Let us all reaffirm our commitment to improving the well- being of families throughout the world.

The interesting thing is, everybody focuses on the global warming as an environmental issue, as something outside our daily lives. But actually the impact of global warming is with us today. Communities are suffering. Communities in poor countries are the ones paying the price, they are not the ones who are polluting, and we need to help them adapt.

The U.N. power comes from concerted action of the governments.

The UN was very media-shy, and its relationship with the press was very controlled; although periodically I spoke to the press, the rule was, only the secretary-general speaks to the press; only the secretary-general makes... So you would see many situations where under-secretaries-general would come in and speak. I opened that, and I encouraged all of them to speak in their areas, whether it was peacekeeping or humanitarian efforts.

The reality is that no group of countries has any grounds for complacency about its own human rights performance and no group of countries does itself justice by automatically slipping into the "victim" mode . . . .

This is an historic step forward in the world's efforts to combat a truly global threat.

It's not that easy to quit. When you look back in the American system it is very rare that people quit on issues of principle.