UNITED NATIONS, 23 Sept 8: Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned on Tuesday that the global financial crisis endangers the UN campaign to fight poverty and he called for global leadership to restore order to international financial markets, make trade concessions and act on climate change.

Addressing more than 120 world leaders and dozens of government ministers at the opening of the annual ministerial meeting of the UN General Assembly, Ban painted a grim picture of a world facing not only a financial crisis but food and energy crises as well as new outbreaks of war and violence and “new rhetoric of confrontation.”

“We must do more to help our fellow human beings weather the gathering storm,” he said. “I see a danger of nations looking more inward, rather than toward a shared future. I see a danger of retreating from the progress we have made, particularly in the realm of development and more equitably sharing the fruits of global growth.”

Ban said he worried that nations are losing sight of the “new reality” -- that there are “new centres of power and leadership in Asia, Latin America and across the newly developed world” --and that “in this new world, our challenges are increasingly those of collaboration rather than confrontation.”

Ban’s focus on global financial challenges and new cooperation comes in a General Assembly session confronting a host of challenges, including Western pressure on Iran for its nuclear programme and continued threats of terrorism, an issue which US President George W Bush addressed in his speech before the gathered leaders shortly after Ban spoke.

Bush said he realises that other nations are watching how the US deals with the financial crisis. He said his administration is with the US Congress to come to fast agreement on a $700 billion bailout bill, in addition to other recent actions he called “bold steps” aimed at stabilising markets and keeping credit flowing.

Bush, in his last speech before the General Assembly, said he is confident that the US will act “in the urgent timeframe required” to prevent broader problems.

He did not ask for any action by other countries.

Ban focused much of his speech on economic challenges and the US financial meltdown which has spread around the world, the secretary-general said “the global financial crisis endangers all our work -- financing for development, social spending in rich nations and poor, the Millennium Development Goals” to improve life for the poorest.

“If ever there were a call to collective action -- a call for global leadership -- it is now,” Ban said.

“We need to restore order to the international financial markets,” he said. “We need a new understanding on business ethics and governance, with more compassion and less uncritical faith in the ‘magic’ of markets. And we must think about how the world economic system should evolve to more fully reflect changing realities of our time.”

He urged world leaders to adopt a new trade deal to help developing countries at the Doha review conference later this year. Ban was followed to the podium by Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. —AP