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What’s the UN’s new ‘Pact for the Future’, and why did Russia oppose it?
Like many UN documents, it’s packed with big goals but is short on specifics about how to achieve them. And its passage snubbed Moscow.
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has adopted an ambitious pact that aims to make the organisation more relevant and effective on the global stage in the 21st century amid mounting criticism over its failures to stop wars and hold to account those who violate its charter.
Russia and Iran were among seven nations to oppose the “Pact for the Future”, but they failed to prevent the document from proceeding during the summit that ran on Sunday and Monday.
Let’s take a look at the centrepiece document of the annual gathering in New York, the lofty goals it aims to achieve for the global community, and why Russia argued no one is fully satisfied with the text.
What’s the Pact for the Future?
The UN describes the pact as a “landmark declaration” pledging action towards an improved world for tomorrow’s generations.
The lengthy text adopted by the 193-member UNGA includes a pledge to move faster towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement commitments on climate change. It speaks of addressing the root causes of conflicts and accelerating commitments on human rights, including women’s rights.
It includes two annexe documents, called the Global Digital Impact, dealing with regulating artificial intelligence (AI), and the Declaration on Future Generations, which pushes for national and international decision-making to focus on securing the wellbeing of generations to come.
“We are here to bring multilateralism back from the brink,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told world leaders gathered at the UN headquarters on Sunday. “Now it is our common destiny to walk through it. That demands not just agreement, but action.”
The pact covers a range of topics, with differing levels of ambition, and different UN forums and agencies will be responsible for following up on different topics, according to Richard Gowan, UN director at the Crisis Group.
“Some of the proposals are quite specific, like a request for the Secretary-General to review the state of UN peacekeeping operations. Others, such as a promise to work towards nuclear disarmament, are sadly more rhetorical flourishes than concrete proposals,” he told Al Jazeera.
“Nonetheless, it is important that UN members work out a proper implementation plan for the actionable parts of the pact, as we have often seen world leaders sign off on fine-sounding pledges at the UN and then fail to follow through on them.”
Does the pact spell out how it’ll make the world better?
Not really. As is often the case with UN resolutions and pledges, the Pact for the Future is packed with lofty goals and commitments but is thin on actual, realistic steps that the body can take to implement its own vision.
- The document asserts that nations “will end hunger and eliminate food security”, address global financing and investment gaps, commit to a fair multilateral trading system, achieve gender equality, protect the environment and the climate, and protect people affected by humanitarian emergencies. But it is silent on how the UN and its members will do this.
- As Israel’s war on Gaza, the Russia-Ukraine war and the civil war in Sudan continue to claim lives, it recommits the UN to support the International Court of Justice (ICJ). But at a time when Israel has made it clear that it will not allow the UN court to affect its devastating war, in which more than 41,000 people have been killed in Gaza, the new pact does not spell out how the body plans to get members to follow its rules.
- The pact sets out a promise to revitalise obligations and commitments on disarmament of nuclear and biological weapons, “renew trust in global institutions” by making them more representative and responsive, and promote and protect human rights, including through fighting racism and xenophobia. Again, however, these are mere promises in the text.
- Reflecting growing dissatisfaction with deadlock and lack of global representation in the UN Security Council (UNSC), the document pledges to “redress the historical injustice against Africa as a priority” and “improve representation” for Asia Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean. But the document makes no mention of how the UN will speed up reforms the Global South has been demanding for years.
- The Pact of the Future adds that it wants to accelerate the reform of the international financial architecture, bolster response to global shocks, and improve cooperation on exploring outer space and preventing an arms race there. But many of the countries leading the space race are also permanent members of the UNSC with veto powers that insulate them from any meaningful criticism.
- As many UN resolutions go unheeded, the pact pledges to “strengthen the response” of the UNSC and “revitalise” the work of the UNGA while strengthening the overall UN system, including the Economic and Social Council and the Peacebuilding Commission. How? No mention, again.
Gowan said many UN members believe UNSC reform is essential after the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, but actually cutting a deal would be difficult, as will be reforms of the international financial institutions.
“I think that overall developing countries had a bigger role in shaping this pact than they did in some previous UN reform processes, but the US still effectively defended its red lines on issues like the international financial system,” he said.
