UN General Assembly 73rd Session

From the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific and Indian Oceans, leaders from island States most threatened by global warming took the podium of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday, the fourth day of its annual general debate, to plead for increased aid to resolve a problem not of their making and call for reform of a financial quirk that punishes them for the progress they make.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly’s annual debate, a minister from Myanmar “resolutely rejected” an International Criminal Court (ICC) ruling in connection with the country’s restive Rakhine state, underscoring that the tribunal has “no jurisdiction over Myanmar whatsoever.”

In the 15 years since he last addressed the General Assembly, little has changed in the world and it is in far worse shape now than it was then, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad lamented in his speech to world leaders gathered at the United Nations.

All parts of the United Nations “must embrace this opportunity to change and create real improvements to the benefit of the people,” Ulla Tørnæs, Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation, said on Friday, stressing that the world body’s Member States had thrown their support behind the Secretary-General's ambitions reform agenda and now it was time to make those proposals a reality.

Germany’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Heiko Maas, outlined on Friday at the United Nations General Assembly a list of crises in the world, singling out “the crisis of multilateralism” as being at the root, frustrating solutions.

Denouncing their use of “political blackmail, economic pressure, and brute force,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mounted the podium of the United Nations General Assembly on Friday to accuse Western States of seeking to retain their self-proclaimed status as ‘world leaders.’

Addressing world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly’s general debate on Friday, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia described the world as a fragile, unpredictable, and complicated place where countries “big and small must respect one another.”

Recalling the challenges confronting Greece not so long ago, and the calls at the time from various quarters urging unilateral steps and disengagement with the international community, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras underscored at the United Nations on Friday the importance of collective action and wisdom to overcome complex problems.

Regularly threatened, attacked and killed, journalists are also being imprisoned in record numbers around the world, an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly highlighted on Friday. These practices undermine not only the fundamental human rights of the reporters themselves, but also the public’s right to receive and impart information, rights experts warn.