Will Libyan Leader Make his Maiden U.N. Appearance?
By Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service United Nations, 11 Jun, (IPS): Every September, most of the world’s political leaders make their annual pilgrimage to New York to address the General Assembly sessions of the United Nations. The 192-member General Assembly, the U.N.’s supreme policy making body, has routinely served as a high-profile international platform for over 150 world leaders who also try to boost their image back home with their political grandstanding in New York. But there are several controversial leaders, including Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi, the late Hafez al-Assad of Syria, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, and Kim Il Sung of North Korea, who for reasons of their own, scrupulously avoided the world body – or were forced to. Still, there were many, like Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Yassir Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), who braved a hostile reception in New York to make their way to the United Natio
