UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Saturday urged more world efforts to address the root causes of poverty, violence and human rights abuses by promoting international friendship in "a shared spirit of human solidarity."
In his message to mark International Day of Friendship, the secretary-general said, "Poverty, violence, human rights abuses and other major problems on the global agenda have in common a failure to respect fundamental norms and values developed over millennia."
"In confronting these crises, we must address their roots by promoting and defending a shared spirit of human solidarity," Ban said. "On a global level, this can manifest in many ways, from international assistance to political advocacy. And on an individual level, it can take the simple and timeless form of friendship."
When greed supersedes concerns about the health of our planet or its inhabitants, when fanatic attachment to ideology is pursued at all costs, and when people suffer human rights violations because they are considered somehow less than equal, the heritage of humanity is betrayed and our future wellbeing is placed in peril, he said. (Xinhua)