G-20’s rise recognises diversity -Indonesian leader

BRITAIN; Indonesia’s president called the naming of the group of 20 nations as the new forum for steering the world economy a good step towards recognizing the diversity of modern society and called on world powers next to rethink the makeup of the United Nations Security Council.

“The G-20 is representative of a multi-civilizational global community,” said Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who leads the world’s most populous Muslim country. “Perhaps this is why the G-20 has been successful in arresting a global meltdown.”

At last week’s summit in Pittsburgh, the G-20 nations a grouping that includes emerging nations such as China, India and Indonesia said the larger forum would replace the rich nations’ G7 club as the world’s main economic parley. In a speech he described as a response to U.S. President Barack Obama’s June address in Cairo that sought to change Muslim perceptions of the United States, Yudhoyono said the next step to addressing the changing balance of global power would be to reform the Security Council.

“The U.N. Security Council of today still reflects the power balance of 1945, rather than 2009, with exclusive veto powers reserved for four Western nations and China,” Yudhoyono said in the speech at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his son is a student.

Cambridge, Wednesday, Reuters