerable and, in particular, thechildren of the world, to whom the future belongs.”

The declaration was a fitting end to a gathering of about 150leaders that was the largest ever held, and Secretary-General KofiAnnan insisted it was not filled with empty promises. He said thechallenge now is for the leaders to return home and turn thedeclaration into action.

Different Agendas

Over three days, there were many, many words exchanged. Eachleader took five minutes to address the U.N. Millennium Summit, apageant of the world’s most powerful men and women, from countries great and small.

Out of the spotlight, there was more talk. Bilateral discussionscontinued today; Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak had a briefencounter with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, urging him toreach a peace agreement before time runs out.

Arafat was unresponsive, Barak said. “No good,” said the Israeli leader, his hopes for peace dimmed. (See sidebar, below.)

For three days, New York was riddled with foreign leaders. Theirmotorcades snaked through Manhattan, snarling traffic as they sped past all sorts of protesters. Yellow-shirted supporters of Falun Gong today handed out leaflets to commuters outside GrandCentral Station, warning of new crackdowns against their spiritualmovement in China.