UNITED NATIONS (AP):

Global leaders yesterday warned their colleagues that coordinated international action to end the worldwide recession and reverse the threat posed by global warming must not fall victim to routine political divisions and pitfalls.

"Recuperation will be slow and time-consuming," said President Zeljko Komsic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the UN's newer nation-states, born from the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Komsic called the global meltdown the "worst economic crisis since the founding of the United Nations, especially for poor and sub-Saharan countries."

The president of Rwanda, another nation bathed in a bloody genocide in the 1990s, said the way forward out of economic recession will require expanded participation, beyond the insider club of the wealthy G-8 nations or even the broader G-20.

Essential for recovery

"Should we not broaden the base of nations responsible for the future?" asked Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

"Most of the proposals fall short of the steps essential for the recovery of low-income countries," Kagame said.

The General Assembly was largely overshadowed on two fronts yesterday, by a Security Council meeting on nuclear disarmament, with President Barack Obama chairing the session; and the opening of the two-day G-20 meeting of nations grappling with the world financial crisis, convening in Pittsburgh.

Obama told the gathering of world leaders on Wednesday that governments "no longer ... have the luxury of indulging our differences."

The US has moved from bystander to leader in international climate negotiations, he said.

"To overcome an economic crisis that touches every corner of the world, we worked with the G-20 nations to forge a coordinated international response of over two trillion dollars in stimulus to bring the global economy back from the brink," he said.

Among other topics raised at the General Assembly, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi chastised the United Nations on Wednesday for failing to prevent dozens of wars and accused its most powerful members of treating other nations as "second-class, despised" countries.