UN chief fears world impact of US financial crisis

By EDITH M. LEDERER – 14 hours ago

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern Tuesday that the U.S. financial crisis will have a serious global impact, especially on rich donor nations that play key roles in fighting poverty.

He urged a resumption of stalled world trade talks, which the U.N. sees as crucial to opening world markets to poorer developing countries.

The secretary-general addressed the turmoil on Wall Street during an interview ahead of next week's ministerial meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, which will include two special sessions aimed at achieving the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

Ban said those goals, climate change, and the global food crisis are at the top of his agenda, and he expects world leaders coming to New York "to really mobilize necessary resources and galvanize political will" to address the issues.

The secretary-general pointed to a recent U.N. report which said rich donor nations have failed to deliver on promises to help the world's poorest countries, saying they must increase aid by $18 billion a year to keep their pledge to provide $50 billion by 2010.

He was asked if the financial crisis would affect global efforts to meet the U.N. goals, which include cutting poverty, ensuring primary school education for all children, and halting the HIV/AIDS pandemic, all by 2015.

"This will give negative impact — very serious negative impact to overall capacity of international community, national governments, particularly developed countries," he said. "I'm afraid that this may affect ... the capacity in realizing the Millennium Development Goals."

Especially in light of the financial crisis, Ban said "it would be highly important" to look at resuming trade talks, which collapsed in July.

Ban said he has been discussing prospects for a new round of talks with World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy — and Lamy has been talking to trade and finance ministers.

The secretary-general said he expects a host of other issues to be high on the agenda at next week's ministerial session.

One of the major topics of U.N. discussion — if not action — in recent weeks has been the conflict in Georgia which has heightened tensions between Russia and key Western nations. Ban said it will be on his agenda when he meets ministers from the five veto-wielding permanent nations on the U.N. Security Council — the U.S., Russia, Britain, France and China.

The dispute between Russia and especially the United States has raised concern in some quarters of a new Cold War, but Ban rejects that possibility.

"There have been many times when the members of the Security Council have not fully agreed on certain issues so we should not be overly pessimistic, overly alarmed," he said. "I'm confident that the relationship will improve between the United States and the Russian Federation."

On other issues, Ban said he will "definitely" raise a new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency when he meets Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It said U.N. efforts to investigate allegations that Iran tried to make nuclear arms have run into a dead end, with Tehran steadfastly blocking efforts to probe the accusations.

"Iranian government must comply with all relevant Security Council resolutions. This is the wish of the whole international community. They should listen to calls of the international community."

Associated Press Writer John Heilprin contributed to this report from the United Nations.