Although more than 500 million maritime containers move around the world each year, accounting for 90 per cent of international trade, only 2 per cent are inspected. Strengthening customs and immigration systems is essential.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the vast scale of global trade and the insufficient inspection of shipping containers, emphasizing the need for stronger customs and immigration systems.
Ban Ki-Moon's quote reflects the immense volume of maritime trade that takes place globally, asserting that despite the significant movement of goods, a minuscule percentage of these containers undergo inspection. This raises concerns about security and regulatory compliance, suggesting that enhancing customs and immigration systems is vital to ensure safety and efficacy in international trade.
In practice
This quote can be used in a conference about international trade regulations.
Nuclear terrorism is one of the most serious threats of our time. Even one such attack could inflict mass casualties and create immense suffering and unwanted change in the world forever. This prospect should compel all of us to act to prevent such a catastrophe.
We have international standards regulating everything from t-shirts to toys to tomatoes. There are international regulations for furniture. That means there are common standards for the global trade in armchairs but not the global trade in arms.
Weapons of mass destruction violate more than individual lives - they cross international borders and jeopardize all people. They also drain resources that could be used instead for medicines, schools and other life-saving supplies. We must come together with even greater determination to prevent a WMD nightmare.
Throughout human history, in any great endeavour requiring the common effort of many nations and men and women everywhere, we have learned - it is only through seriousness of purpose and persistence that we ultimately carry the day. We might liken it to riding a bicycle. You stay upright and move forward so long as you keep up the momentum.
By including children with different learning abilities in mainstream and specialized schools, we can change attitudes and promote respect. By creating suitable jobs for adults with autism, we integrate them into society.
Freedom is a timeless value. The United Nations Charter calls for encouraging respect for fundamental freedoms. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights mentions freedom more than twenty times. All countries have committed to protecting individual freedoms on paper - but in practice, too many break their pledge.
Economics is a choice between alternatives all the time. Those are the trade-offs.
I am not saying that factory farming is the same as the Holocaust or the slave trade, but it's clear that there is an immense amount of suffering in it, and just as we think that the Nazis were wrong to ignore the suffering of their victims, so we are wrong to ignore the sufferings of our victims.
The essence of globalization is a subordination of human rights, of labor rights, consumer, environmental rights, democracy rights, to the imperatives of global trade and investment.
My only boss was the clock on the wall and my only friend, never really was a friend at all. I've traded love for pennies, sold my soul for less. Lost my ideas in that long tunnel of time. And I've turned inside out and around about and back and then found myself right back where I started again
If you want to be fully convinced of the abominations of slavery, go on a southern plantation, and call yourself a negro trader. Then there will be no concealment; and you will see and hear things that will seem to you impossible among human beings with immortal souls.
For decades, many blacks were reluctant to pursue a profession that was associated with servitude. If you went to school, it was to become a lawyer or doctor. Older generations didn't understand why one would spend money to learn how to chop, peel, dice, and saute vegetables when that trade could be taught at home.
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