“The pact is far from perfect, and many people may feel it lacks the depth and urgency required to deal with the global polycrisis. But I think that we should be grateful diplomats could work out a deal at all in the current bleak environment.”
So why the opposition?
Russia, Iran, North Korea, Belarus, Syria and Nicaragua introduced a last-minute amendment to the draft resolution to assuage their criticism of the text, which mainly revolves around national sovereignty and the role of external entities in domestic affairs.
It added a paragraph that said the UN “shall be driven by intergovernmental decision-making process” and “its system shall not intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State” in line with the organisation’s charter.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin told the summit that those who coordinated the text over many months – Germany and Namibia – only included “what was dictated to them mainly by Western countries and ignored Russia’s repeated requests for intergovernmental negotiations on the text. He described this approach as “despotism”.
Moscow, he said, would “distance itself from the consensus on this document”.
Vershinin also stressed that the pact could not be viewed as creating “new mandates and obligations” for states as it is “simply a declaration, and a very vague one”.
But the Republic of Congo – representing Africa’s 54 nations – and Mexico, a major Latin American power, rejected the amendments, preventing them from going through and paving the way for the document to be adopted.
The opposing countries are among the most heavily sanctioned nations in the world, largely subject to unilateral designations imposed by the United States and the European Union, as opposed to those adopted multilaterally in the top UN bodies. The Crisis Group’s Gowan said Russia “read the room quite badly” and introduced last-minute changes when others had decided to proceed. Russia felt it had been disrespected after Germany and Namibia seemingly ignored some of its concerns, he said.
“I must admit that I am still quite confused about why Russia did not quietly withdraw its amendment, rather than face a vote on the issue it was bound to lose. Diplomats say that the Russians were offered quite a lot of opportunities to avoid this public defeat.”
To read from the United Nations' own website click here.
Who Is the Prince of the Covenant? - Speculations by Nelson Walters
Dennis Edwards: Nelson again doesn't seem to understand the significance of Daniel 8 in the End Time agenda. What he does speculate here is that the prince of the covenant is not the Antichrist, but rather the head of Babylon the Whore. Daniel 8 links the covenant with the beginning of the Jewish sacrificial worship on the Temple Mount. From the data given in Daniel 8, the official sacrificial worship will begin some 220 to 250 days after the signing of the covenant. That's around 7 or 8 months from after the covenant's beginning. [To see how those dates are reached the following link will take you to a class on the 2,300 days of Daniel 8.]
Thursday, September 26, 2024
Greatest Biblical Event of Our LIFETIMES Just Happened?
Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Pope Francis Says All Religions Lead to God; A Strong Bishop Corrects Him (2)
At an interreligious youth meeting in Singapore late last week, Pope Francis made some troubling statements about how people around the world can find God’s salvation.
Departing from his prepared remarks, Francis declared to the gathering that “every religion is a way to arrive at God.” He continued, “Sort of a comparison, an example, would be they’re sort of like different languages in order to arrive at God.”
The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics continued along this universalist tack: “But God is God for all. And if God is God for all, we are all sons and daughters of God.”
He lamented that some argue, “But my God is more important than your God!” and asked, “Is that true?”
Answering his own question to the young people, the pontiff finished,
There is only one God and each of us has a language, so to speak, in order to arrive at God. Sihk, Muslim, Hindu, Christian. There are different paths. Understand?
And the leaders on stage, representing various religions, happily shook their heads in agreement.
Crux, a Catholic news site, said of these statements from the Pope, “Such rhetoric has stirred controversy … among more conservative Catholics who fear that it calls into question Catholic doctrine on Christ as the lone savior of the world and also undercuts missionary efforts to bring people to the faith.”
They are not wrong.
When Pope Francis made similar statements at an interfaith meeting in Kazakhstan in 2022, Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider from that country warned such statements risk creating a “supermarket of religions” where people can shop for what suits them.
Of course, such teaching is in direct conflict with Jesus and the Gospel itself.
Jesus was unequivocal when He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, ESV)
As C.S. Lewis famously pointed out, either this claim is true, or Jesus is a lunatic or a liar.
The Christian Church has always held, from earliest days, to the exclusivity of salvation in Christ alone.
