NEW YORK (1010 WINS)  -- Several Manhattan streets are closed as world leaders gather in New York for the U.N. General Assembly. That means traffic headaches for commuters. 

See List of Street Closures Below

Streets around the U.N. are closed to vehicular traffic and officials warn that other East Side streets could be closed at random through Wednesday.


Al Jones reports

World leaders meeting at the U.N. General Assembly this week face a global financial crisis that threatens the United Nation's efforts to generate billions of dollars to fight poverty, especially in Africa.

As world leaders converge on the UN, lots of attention is being focused on Iran and its controversial president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin are not participating in the day's 'Stop Iran' rally but that didn't prevent thousands of people from coming to the UN in protest.

The demonstration attended by various community leaders including Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, is aimed at protesting Iran's human rights abuses and the appearance of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Palin plans to meet seven world leaders and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in New York City this week. The meetings might help her answer critics who say she is not ready to handle world affairs. Palin obtained her first passport last year.

On Tuesday she will meet separately with Kissinger, Colombian President DAlvaro Uribe and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. On Wednesday she is to meet jointly with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko. She then will meet separately with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Palin also will sit down with rock star and humanitarian activist Bono.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last week he was very concerned the economic slowdown and turmoil on Wall Street could have a negative impact on the ability of rich nations to help achieve U.N. goals to improve the lives of the poorest people who live on less than $1 a day.

Before the U.S. financial meltdown rippled around the globe, Ban asked world leaders to arrive a day early for the annual ministerial meeting of the U.N. General Assembly to focus on Africa's development needs -- and to interrupt their speechmaking Thursday to make new commitments to achieve the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

``We are experiencing a development emergency,'' Ban said in an AP interview. ``This is one of the triple crises that I have termed -- climate change, development emergency, and global food crisis.

``This week, with the help of all world leaders, I would like to really mobilize necessary resources and galvanize political will to as high as possible as I can,'' he said.

The leaders are arriving in New York as the U.S. Congress starts debate on a $700 billion proposal to buy a mountain of bad mortgage debt in an effort to revive U.S. credit markets, and whether they are prepared to make fresh commitments to help the poor remains to be seen.

The weeklong meetings begin Monday with a high-level session on African development that 106 of the 192 U.N. member states have signed up to attend -- including 34 heads of state and 11 heads of government.

Undersecretary-General Cheick Sidi Diarra, Ban's special adviser on Africa, said he was concerned about the world economy's downturn but he still expected developed countries to keep their promises of increased aid.

At a summit in Scotland in 2005, the major industrialized powers agreed to increase yearly aid to developing countries by $50 billion by 2010 compared to 2004, and to channel $25 billion of the increase to Africa.

But Ban said in a recent report that rich donor nations have failed to deliver on their promises and must increase aid by $18 billion a year. Of that, $7.3 billion would have to go to Africa.

UN General Assembly Street Closings and Construction Embargo - September 15- October 3.


Sonia Rincon Reports
 
Starting 12:01am Tuesday, September 16 to 11:59pm Friday, October 3, there will be intermittent closures of the following streets at the discretion of NYPD for the UN General Assembly: