Page 84 - United Nations

Turkish leader asks United Nations to be 'much more influential' at UNGA

Turkey's leader, overseeing a nation encircled by regional disputes, used his speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday to shine a spotlight on Turkish maneuvering in conflicts that span from Syria to Ukraine. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's speech comes as Turkey is beset by staggeringly high inflation officially at 80%, but more than double that, analysts say. Erdogan blamed inflation on globally high food and energy prices rather than his government's economic policies. His speech, however, focused more on laying out his view of Turkey's role in the world. He said Turkey is trying to be part of the solution in conflicts around the world. Touching on multiple hot-button issues, he spoke about the need for stability in Iraq, fair elections in Libya, food security in the Horn of Africa, the need for Palestinian statehood, the rights of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and Uyghur Muslims in China, and standing up to anti-Muslim sentiment globally. His remarks also highlighted Turkey

The world is in 'great peril': UN secretary-gen warns global leaders

Stressing that cooperation and dialogue are the only path forward, he warned that "no power or group alone can call the shots"

Global solidarity more important than ever: Priyanka Chopra at SDG Moment

With just under eight years left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), actor-producer Priyanka Chopra Jonas said "a just, safe and healthy world" is the right of every individual which can become a reality with global solidarity. During her appearance at the 2022 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Moment opening remarks at the United Nations General Assembly, the "Quantico" star weighed in on some of the world's most pressing issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and poverty. "We meet today at a critical point in our world, at a time when global solidarity is more important than ever. "As countries continue to struggle from the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, as the climate crisis appends lives and livelihoods, as conflicts rage, and as poverty displacement, hunger and inequalities destroy the very foundation of the more just world that we have fought for for such a long time," Priyanka said in the speech shared by the UN via YouTube on .

Investors commit $7.1 trn of assets in pursuit of 1.5 deg C climate goal

A coalition of pension funds and insurance companies have committed to managing $7.1 trillion of assets in line with the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius

UN chief Guterres calls for action in 5 areas to transform education

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for action in five areas to transform education

Iran accuses America of confiscating assets in international court

Iran told the United Nation's highest court on Monday that Washington's confiscation of some USD 2 billion in assets from Iranian state bank accounts to compensate bombing victims was an attempt to destabilise the Iranian government and a violation of international law. In 2016, Tehran filed a suit at the International Court of Justice after the US Supreme Court ruled money held in Iran's central bank could be used to compensate the 241 victims of a 1983 bombing of a U.S. military base in Lebanon believed linked to Iran. Hearings in the case opened Monday in the Hague-based court, starting with Iran's arguments. The proceedings will continue with opening statements by Washington on Wednesday. At stake are USD 1.75 billion in bonds, plus accumulated interest, belonging to the Iranian state but held in a Citibank account in New York. In 1983, a suicide bomber in a truck loaded with military-grade explosives attacked US Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American troops and 58 Fre

India to push big for multilateral reforms of WTO, IMF as G20 Chair

Focus will also be on climate justice, green financing

Nations' leaders meet at UN amid rising global turbulence, war, food crisis

Facing a complex set of challenges that try humanity as never before, world leaders convene at the United Nations this week under the shadow of Europe's first major war since World War II a conflict that has unleashed a global food crisis and divided major powers in a way not seen since the Cold War. The many facets of the Ukraine war are expected to dominate the annual meeting, which convenes as many countries and peoples confront growing inequality, an escalating climate crisis, the threat of multiple famines and an internet-fuelled tide of misinformation and hate speech all atop a coronavirus pandemic that is halfway through its third year. For the first time since the United Nations was founded atop the ashes of World War II, European nations are witnessing war in their midst waged by nuclear-armed neighbouring Russia. Its Feb 24 invasion not only threatens Ukraine's survival as an independent democratic nation but has leaders in many countries worrying about trying to preserve

Philippine president to focus on food, energy, climate change at UNGA

Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos left for New York to participate in the 77th session of the UN General Assembly, with his priority focus on food security, energy and climate change

China values relationship with UN despite human rights criticism

As world leaders gather in New York at the annual UN General Assembly, rising superpower China is also focusing on another United Nations body that is meeting across the Atlantic Ocean in Geneva. Chinese diplomats are speaking out and lobbying others at an ongoing session of the Human Rights Council to thwart a possible call for further scrutiny of what it calls its anti-extremism campaign in Xinjiang, following a UN report on abuses against Uyghurs and other largely Muslim ethnic groups in the western China border region. The concurrent meetings, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, illustrate China's divided approach to the United Nations and its growing global influence. Beijing looks to the UN, where it can count on support from countries it has befriended and in many cases assisted financially, as a counterweight to U.S.-led blocs such as the Group of Seven, which have grown increasingly hostile toward China. China sees the UN as an important forum that it can use to further its

