Top world leaders focus on economics and war at UN General Assembly
New York (AsiaNews) – This week, the world’s most powerful leaders addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York. This gave them an opportunity to express their thoughts.
Based on a survey by Bloomberg with the Logos Consulting Group, state of the world economy and war monopolised their attention.
Among G-20 heads of state and government, Syria was the single most talked about country: 38 times in all. Iran, which came a close second, was cited 34 times – followed by Cuba with 22, including seven mentions by US President Barack Obama.
North Korea and its nuclear threat were all but absent, except for the speech of the South Korean President Park Geun-hye who was responsible for 12 of its 13 mentions.
When it comes to global outreach, Obama is the hands-down winner, referring to 12 other countries a total of 69 times.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe mentioned the most individual countries by name – 19 in all – but on average, just once each.
Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who referenced America 16 times in her 40-minute speech, was the most US-centric leader.
For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping failed to mention a single country other than his own, and did not utter any terrorism-related words.
On one issue world leaders could not agree, namely the name of the extremist group that has conquered large swathes of Syria and Iraq.
Russia's Vladimir Putin called it the Islamic State, referencing it eight times. President Obama used ISIL, but called it out by name only three times during his speech, the same number of times as Italian Prime Minister Renzi, who preferred Daesh, the acronym of the group's Arabic title.
Overall, the economy and war were most on the mind of world leaders, with roughly 100 combined mentions for keywords relating to each.
Migration, including mentions of refugees, was the next most talked about topic, with 65 references.
Thus, terrorism and climate change took a backseat. The latter, which will be discussed at a big UN conference later this year in Paris, had only around 50 mentions.
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