World issues

Speeches last week by President Bush (to the United Nations) and Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi (to a joint session of Congress) stressed unified themes: the fight against terrorism will be a long one, and progress is being made in Iraq,

As could be expected in a year when American politics are focused on a hard-fought presidential campaign, John Kerry and his supporters claimed Bush was sugar-coating U.S. accomplishments in Iraq.

Because of the political climate, other key points in Bush's U.N. address received scant attention.

One of those is the violence in Sudan that has taken hundreds of thousands of lives -- an instance of national genocide that has produced little intervention on the part of the United Nations. What may become one of the most deadly epochs in recent history, Sudan is ripe for world action in ways that would put a stop to the killing and the starvation.

Bush raised other world issues that deserve similar attention, including the global AIDS epidemic, which is particularly calamitous in Africa.

Other issues the president voiced at the United Nations included human slavery, worldwide poverty and human cloning.

These are all topics that should have the United Nations operating at full tilt. When Secretary-General Kofi Annan stresses the need for unified world position on Iraq, it is easy to wonder how he is using his influence to deal with the issues President Bush rightly raised -- issues that are predominantly prevalent in Annan's native continent.

While the political sparring dominates the American public dialogue and the news media these days, the U.S. process of choosing its president every four years is not the most important issue in the world. The United Nations has the world platform to influence the outcomes of the battles against AIDS, genocide, slavery and poverty -- could better spend its time dealing with these issues.