Friday, 4 October 2024

Time For A New UN?

Last week 140 World Leaders turned up at the United Nations annual meeting so we had allies, rivals and enemies spending a few days in the same place with  Iran's president walking the same corridors as Israel's prime minister and Ukraine's leader was there at the same time as Vladimir Putin's right-hand man, Sergei Lavrov.
As tens of thousands are dying as war echoes around with little chance of it ending soon it was an opportunity for  world leaders to meet, thrash out differences and forge consensus to solve the world's challenges but lots of hot air but no resolutions and the UN failed utterly to reverse the aggression in Ukraine, Palestine and Lebanon.
The problem at the UN is some member countries are openly supporting Tel Aviv and Moscow's continuing violation of the UN's principles while others are turning a blind eye or making a nice profit from the war by supplying the arms. WIth five countries holding a veto and are quite open to flourishing it to support their friends, nothing is going to be settled and with the Middle East set to explode even further, the awful death toll is only going to rise steeply over the coming weeks and months.
Maybe it is time for a new United Nations in the same way that the UN replaced the League of Nations which was widely viewed as ineffectual but any new body has to remove the ridiculous veto and possess some proper powers that would punish nations who break resolutions because presently there are some nations who are literally getting away with murder.