Koizumi at the UN summit Posted by Picasa

If you have been paying attention to the United Nation lately, you know that there is a big debate about UN reform. As the world organization celebrates its 60th anniversary with a big summit in New York, world leaders made urgent appeals to save the UN. Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi wants Japan to get a permanent seat on the UN security council. That turns out to be tricky. As a result, Japan is threatening to reduce its financial support to the UN. Did you know that Japan is the second largest finacial contributer to the UN system, after the US?

Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson (pdf) banged the gavel signifying approval of a modest document, which commits governments to achieving UN goals to combat poverty and creates a commission to help move countries from war to peace, came alongside important developments in other areas. However, Japan is arguing that reform of the security council is the key to any succesful reform of UN. I suppose we can look forward to an interesting debate in the next few months...

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