When Jesus asked the twelve Apostles, “Do you want to go away as well?,” Peter himself, who Catholics believe was the first leader of the Church, responded,
Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God. (John 6:68-69, ESV)
And it was this same Peter, speaking of Jesus before the Jerusalem Council in Acts 4, who proclaimed, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 ESV)
In First Things, archbishop emeritus Charles J. Chaput, a good friend of Focus on the Family, correctly said of the pontiff’s comments last week.
Pope Francis has the habit, by now well established, of saying things that leave listeners confused and hoping he meant something other than what he actually said.
Chaput adds, “That all religions have equal weight is an extraordinarily flawed idea for the Successor of Peter to appear to support.”
He continues,
As St. Paul preached two thousand years ago, the search for God can take many imperfect forms, but they are each an imperfect search for the one, true, triune God of Sacred Scripture. Paul condemns false religions and preaches Jesus Christ as the reality and fulfillment of the unknown God whom the Greeks worship (Acts 17:22–31).
All Christians must appreciate the clarity with which Archbishop Chaput explains,
We are called Christians because we believe Jesus Christ is God, the second person of the Trinity. From the beginning of our faith, followers of Christ were unique among world religions because they accepted as true Christ’s extraordinary claim that he is God—in part because of his miracles, in part because of his preaching, but ultimately because of his death and bodily resurrection. Christians have also always believed that this reality makes Christianity categorically distinct from all other religions, and in turn requires a total commitment of our lives.
This captures the universal truth of Christianity, the foundation of the Gospel itself. Our Lord alone has the words of eternal life, to whom else shall we go?
Every leader of Christ’s Church must be crystal clear about this fact.
Any who are not, undercut their own calling, contradict the claims of Jesus Himself, and diminish the martyrdom of untold waves of saints through the ages who have given their lives for the sake of our Lord’s matchless Gospel.
Pope Says: “All Religions Are A Path To God” Others Move To Correct Him (1)
by Tony Davenport | Sat, Sep 21 2024During his recent visit to Singapore, Pope Francis declared that “all religions are a path to God,” sparking a backlash among Christian leaders and believers around the world. Departing from his prepared remarks, Francis, who’ll turn 88 in December, spoke off the cuff, stating that different religions are like “different languages” to reach God.
“If you start to fight: My religion is more important than yours, mine is true and yours isn’t. Where will that lead us?” he asked, according to Catholic news outlet Crux. “There’s only one God, and each of us has a language to arrive at God. Some are Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Christian, and they are different paths [to God],” he added.
US Christian commentator Billy Hallowell wrote in The Washington Times: “The pontiff tossed petrol on the proverbial flames of concern when he went off-script, delivering a head-scratching monologue seen by some as undermining the Christian Gospel.”
Reacting to the Pope’s comments, Bishop Joseph Strickland, who oversaw the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tyler, Texas, until his dismissal by the Vatican last year, said in a social media post: “Please pray for Pope Francis to clearly state that Jesus Christ is the only Way. To deny this is to deny Him. If we deny Christ, He will deny us, He cannot deny Himself.”
Bishop Strickland was ousted for disagreeing with Francis on the issue of banning pro-abortion Catholic politicians from receiving communion and over the degree to which outreach to the LGBT community is acceptable in the Catholic Church. A petition created in defence of the bishop last year said he was ousted because he “publicly corrected several heterodox statements from Pope Francis.”
Greg Laurie, pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, also took take aim at the Pontiff’s message by quoting: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father except by Me” (John 14:6).
Outspoken former Anglican and current Old Catholic priest Father Calvin Robinson who has just moved from the UK to the US to take over an Episcopal parish in Michigan, also quoted that verse, adding: “This is a counter-scriptural statement from Pope Francis. The Scriptures teach us the opposite. The gate [to Heaven] is narrow.”
Billy Hallowell wrote: “These concerns from Mr. Strickland, Mr. Laurie and many others aren’t simply minor, dismissable complaints. They’re essential calls to correct a grave spiritual malfeasance and inaccuracy perpetuated by one of the world’s most well-known religious leaders.”
“One of the strongest presentations of this reality is seen in John 3 when Jesus speaks with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. During the exchange, Christ explains that: No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. From there, Christ explains that the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him.”
