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Some Have Suggested That Ideally There Must Be Some International Body That Would Treat Areas Like The Arctic As A Global Commerce, A Bit Like The Way We Treat The Sea. It Doesn't Belong To Any Particular Country, But To All Of Us, But I'm Not Sure Some Of The Powerful Are Ready For That Sort Of Solution.

-Kofi Annan

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Some Have Suggested That

Kofi Annan

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Some Have Suggested That Ideally There Must Be Some International Body That Would Treat Areas Like The Arctic As A Global Commerce, A Bit Like The Way We Treat The Sea. It Doesn't Belong To Any Particular Country, But To All Of Us, But I'm Not Sure Some Of The Powerful Are Ready For That Sort Of Solution.

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Often, We Take Stability - Peace In Terms Of Security And Economic Activity - To Mean A Country Is Doing Well. We Forget The Third And Important Pillar Of Rule Of Law And Respect For Human Rights, Because No Country Can Long Remain Prosperous Without That Third Pillar.

I Think The World Has Moved On.

When The Us Withdrew Their Troops From Somalia, I Recall Making A Comment That [in] The Way The Peacekeepers Had Been Withdrawn From Somalia, The Impression Had Been Given That The Easiest Way To Unravel A Peacekeeping Operation Is To Kill A Few Soldiers.

...let Us Recognize That Extreme Poverty Anywhere Is A Threat To Human Security Everywhere. Let Us Recall That Poverty Is A Denial Of Human Rights. For The First Time In History, In This Age Of Unprecedented Wealth And Technical Prowess, We Have The Power To Save Humanity From This Shameful Scourge. Let Us Summon The Will To Do It.

Young People Should Be At The Forefront Of Global Change And Innovation. Empowered, They Can Be Key Agents For Development And Peace.

There Are A Great Number Of Peoples Who Need More Than Just Words Of Sympathy From The International Community. They Need A Real And Sustained Commitment To Help End Their Cycles Of Violence, And Launch Them On A Safe Passage To Prosperity.

I Observe A Lot. I See A Lot Around Me.

I Am Often Asked What Can People Do To Become A Good Global Citizen? I Reply That It Begins In Your Own Community.

Women Themselves Have The Right To Live In Dignity, In Freedom From Want And Freedom From Fear. On This International Women's Day, Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To Making That A Reality.

If We Are To Make Poverty History, We Must Have The Active Participation Of States, Civil Society And The Private Sector, As Well As Individual Volunteers.

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There Is No Development Strategy More Beneficial To Society As A Whole - Women And Men Alike - Than The One Which Involves Women As Central Players.

It's Always A Difficult Time To Be Secretary General.

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Children Are Our Future, And Their Mothers Are Its Guardians.

Literacy Is A Bridge From Misery To Hope. It Is A Tool For Daily Life In Modern Society. It Is A Bulwark Against Poverty, And A Building Block Of Development, An Essential Complement To Investments In Roads, Dams, Clinics And Factories.

Remembering Is A Necessary Rebuke To Those Who Say The Holocaust Never Happened Or Has Been Exaggerated.

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If Tolerance, Respect And Equity Permeate Family Life, They Will Translate Into Values That Shape Societies, Nations And The World.

You Can Do A Lot With Diplomacy, But With Diplomacy Backed Up By Force You Can Get A Lot More Done.

More Than Ever Before In Human History, We Share A Common Destiny. We Can Master It Only If We Face It Together. And That, My Friends, Is Why We Have The United Nations.

I Can't Think Of A 30- Or 40-year-old Who Can Behave Like Mugabe. They Wouldn't Even Know Where To Begin, And Given Their Own Educational Exposure, I Think It Will Be Very Positive For Africa.

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Over Time You Get To Understand The Nature Of Man And The Environments You Are Dealing With, And You Can't Always Allow Emotions And Temper To Flare Up Because You're Displeased With Something, Or You Want To Change It.

On This International Day Of Peace, Let Us All Honor Those Who Have Suffered From Violence. Let Us Hold In Our Hearts The Ideal Of Peace.

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Microfinance Recognizes That Poor People Are Remarkable Reservoirs Of Energy And Knowledge

Acquiring Literacy Is An Empowering Process, Enabling Millions To Enjoy Access To Knowledge And Information Which Broadens Horizons, Increases Opportunities And Creates Alternatives For Building A Better Life.

Hiv/aids Has Become Much More Than A Health Issue. Hiv/aids Is A Development Issue, It's A Security Issue.

