Today, new Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will address both the Security Council and the General Assembly. His foreign minister, Katsuyo Okada, will address the biannual meeting on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which Japan is strongly committed to enforcing. At a press conference today, the prime minister's Press Secretary Kazuo Kodama said that Japan "welcomed U.S. participation" in the CTBC conference, for the first time in a decade.

Foreign Minister Okada recently ordered an investigation into the secret agreements between Japan and the United States that allow nuclear-armed U.S. ships to visit Japan, in possible violation of the country's non-nuclear laws. I asked Kodama if, with non-proliferation on the table at this assembly, there were any talks between the U.S. and Japanese delegations over the investigation.

Kodama said that Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell had been briefed on the issue and that the investiation was still ongoing.

"The vice minister will complete this investigation by the end of November. If necessary we will communicate with state department on this issue," he said. "I don't think there's any sort of tension."

Kodama was also asked what stance Hatoyama would take on executive bonus regulation in Pittsburgh:

In Japan we don’t have any progblems with the level of bonuses. But we think it important to ensure that the existing salary or bonus system should not lead in any way to excessive risk taking. 

The Financial Times's Gideon Rachman, who I keep running into the halls here, sallies forth with a qualified defense of some of Muammar al-Qaddafi's speech:

Now clearly Gaddafi is going to get bad reviews in the morning papers here in the US. But I have to say that some of what he had to say made perfect sense. It is entirely true that the structure of the UN Security Council is anomalous and outdated (although it was perhaps a bit harsh to call it “the terror council”). Gaddafi’s analysis of why it is so hard to reform the council was also bang on the money - each time you suggest one country, you trigger a demand from the next one in the queue. (So if you suggest Germany, Italy jumps up and down.) And his proposed solution - a Security Council of regional organisations such as the EU, Asean, the African Union - sounded like an elegant way out.[...]

But that’s the thing. Many of Gaddafi’s statements, which will be scorned in the West, actually probably resonate in the developing world. His views on the Security Council are widely shared. President Lula of Brazil said something not too dissimilair.

It's true that Qaddafi's attacks on the security council, if a bit bombastic, weren't that different in substance from what a lot of the leaders here have been expressing. Even Nicolas Sarkozy said it was "unacceptable" that Africa has no seat on the council. 

I actually think on of the more unfortunate things about Qaddafi's speech is that it put an entirely reasonable idea -- security council reform -- in the context of raving luncay. U.N. reform advocates would do much better to have Lula as the face of their movement rather than Qaddafi, but the Colonel gets much bigger headlines.

I do, however, completely agree with Rachman that Qaddafi's comparison of the General Assembly to London's Hyde Park speaker's corner was clever and entirely accurate.

Qaddafi's a tough act to follow today. Let's hope Ahmadinejad can keep it under 45 minutes.

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Ahmadinejad seems to be going pretty far off his prepared remarks.

[Update: Looks like those are actually last year's remarks]

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Garden variety anti-Semitism: "It is unacceptable that a small minority should dominate the politics and economy of vast parts of the world."

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Some delegates seem to be walking out during the speech.

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"The unhindered expanion of capitliam will certainly have the same fate" as Marxism.

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The belief in the one god has been replaced by self-belief. 

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Ahmadinejad follows Qaddafi in attacking veto rule.

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Refers to "glorious and fully democratic election." Says Iran has "one of the most democratic and progressive governments in the world."

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Staying true to form as one of the world's most prominent climate change skeptics, Czech President Vaclav Klaus has no use for all the big promises on emissions reduction coming out of this year's General Assembly:

I do not intend to go into details of this issue here now, we should carefully follow the scientific debate and pay attention to the costs and benefits of our decision. I do, however, want to emphasize that the measures proposed to combat climate change represent another heavy burden, for both the developed countries which are falling into deep fiscal deficits now and for developing countries and this is in a situation when the rich countries, often pushing this agenda at international forums, are losing their ability to compensate the poorer countries for the impact of these additional costs.

The Russian president just heartily seconded Obama's line, "Democracy cannot be imposed on any nation from the outside," though he pulled it a bit out of context.

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Medvedev describes U.S. missile defense reveral as a "constructive step in the right direction."

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Medvedev says Gerogia's "reckless attempt" to retake South Ossetia shows the need for "effective mechanisms to implement the principle of indivisibility of security."

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Decrying Holocaust denial, Medvedev denounced "attempts to revise the results of the World War II." Right, only Vladimir Putin is allowed to do that.

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya is scheduled to speak right now. He is otherwise engaged. Moving on to Dmitry Medvedev.

Yawn. Opinions differed on whether Hu's climate speech yesterday was a sign that he was running circles around Obama, or just overhyped. For anyone hoping for China to assert itself as a global leader, this afternoon's address was a letdown. 

Hu'sspeech was organized around platitudes like "we should prupse cooperation with a more open mind" and "we should be more tolerant to one another and live together in harmony."

When it did get down to pledging action, it was mostly about continuing to support the Millenium Development Goals and climate agreements that China is already signed on to.

Barack Obama's speech may not have been heavy on specifics. (These types of addresses rarely are), but there was at least a clear signal that he aimed to take the U.S. and the U.N. in a new direction. Obama also showed, as he often does, a willingness to acknowledge mistakes of the past and negative perceptions of U.S. action. From Hu's speech, you would never know that China's relations with the world had ever been anything but harmonious. 

As Obama said, "speeches alone will not solve our problems," but to the degree that they signal the kind of role the speaker is looking to play in the multipolar world that nearly every speaker today has insisted we are entering, the American president looked a lot more like a leader.

At least somebody made a diplomatic breakthrough at the U.N. this year:

"I think we can build a win-win relation between Japan and Russia by cooperating in various fields, including energy in Sakhalin and East Siberia," Hatoyama told Medvedev, according to the official.

Medvedev replied: "I agree on the idea of two wheels of one cart. It is important to move all fields forwards."

The two leaders agreed to launch a regular dialogue of their foreign ministers to discuss the dispute over the Kuril Islands, a feud that still haunts bilateral ties.

The newly elected Hatoyama favors improved relations with Russia.