President John Agyekum Kufuor of Ghana noted that the past two years have been "years of near apocalyptic ordeal for the world and this great Organization," caught as they were in "crossfires of terrorism, violence and wars."

Making a plea that the UN not be deterred by the terrorist attack in Baghdad, he said: "We in Ghana still believe in the United Nations as the global repository of humankind's aspiration. We believe that the problems of the 21st century cannot be addressed without universal commitment to multilateralism spearheaded by the United Nations."

President Kufuor made a plea, too, not to abandon Africa in its efforts to resolve its internal conflicts or its battle against scourges like AIDS, hunger, poverty and under-development.

He noted that the UN Human Development Report for 2003 "exposes the tragedy that besets sub-Saharan Africa" - that it will take 150 years for the region to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which Member States had hoped to achieve by 2015. He also endorsed an expansion of the Security Council with two new permanent seats for Africa.

Meeting With President Bush

On Wednesday morning, President Bush had a series of meetings. He met with President Kufour of Ghana. That meeting talked a good deal about Liberia, what has been, thus far, a very successful intervention in Liberia. The President thanked President Kufour, who, as you know, was the head of ECOWAS, the President of ECOWAS, for his tremendous work in helping to get Charles Taylor out of Liberia, getting an ECOWAS force in, and they talked about the future there. The President also had a chance to talk with the Ghanian about the Millennium Challenge Account, about the AIDS initiative, and so forth.