<<Print>>

US President Barack Obama is due to deliver his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He is expected to say the US is acting to tackle global challenges, but will stress that other nations also need to do their part. Mr Obama will also stress the change in attitude of the US to the UN compared to that of the Bush administration. The assembly will also hear from Libyan leader General Muammar Gaddafi for the first time, and the Iranian president. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has previously said he does not believe the Holocaust happened, will address the assembly, but the Germans have said they will walk out if he repeats the claim. Mr Obama will address leaders from more than 120 countries, a day after he spoke at the UN's climate change summit.The president acknowledged that the US had been slow to act, but promised a "new era" of promoting clean energy and reducing carbon pollution. His maiden general assembly speech will address nuclear non-proliferation, "peace and security, climate change, and global growth and development, and underscore America's fundamental commitment to universal values - and challenge others in the United Nations to do the same," an unnamed senior US official said. Some countries may not take kindly to his words urging greater responsibility if it sounds too much like a lecture, particularly those who feel his commitments to tackle global warning were disappointing, says the BBC's Mark Mardell in New York. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will tell the assembled leaders: "Amid many crises food, energy, recession and pandemic flu, hitting all at once the world looks to us for answers. "If ever there were a time to act in a spirit of renewed multilateralism, a moment to create a United Nations of genuine collective action, it is now," according to reports of his prepared remarks.