The fight against HIV/AIDS requires leadership from all parts of government - and it needs to go right to the top. AIDS is far more than a health crisis. It is a threat to development itself.

On this International Day of Peace, let us dare to imagine a world free of conflict and violence

A nation has the right to defend itself, but when it comes to the broader issue of peace and security, the legitimacy rests only with the Security Council.

I spent my youth and my most formative years in Africa. I left Africa when I was about 20, 21, and when Mo says a great African, I was really moulded by my African experience, although I had the good fortune that by the time I was 24 I had studied and worked on three continents - Africa, the US, and Europe.

More than ever before in human history, we share a common destiny. We can master it only if we face it together. And that, my friends, is why we have the United Nations.

There was a time, with the Berlin Wall down, that [it looked as if] the UN finally could do what it was set up to do, the rivalry between the two camps would dissipate, and we could all co-operate. And then, of course, Iraq came and blew it all apart. These upheavals will always take place in the world, and the design and construct of the UN ideally should be such that it can deal with these upheavals, and possibly influence them, and survive and thrive, but it doesn't work out that way, because as an organisation we are so dependent on the same member states.

Perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol.