World leaders kick off second day at UN General Assembly

“I called this summit because this crisis is one of the most urgent tasks for our time, our capacity for collective action”, the U.S. leader said in his final address to the UN General Assembly.

“We must seek to increase worldwide funding and humanitarian assistance, offer opportunities to resettle refugees and alternative legal routes for the admission, facilitate the access of the refugees to education and regular jobs”, they also said, noting the importance of increasing the number of countries providing significant levels of humanitarian assistance and resettlement”.

President Barack Obama, joined by actor George Clooney, his wife Amal Clooney, right, and Laura Davis of Newton Supply, Co., center, speaks at a CEO roundtable on the margins of the 71st session of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016.

“We all know that what is happening in Syria, for example, is unacceptable”, Obama said. It may fuel nationalist fervor for a time.

This is the second time that President Maithripala Sirisena will address the United Nations General Assembly after assumption of duties as the President.

“Consider what we’ve accomplished here over the past few years. And we have made worldwide institutions like the World Bank and the global Monetary Fund more representative, while establishing a framework to protect our planet from the ravages of climate change”.

But Ban blamed the Syrian government for the most deaths. “And together, now, we have to open our hearts and do more to help refugees who are desperate for home”, Obama argued.

While they are in North Texas, the future of other refugees could be in doubt. In noting that the United States had agreed to admit 110,000 refugees in 2017, up from 85,000 this year, he said that “refugees are subject to more vigorous screening than the average tourist”.

More than four dozen USA businesses also pledged $650 million in support to help refugees, the White House announced Tuesday.

The Secretary-General said: “Just when we think it can not get any worse, the bar of depravity sinks lower”. We’ve taken away terrorist safe havens, strengthened the nonproliferation regime, and resolved the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomacy. “If not us, who can do it?”

He admitted too that a “course correction” was needed to smooth the serrated edges of globalization.

In an apparent swipe at United States presidential candidate Donald Trump, Obama said the refugee crisis was a “test of our common humanity, whether we give in to suspicion and fear and build walls”. At least half a dozen small island nations including Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Kiribati will also follow suit.

Ban spoke as the U.S., Russian Federation and more than a dozen other countries attempted to resurrect a week-old truce, and Washington and Moscow argued over who was responsible for an attack Monday on an aid convoy that killed some 20 civilians that the United Nations chief denounced as a “sickening, savage and apparently deliberate attack”. “We have to have the empathy to see ourselves”.

“Surely, Israelis and Palestinians will be better off if Palestinians reject incitement and recognize the legitimacy of Israel, but Israel recognizes that it can not permanently occupy and settle Palestinian land”, Obama said.

Further, he asked Palestinians to “reject incitement and recognise the legitimacy of Israel”.