The Arab Spring Reminds Me A Bit Of The Decolonisation Process Where One Country Gets Independence And Everybody Else Wants It. How About Us, When Do We Get It, When Do We Make Our Move? And You Have A Situation Where Someone Has Been In Power For Decades, Where The Integrity Of Elections, Democracy And Security Have Really Not Been Debated Or Discussed And Most People Suspect That Elections Are Rigged And That The Democratic Rotation That Elections Are Supposed To Ensure Doesn't Really Happen. And When This Goes On For A While You Are Sitting On A Powder Keg.

If The United Nations Is Not As United As It Should Be, That Is Because It Is A Reflection Of The World We Live In.

The Future Of Peace And Prosperity That We Seek For All The World's Peoples Needs A Foundation Of Tolerance, Security, Equality And Justice.

Depending On Where You Live, Your Threat Is Much Different From The Other Person. If You Ask A New Yorker Today, Because Of The Way The Press Plays It, He Will Say Terrorism Is His Biggest Fear. But For Somebody Living On A Small Island State, Then It Is Climate Change, The Rise Of The Sea Level, For His Whole Island May Be Washed Away. If I Go To Southern Africa, They Tell Me It Is Hiv/aids And Somewhere In Asia It Is Poverty. This Is Also Why You Will Find It Difficult To Find Agreements, Because If You Want Someone To Be Concerned About Your Threat, Then You Should Be Concerned About His.

I Don't See A Situation Where One Side Will Win Militarily, Take Over Syria, And There Will Be Peace And Quiet, A Clean Victory.

The Global Hiv/aids Epidemic Is An Unprecedented Crisis That Requires An Unprecedented Response. In Particular It Requires Solidarity - Between The Healthy And The Sick, Between Rich And Poor, And Above All, Between Richer And Poorer Nations. We Have 30 Million Orphans Already. How Many More Do We Have To Get, To Wake Up?

There Is A Certain Tendency On The Part Of Some Americans To Treat The Un As A Multilateralism à La Carte Where You Pick And Choose Where It Suits You And When It Doesn't Suit You, You Pull Back.

To Build A More Healthy, Peaceful And Equitable World The Classrooms Of The World Have To Be Full Of Girls As Well As Boys.

One Has To Have The Strength Of Character To Say The Time Has Come To Move On... Unless You Are A King.

Iraq Has A New Opportunity To Comply With All These Relevant Resolutions Of The Security Council.

It's Not That Easy To Quit. When You Look Back In The American System It Is Very Rare That People Quit On Issues Of Principle.

We Don’t Need Any More Promises. We Need To Start Keeping The Promises We Already Made.

The United Nations Has Long Recognised That The Imagination, Ideals And Energies Of Young Men And Women Are Vital For The Continuing Development Of The Societies In Which They Live. And Since Its Inception In 1948, Aiesec Has Contributed To This Development By Serving As An Agent Of Positive Change Trough Education And Cultural Exchange.

All Our Efforts To Defeat Poverty And Pursue Sustainable Development Will Be In Vain If Environmental Degradation And Natural Resource Depletion Continue Unabated.

We Will Not Enjoy Security Without Development, We Will Not Enjoy Development Without Security, And We Will Not Enjoy Either Without Respect For Human Rights.

Reform Is A Process, And Not An Event.

Terrorism Constitutes A Direct Attack On The Values The Un Stands For: The Rule Of Law; The Protection Of Civilians; Peaceful Resolution Of Conflicts; And Mutual Respect Between People Of Different Faiths And Cultures.

The Future Of Peace And Prosperity That We Seek For All The World's Peoples Needs A Foundation Of Tolerance, Security, Equality And Justice. That Foundation Is The Family. It Is Only By Protecting Families, From Famine As Well As From Fragmentation, That They Can Prosper And Contribute To The Family Of Nations That Is The United Nations.

We Need To Ensure The Poorest In The Planet - Who Will Be Hardest Hit By The Financial Crisis - Are Not Forgotten.

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To Educate Girls Is To Reduce Poverty.

Extreme Poverty Anywhere Is A Threat To Human Security Everywhere.

We Need To Keep Hope Alive And Strive To Do Better.

In Countries Where Democracy Is Either Non-existent Or In Development, On The Other Hand, Citizens Crave Those Freedoms. Maybe That Is One Lesson Western Citizens Can Learn From Those Countries: Treasure What You Have. Use Your Rights And Freedoms To Effect The Change You Want.

