Speaker after speaker at the U.N. General Assembly's General Debate Thursday said the world organization was the first place to come with global issues, whether economic and social developments or international peace and security.

At the same time, nearly every speaker said it was time to reform the United Nations, and looked forward to the report from a high-level panel appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Threats, Challenges and Change expected by year's end.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia said he was speaking before the assembly, at a difficult time for our country, citing the Beslan school massacre.

I am also addressing you in a moment of truth, when nobody can raise any doubt as to the true nature of international terrorism and the challenge it has posed to the world community, Lavrov said, saying of the terrorists that having made massacre an end in itself, they have knowingly violated every rule of human ethics.

He defended President Vladimir Putin's recent tough actions, saying, We will not let anybody encroach on the sovereignty of our state.

Summing up his otherwise wide-ranging address, Lavrov said, "Unsolved problems and new, dangerous challenges to the security and development of mankind are growing in number.

We still lack a collective strategy and generally applicable mechanisms for responding to these challenges, he continued. In fact we have to constantly improvise and use makeshift means to ensure world stability.

Suggesting the world could find that events would start to go beyond our control, he asked, Maybe it is time for the world community to assume an active role in global processes and take targeted actions to establish a more secure and just world order?

He said, Russia is fully determined to build such a world order and take a proper place in it as a free and democratic state, concluding by saying the United Nations was founded to counter the deadly threat of Nazi enslavement. The enemy that opposes us today is no less dangerous and merciless.

India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh sought urgent reform, arguing the case for a permanent Security Council seat for New Delhi.

The expansion of the Security Council, in the categories of both permanent and non-permanent members, and the inclusion of countries like India as permanent members, would be a first step in the process of making the U.N. a truly representative body, he said.

Delivering his first U.N. speech since taking office in May, Singh spoke of India on the move and the capability and capacity it has to be part of economic, technological and developmental transformations.

Briefly touching on India-Pakistan relations, he said, I reaffirm our determination to carry forward this dialogue to a purposeful and mutually acceptable conclusion.

Singh is meeting with Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf on Friday.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer also pushed for a permanent seat at the Security Council and said that Germany was ready to take on the responsibility.

He pointed to the fact that for 40 years the council has remained unchanged and called for a permanent seat also for Brazil, India and Japan.

Crediting the United Nations as the forum to tackle challenges facing humanity he said, For millions of people today, the blue flag means quite tangible help often on essential issues and hope of a better future.

Foreign Minister Michel Barnier of France reaffirmed his country's continued opposition to the Iraq war during his address.

France, as everyone knows, did not approve of the conditions in which the conflict was unleashed. Neither today, nor tomorrow will it commit itself to military in Iraq.

Barnier said the exploding violence in Iraq affirmed his nation's refusal to dispatch troops, but expressed France's willingness to assist in rebuilding the country.

Describing the task of building peace in the Middle East as a historic responsibility, he said the road-map endorsed by the Security Council should be implemented.

France hopes that (Israel's) withdrawal from Gaza is a first step. It will make every effort to get the peace process under way again, Barnier said. He also advocated enlargement of the Security Council.

We have expressed support for the aspirations of Germany, Japan, Brazil and India, which should be accompanied by a country from Africa, he said.

Israel's Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said Iran had replaced Saddam Hussein as the world's number one exporter of terrorism. He said the international community had come to realize that Iran -- with missiles that can reach London, Paris, Berlin and southern Russia -- posed a threat not only to Israel but to the stability of the world.

He addressed what he called the active involvement of Iran and Syria in terrorism, and said, There can be no place in the community of nations for those who promote the killing of children.

He also asked the heavily Arab assembly to end its obsession with Israel and to ensure that U.N. resources are allocated more equally and more effectively.

Said Shalom, I call on this assembly to address the growth of anti-Semitism and other forms of racism and intolerance.

President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Chairman of the African Union, said the problem of unremitting conflict in various regions of the world, and the increasingly difficult task of seeking solutions to it, seriously challenged the world body.

Improvements were still necessary, however, to enable the United Nations to address the social and economic challenges that inevitably confronted countries emerging from conflict, as those issues underpinned the causes of conflict in the first place. He also appealed for the continued enhancement of the capacity of regional organizations to undertake crisis resolution initiatives in their respective regions.

Obasanjo said that, while the world organization was justifiably concerned with the issue of weapons of mass destruction, the question of small arms and light weapons could no longer be ignored. The latter were killing people daily at a rate cumulatively amounting to monumental destruction, he said.

Nigeria and the AU welcomed the start of negotiations for an international, legally binding instrument to enable states to identify and trace illicit small arms and light weapons globally, Obasanjo said. Of particular interest to Africa was the enormous potential impact such an instrument could have on peace and security in his region.

President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal said there was much work to be done in combating poverty, particularly in the least developed countries. In spite of relative improvement in Africa since 1995, it would not be possible to achieve the Millennium Development Goals given the progress to date, he said.

But Wade also said he was pleased to see the progress made so far in financing the New Partnership for Africa's Development initiative, known by the acronym NEPAD, although it was insufficient. He proposed a conference to close the agricultural divide.

Wade also proposed cyber solidarity among peoples, and the establishment of a fund to overcome the digital divide. Giving Africa the means to progress in information technology would help the continent resolve the digital divide issue, he said.