“Thus, it’s impossible to act as though different religions are merely divergent “languages” that all lead to the same God. The entirety of the Biblical message is one of transformation — the need to accept Jesus and allow God to transform our hearts and lives. Christ makes it painstakingly clear that a person can truly access the Lord only through Him,” the Christian commentator continued.
“This is why, via the so-called Great Commission, He implores his disciples to: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20, NIV).
“Jesus didn’t say: Go out and point people toward any random religion or philosophy, nor did he offer any prompt that affirms: All religions are paths to God. The Pope’s claims simply do not stand up to the Bible’s historical and theological narrative — and even an atheist understands this reality.”
“It’s possible Pope Francis misspoke, is being taken out of context due to translation, or wishes to further clarify his remarks. Considering the gravity of what he’s saying — and especially in light of his position in global Christendom — he owes believers everywhere an immediate and expansive explanation,” Billy Hallowell concluded.
Argentina's Milei blasts UN Over Agenda
https://www.foxnews.com/world/argentinas-milei-blasts-un-over-support-covid-lockdowns-appeasing-bloody-dictatorships To see video
Argentinian President Javier Milei called out COVID lockdowns as a 'crime against humanity' in fiery speech
UNITED NATIONS, New York - Argentinian President Javier Milei, in his first address before the United Nations General Assembly, blasted the organization, saying it "has transformed into a Leviathan with multiple tentacles that intends to decide not only what each nation-state should do but also how all the citizens of the world should live."
He added, "This is how we moved from an organization that pursued peace to an organization that imposes an ideological agenda on its members," according to a Reuters translation.
He then took aim at the world body's latest offering, calling its "Pact for the Future" "twisted," saying the policy was the "wrong course" to follow.
"The adoption of this agenda is fully in line with these privileged interests, and, looks beyond the principles that were set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it is therefore twisted the role of this organization and set it on the wrong course," Milei said during his impassioned speech.
Milei accused the U.N. of turning into "one of the main proponents of systemic violations of freedom," citing the organization’s support for the COVID pandemic lockdowns and allowing "bloody dictatorships" such as Venezuela to sit on the Human Rights Council "without reproach."
"For this reason, I'd like to officially express our dissent on the pact for the future that was signed on Sunday, and I invite all nations of the free world to support us, not only in the U.N. in relation to this pact, but also in the establishment of a new agenda for this noble institution that is the agenda for freedom," Milei declared.
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"As the ‘Pact for the Future’ purports to dictate, this long list of errors and contradictions has led to a loss of credibility for the United Nations before the citizens of the free world," Milei said. "I'd like to issue a warning here we are coming to the end of a cycle: Collectivism and moral posturing and the woke agenda is coming up against reality. There are no further credible solutions to the real problems of the world."
The "Pact for the Future" was the centerpiece of the Summit for the Future, which kicked off the high-level week for the U.N. General Assembly this week. The pact serves as the culmination of policies and mission statements issued by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres over the past few years.
The pact aims to expand the scope and focus of the U.N. and its members to handle "global shocks," such as "disruptions to global flows of goods, people or finance."
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Milei compared these new policies, which he alleged amounted to overreach by the organizations, to the original mission and achievements of the U.N., going on to blast the celebration of countries who "punish their women just for showing their skin in this same house that have voted against the State of Israel, which is the only country in the Middle East to defend a liberal democracy."
Israel’s returning Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon applauded Milei’s challenge to the General Assembly and Guterres’ pact, calling Milei "a true friend of the State of Israel."
"In this hall where they slandered Israel all day, you expressed courage and supported Israel!"
Milei insisted that if the current agenda should fail, the U.N. members must ask "whether or not this was an ill-conceived program from the outset."
"We should accept this reality and change what we’re doing," he argued. "The same thing always happens with ideas that come from the Left … When individuals freely decide to act otherwise, they have no better solution than to restrict, repress or cut off their freedom."
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"In Argentina, we’ve seen with our own eyes what they have done at the end of this path of envy and sad passion: Poverty, anarchy and a total lack of liberty," Milei said. "We still have time to choose another direction."
Milei ended with his often said slogan, ""Long live freedom, damn it! Thank you very much."
Reuters contributed to this report.
Peter Aitken is a Fox News Digital reporter with a focus on national and global news.
@Dennisedward