Most People Forget That Even In Iraq, By The Time The Air And No-fly Zone Was Established, The Air Defence System Had Been Removed Through The First Gulf War. All Of Them Had Been Neutralised.

Change Is A Process Which Has To Be Managed. If It's Managed And Managed Well In The Interest Of The Nation And The People, The Likelihood Is That It Will End Well.

The Drafters Of The [refugee Convention ] Had The Cold War In Mind And Mainly Sought To Protect A Few Thousand Dissidents From The Communist Bloc. They Did Not Envision The Mass Displacements Of People We Are Seeing Today.

We Cannot Wait For Governments To Do It All. Globalization Operates On Internet Time. Governments Tend To Be Slow Moving By Nature, Because They Have To Build Political Support For Every Step.

International Law Now Grants Rights To All Human Beings, Not Only To Citizens.

As One Of My Predecessors Said, Our Objective Is Not To Take People To Heaven, But To Prevent Humanity From Going To Hell.

There Has To Be A Force On The Horizon That Can Come Very Quickly. But The Way We Run And Fund Peacekeeping, This Capacity Is Unavailable.

All Our Efforts To Defeat Poverty And Pursue Sustainable Development Will Be In Vain If Environmental Degradation And Natural Resource Depletion Continue Unabated.

We Need To Promote Greater Tolerance And Understanding Among The Peoples Of The World. Nothing Can Be More Dangerous To Our Efforts To Build Peace And Development Than A World Divided Along Religious, Ethnic Or Cultural Lines. In Each Nation, And Among All Nations, We Must Work To Promote Unity Based On Our Shared Humanity.

This Is An Historic Step Forward In The World's Efforts To Combat A Truly Global Threat.

I Think That In The West, Many Citizens, Especially Younger Citizens, Take Their Freedoms And Institutions For Granted And Focus On Their Frustrations With Their Governments' Inability To Solve Pressing Problems.

We Have The Means And The Capacity To Deal With Our Problems, If Only We Can Find The Political Will.

The Young And Dynamic And Idealistic People In The Square Do Not Have The Chance To Organise Themselves Politically, To Be Able To Follow Through Their Dreams In Six Months Time, To Play An Effective Role In The Future.

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In Some Ways, The Challenges Are Even More Daunting Than They Were At The Peak Of The Cold War. Not Only Do We Continue To Face Grave Nuclear Threats, But Those Threats Are Being Compounded By New Weapons Developments, New Violence Within States And New Challenges To The Rule Of Law.

The United Nations, Whose Membership Comprises Almost All The States In The World, Is Founded On The Principle Of The Equal Worth Of Every Human Being.

I Did Not Always Achieve What I Set Out To Do. Nevertheless, My Personal Example Certainly Suggests That Hands-on Experience Can Be Helpful To Future Leaders.

There Is No Development Strategy More Beneficial To Society As A Whole - Women And Men Alike - Than The One Which Involves Women As Central Players.

To Look Into Some Aspects Of The Future, We Do Not Need Projections By Supercomputers. Much Of The Next Millennium Can Be Seen In How We Care For Our Children Today. Tomorrow's World May Be Influenced By Science And Technology, But More Than Anything, It Is Already Taking Shape In The Bodies And Minds Of Our Children.

I Think We Can Make A Difference In The Lives Of The Poor, And The Millions.

Making A Difference

Sometimes I Walk Into A Situation And I Know Somebody Is Going To Provoke Me - Not Maybe, I Know He Will Provoke Me - I Know He Will Provoke Me! And There Are Times When I Simply Refuse To Be Provoked. And The Other Times You Have To Use That Superior Knowledge To Carry On At Work Without Distraction, And Don't Allow Yourself To Be Distracted. I Laugh A Lot Inside And Outside, And At Myself Sometimes.

No One Is Born A Good Citizen; No Nation Is Born A Democracy. Rather, Both Are Processes That Continue To Evolve Over A Lifetime. Young People Must Be Included From Birth. A Society That Cuts Off From Its Youth Severs Its Lifeline.

If You Are Neutral In A Situation Where One Side Is Patently Being Mistreated, The Conclusion Is That You're Siding With This Wrong.

The World Is Not Ours To Keep. We Hold It In Trust For Future Generations.

Future Generation

Business, Labor And Civil Society Organizations Have Skills And Resources That Are Vital In Helping To Build A More Robust Global Community.

