Arabic Video News in English

It has been 20 years since the United Nations adopted a treaty aimed at protecting the rights of children around the world.

The Convention for the Rights of the Children has been ratified by every country except Somalia which has not had a functioning government for most of the last two decades and the US.

Barack Obama, the US president, has said he wants to change that, but he faces opposition from congress.

Critics say the convention places the rights of children above their parents and is anti-family. Others cite sovereignty issues.

But righst gorups dismiss those criticisms as unfounded.

Al Jazeera’s Cath Turner reporst from the United Nations in New York City.

Jan Fischer, the Czech Republic’s prime minister, has told EU leaders he fully expects his country to back the EU’s Lisbon Treaty by the end of this year.

But Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, who some describe as a Euroscpetic, is openly hostile to the treaty and will not sign it before a legal challenge in the Czech Constitutional Court is heard.

The Lisbon Treaty cannot take effcet unless all 27 EU countries ratify it. All but the Czehc Republic and Poland have done so.

Jonah Hull reports.