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UN General Assembly 73rd Session

Special Coverage of the 73rd General Debate
25 September-1 October 2018

As world leaders gather in New York in the coming days, the curtain will rise on the busiest diplomatic season of the year at United Nations Headquarters.

Here, UN News gives you a front row seat to all the action during the General Assembly’s annual; high-level segment, known as the general debate. Follow monarchs, presidents and prime ministers, as they define global responses to many of today’s pressing challenges, including climate change, international migration, protracted conflicts, and extreme poverty and hunger.

Abdullah Abdullah, Chief Executive of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, addresses the seventy-third session of the United Nations General Assembly.
UN Photo/Cia Pak

In UN address, Afghan leader lays out vision of peaceful, prosperous State in talks with Taliban

Saying his country had turned a page with its unprecedented overtures to the militant Taliban opposition, Afghan’s Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah on Wednesday called on the United Nations, the European Union and State partners to help promote a new Afghanistan in a country that has known nothing but conflict over the past four decades, with hundreds of thousands of casualties.

King Tupou VI of the Kingdom of Tonga addresses the seventy-third session of the United Nations General Assembly.
UN Photo/Cia Pak

At UN, Pacific Island leaders warn climate change poses dire security threat to their fragile countries and marine resources

Ensuring Sustainable development and surmounting the ‘devastating impacts’ of climate change were on the top of the agenda at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, where King Tupou VI of Tonga was joined by a host of other Pacific Island leaders calling for action on what they saw as “the defining issue of our time”.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita of the Republic of Mali addresses the seventy-third session of the United Nations General Assembly.
UN Photo/Cia Pak

At UN Assembly, Mali’s president gives heartfelt thanks for UN’s help in bringing stability

Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, whose West African country has benefitted from a 15,000-strong United Nations Stabilization Force (MINUSMA) to bring peace after Tuareg rebels and militant Islamists devastated its northern and central regions, mounted the General Assembly podium on Wednesday to thank the world Organization for “its immense and multi-dimensional” support.

Kersti Kaljulaid, President of the Republic of Estonia, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-third session.
UN Photo/Cia Pak

‘We all need to see the bigger picture;’ cooperation is the key to making the world better for all, Estonia tells UN Assembly

Empathy, equality, and efficiency should be the hallmarks of the work of the United Nations, Kersti Kaljulaid, the President of Estonia, told the General Assembly today as she set out her country’s vision for addressing global challenges such as migration, climate change and the shrinking space for free trade.

US President Donald Trump presides over a meeting of the Security Council on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on 26 September, 2018.
UN Photo/Mark Garten

At UN Security Council, world leaders debate Iran, North Korea sanctions and non-proliferation

President Donald Trump told the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday that the United States would impose sanctions on Iran that would be “tougher than ever before” in the coming months, following its unilateral withdrawal earlier this year from the deal brokered to restrict Iran’s nuclear programme, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).