Arab aid to UN Palestinian refugee agency continues to decline: Official

The annual Arab financial aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) had declined to 3 per cent of UNRWA's budget in 2022, a UN advisor said

World leaders meet this week at UN General Assembly: All you need to know

After two years of virtual and hybrid summits, the world's leaders will reconvene on the river's edge in New York this coming week at the UN General Assembly, an exercise in multilateralism born from the hope for lasting peace that followed World War II. The opening of the 77th session comes as the planet is beset with crises on nearly every front. Russia's war in Ukraine, inflation and economic instability, terrorism and ideological extremism, environmental degradation and devastating floods, droughts and fires and the ongoing pandemic are just a few of the rampant perils. The high-level meeting opens Monday with a summit on education, whose thorough disruption during the coronavirus pandemic will reverberate for decades to come. Speeches from the scores of attending leaders begin Tuesday and run through Monday, Sept. 26. While this year is billed as something of a return to the way things were, certain concessions to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic have been made. In addition to

LIVE news updates: India logs 5,747 fresh coronavirus cases, 29 fatalities

Live news updates: The active cases comprise 0.11% of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate increased to 98.71%

China puts on hold UN proposal to blacklist 26/11 LeT terrorist Sajid Mir

China has put a hold on a proposal moved at the United Nations by the US and co-supported by India to designate Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Sajid Mir, one of India's most wanted terrorists and the main handler of the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks, as a global terrorist. It is learnt that Beijing put a hold Thursday on the proposal moved by the US and co-designated by India to blacklist Mir under the 1267 Al-Qaeda Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council as a global terrorist and subject him to assets freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. Mir is one of India's most wanted terrorists and has a bounty of USD 5 million placed on his head by the US for his role in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. In June this year, he was jailed for over 15 years in a terror-financing case by an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan, which is struggling to exit the grey list of the FATF. Pakistani authorities had in the past claimed Mir had died, but Western countries remained unconvinced and demanded

UN warns of global emergency as nearly 345 mn people face acute starvation

The U.N. food chief warned Thursday that the world is facing a global emergency of unprecedented magnitude, with up to 345 million people marching toward starvation and 70 million pushed closer to starvation by the war in Ukraine. David Beasley, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, told the U.N. Security Council that the 345 million people facing acute food insecurity in the 82 countries where the agency operates is 2 times the number of acutely food insecure people before the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020. He said it is incredibly troubling that 50 million of those people in 45 countries are suffering from very acute malnutrition and are knocking on famine's door. What was a wave of hunger is now a tsunami of hunger, he said, pointing to rising conflict, the pandemic's economic ripple effects, climate change, rising fuel prices and the war in Ukraine. Since Russia invaded its neighbour on Feb. 24, Beasley said, soaring food, fuel and fertilizer costs have driven 70

UN official calls for peaceful settlement of Armenia-Azerbaijan tensions

In the immediate term, the parties must abide by their obligations to fully implement the November 2020 cease-fire brokered by Russia, he told the Security Council in a briefing

UN chief Antonio Guterres says General Assembly debate must be about hope

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that next week's General Debate of the General Assembly must be about hope.

Syrians facing increased suffering, hardships after 10-year war: UN report

Syrians are facing increasing suffering and hardship due to the deadly consequences of over a decade of war, the latest United Nations (UN) report warned.

UN chief Guterres says world 'in great peril', demands immediate action

The global response to these "dramatic challenges" have been paralysed by the "geostrategic divides (that) are the widest they have been since at least the Cold War", he said

'Covid end in sight, deaths at lowest since March 2020,' says WHO

The head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that the number of coronavirus deaths worldwide last week was the lowest reported in the pandemic since March 2020, marking what could be a turning point in the years-long global outbreak. At a press briefing in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world has never been in a better position to stop COVID-19. We are not there yet, but the end is in sight, he said, comparing the effort to that made by a marathon runner nearing the finish line. Now is the worst time to stop running, he said. Now is the time to run harder and make sure we cross the line and reap all the rewards of our hard work. In its weekly report on the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said deaths fell by 22% in the past week, at just over 11,000 reported worldwide. There were 3.1 million new cases, a drop of 28%, continuing a weeks-long decline in the disease in every part of the world. Still, the WHO warned that relaxed COVID testi