Russia’s plan to annex four occupied regions in Ukraine would be an illegal move, a violation of international law, and should be condemned, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday, warning of a “dangerous escalation” in the seven-month war.
“Patience is running out” for many in the international community when it comes to effectively engaging with Afghanistan’s de facto rulers, the Taliban, senior UN envoy for the country, Markus Potzel, told the Security Council on Tuesday.
International tourism is showing strong signs of recovery, with tourist numbers rising to 57 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. On World Tourism Day, marked on Tuesday, the UN is calling for a major global rethink of the sector, to ensure that tourism is sustainable, and benefits local communities.
After a week of discussions on Member States’ priorities, challenges and impacts, the high-level portion of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly concluded on Monday, with the presiding official observing that the sheer number of participants indicated the importance of the General Debate in international affairs.
The Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the UN said on Monday that global security is in its worst state since the Second World War, owing to the high-handedness of some countries attempting to replace the international order centered on the UN system with one “governed by unilateral and exclusive Western values”.
The current chaotic state of the world – from wars to the spread of terrorism and climate-induced disasters – is the result of hegemonic, wealth-hoarding countries and their ambitions to subjugate others, “which Syria knows only too well,” Foreign Minister Fayssal Mekdad said on Monday.
Girls in Afghanistan have been forced out of high school, ever since the Taliban returned to power a year ago. A United Nations-backed initiative is training girls to help others in their situation, educating their peers until they are able to return to formal schooling.
Escalating gang violence has set off a crisis that is threatening “the very foundations of the rule of law” in Haiti, according to Foreign Minister Jean Victor Geneus, who told UN delegates in New York on Saturday that the authorities’ efforts to maintain order and ease ongoing political tensions could only succeed with robust international support.
Despite the world’s current phase of “turbulence and transformation”, there are “reasons for hope” amid broadening cooperation and deepening economic globalization, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the UN on Saturday, as he also upheld the ‘One China’ policy as “international consensus.”
Faced with the “inability” of Western countries to negotiate and the Ukrainian Government’s “war against its own people” in the east, Russia had “no choice” but to launch what the Government refers to as its special military operation, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the UN General Assembly on Saturday.
