Obama says nations vow to take in twice as many refugees

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that the situation in Syria is unacceptable and the world is not as unified as it should be to try to stop the more than five-year-old conflict.

The United States and Russian Federation chaired Tuesday in NY a crucial worldwide meeting on Syria to try to save what remains of the diplomatic process.

“If you’re in the United States, sometimes you can feel lazy and think we’re so big we don’t have to really know anything about other people”, he told young Laotian leaders.

The US leader highlighted in his speech the need for world leaders to come together as one in order to tackle conflicts including the one in Syria.

UNITED NATIONS – President Barack Obama on Tuesday used his final address before the United Nations to praise global integration and warn against the impulse to shut it out, calling on Americans and foreigners to tear down walls, not build them.

In his final address to an annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations on Tuesday, Ban said the Syrian government “continues to barrel bomb neighbourhoods and systematically torture thousands of detainees”.

During his 48-minute speech, Obama acknowledged that the United States and other world powers have limited ability to solve the most profound challenges facing the world. He also said, “Too often those trumpeting globalization have ignored inequality”.

Media persons, mostly accompanying their respective delegations, have also arrived in NY for the coverage of the event.

The millions of refugees leaving war-torn Syria and other countries wracked by conflict have led to a backlash in some countries, including in the USA, where Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has suggested banning Muslim immigrants.

He added that “red lines were set for the regime who has violated them, yet those who demarcated those lines have not felt provoked to raise a finger”. He drew a parallel to the Holocaust, calling the US move to turn away Jews fleeing Nazi Germany a stain on America’s collective conscience.

“Despite enormous progress, as people lose trust in institutions, governing becomes more hard and tensions between nations become more quick to surface”, he said.

Still, Obama insisted it was critical not to gloss over “enormous progress” on economics and global cooperation that he said formed a template for tackling the problems of the future.

“We cannot unwind integration any more than we can stuff technology back into a box”, Obama said.

Whatever personal tensions undermine ties between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader in the White House enjoys access to a bully pulpit.

“Consider what we’ve accomplished here over the past few years”.

President Obama has just given that speech this morning probably for the last time as president of the United States, unless something happens and he has to go to the U.N. and give another big speech. But he said many countries, “particularly those blessed with wealth and the benefits of geography”, can do more to offer assistance to more than 65 million people who have fled their homes because of war or persecution or to seek a better life.