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The world's presidents, kings and prime ministers came together to an historic three - day U.N. summit in New York. The fitting end of the meeting of about 150 leaders is an eight - page Millennium Declaration, which is a catalog of world's troubles (poverty, war, aids, pollution, human rights violations and more). The declaration says, that the leaders have a duty in the face off all the world's people, especially in the face of the children, and that they have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of human dignity, equality and equity. Over three days, there were many conversations, each leader had five minutes to speak. Secretary - General Kofi Annan said at the end of the summit:" The world's leaders have to return home now and to reach the goals they have defined." Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak spoke with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat about a peace agreement, but Arafat was very unresponsive. While all leaders were in New York, there were also protests, and supporters of Falun Gong handed out leaflets, warning of new crackdowns against their spiritual movement in China. Chinese President Jiang Zemin called on the U.S. Senate to pass a bill that would make China a normal trading partner of the United States. He said the agreement would help China to play a positive role in preservation world peace and stability. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the Guggenheim Museum and attended a signing ceremony. Thursday's the Security Council discussed about making the United Nation more effective in prevention and settlement of conflicts, in post - conflict peace - building and about looking at economic and social causes of conflicts. In the summit declaration the leaders set tough targets :
1) to cut in half the proportion of people living on less than one dollar a day by the year 2015
2) to cut in half the number of people who do not have save drinking water by the year 2015
3) to make sure that boys and girls everywhere will be able to complete primary school
4) to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the scourge of malaria and other major diseases
5) to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020
6) to close the digital divide
In the declaration are also some parts the United States don't like :
1) to cancel all the official debts of the poorest countries
2) to give exports from the least developed countries duty - free and quota - free access
The United States also called to convene an international conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. South African President Thabo Mbeki said:" A new mood is reflected in this summit, and world's leaders said things they never said before, like describing the challenge of combatting world poverty as the top global priority. And Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said:" Forging Ahead and reaching the goals we defined won't be easy and will be a test of the resolve that we voice at this summit.
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