Let Us Work In Partnerships Between Rich And Poor To Improve The Opportunities Of All Human Beings To Build Better Lives.

Generals Often Find A Way Of Dealing With Generals On The Officer-to-officer Level. In The Hierarchy Of The Military And With The Almost Similar Structure And Similar Language, They Find A Way Of Dealing With Each Other.

Remembering Is A Necessary Rebuke To Those Who Say The Holocaust Never Happened Or Has Been Exaggerated.

To Educate Girls Is To Reduce Poverty.

Tony Blair Is A Very Able Politician; He's Perhaps One Of The Best Of His Generation. He Made A Major Contribution In Many Areas, But In Iraq I Believe He Got It Wrong. He Got It Wrong.

There Are Lots Of Questions Which Have To Be Answered.

Applaud Us When We Prevail, Correct Us When We Fail; But, Above All, Do Not Let This Indispensable, Irreplaceable Institution Wither, Languish Or Perish As A Result Of Member States' Indifference, Inattention Or Financial Starvation.

I Spent My Youth And My Most Formative Years In Africa. I Left Africa When I Was About 20, 21, And When Mo Says A Great African, I Was Really Moulded By My African Experience, Although I Had The Good Fortune That By The Time I Was 24 I Had Studied And Worked On Three Continents - Africa, The Us, And Europe.

On This International Day Of Peace, Let Us Dare To Imagine A World Free Of Conflict And Violence

Invite Politicians To Dinner And Let Them Tell The World How Delicious It Is. . . . They Will Proudly Go Around And Say, 'i Ate Crickets, I Ate Locusts, And They Were Delicious.'

The Report [by A Un Commission On Darfur] Demonstrates Beyond All Doubt That The Last Two Years Have Been Little Short Of Hell On Earth For Our Fellow Human Beings In Darfur.

Access To A Secure, Safe And Sufficient Source Of Fresh Water Is A Fundamental Requirement For The Survival, Well-being And Socio-economic Development Of All Humanity. Yet, We Continue To Act As If Fresh Water Were A Perpetually Abundant Resource. It Is Not.

Obama Saying Gaddafi Must Go. Putting It Upfront Like That... It's Not Very Helpful.

The Reality Is That No Group Of Countries Has Any Grounds For Complacency About Its Own Human Rights Performance And No Group Of Countries Does Itself Justice By Automatically Slipping Into The "victim" Mode . . . .

It May Seem Sometimes As If A Culture Of Peace Does Not Stand A Chance Against The Culture Of War, The Culture Of Violence And The Cultures Of Impunity And Intolerance. Peace May Indeed Be A Complex Challenge, Dependent On Action In Many Fields And Even A Bit Of Luck From Time To Time. It May Be A Painfully Slow Process, And Fragile And Imperfect When It Is Achieved. But Peace Is In Our Hands. We Can Do It.

The United Nations Has Long Recognised That The Imagination, Ideals And Energies Of Young Men And Women Are Vital For The Continuing Development Of The Societies In Which They Live. And Since Its Inception In 1948, Aiesec Has Contributed To This Development By Serving As An Agent Of Positive Change Trough Education And Cultural Exchange.

The Report Produced By My Commission, The Global Commission On Elections, Democracy And Security, In 2012 Showed The Corrosive Impact Of Money In Us Politics, For Example, Which Undermines The Legitimacy Of The Democratic System In Citizens' Eyes. Such Perceptions Partly Explain The Rise Of A Phenomenon Like The Success Of Donald Trump.

Ameen Rihani, One Of The Earliest Arab Americans, Devoted His Life To Bringing The East And The West Together. We Are Not Of The East Or The West, He Wrote. No Boundaries Exist In Our Breast: We Are Free.

World Health Day Is An Opportunity To Highlight The Problem, But Above All, To Stimulate Action. It Is An Occasion To Call On All Partners - Governments, International Donors, Civil Society, The Private Sector, The Media, Families And Individuals Alike - To Develop Sustainable Activities For The Survival, Health And Well-being Of Mothers And Children. On This World Health Day, Let Us Rededicate Ourselves To That Mission.

...let Us Recognize That Extreme Poverty Anywhere Is A Threat To Human Security Everywhere. Let Us Recall That Poverty Is A Denial Of Human Rights. For The First Time In History, In This Age Of Unprecedented Wealth And Technical Prowess, We Have The Power To Save Humanity From This Shameful Scourge. Let Us Summon The Will To Do It.

Education Is A Human Right With Immense Power To Transform

Democracies Have

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