COVID-19 killed millions, shattered health systems and brought the global economy to a virtual standstill. World leaders are meeting Friday to review the lessons learned and cement a new approach to prevention and preparation for the next pandemic. Hopes are high that a World Health Organization-led international agreement can move forward.
Aid agencies in Yemen highlighted the growing hunger emergency sparked by renewed fighting between Houthi opposition forces and Government troops, after mobile health clinics reported that hundreds of children displaced by the violence are suffering from the most deadly form of malnutrition.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese underlined the need for countries to work together to address the climate crisis, emerging technologies such as AI, and the breakdown of international rules, at the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday.
As the high-level debate enters a fourth day, The Takeaway looks back at key highlights on Thursday, with Israeli and Palestinian leaders presenting divergent views on the Middle East conflict and their counterparts from across the world weighing in on the far-reaching impacts of the ongoing crisis in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called on world leaders on Thursday to turn knowledge into action, reform international institutions and ensure that new technologies and global wealth benefit everyone.
The Vice-President of Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, Abdullah Al-Alimi Bawazir, told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that his Government had engaged “responsibly and positively” with regional and international peace initiatives and made significant concessions to end the suffering of the Yemeni people.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used his address to the UN General Assembly to defend Israel’s strikes against Iran as a matter of national survival and described the violence in the West Bank as the work of a few “juvenile delinquents” and rejected accusations of genocide in Gaza as “the greatest lie of the century.”
World leaders approved the UN Declaration on Sea Level Rise by consensus on Thursday as the UN chief warned that encroaching waters are already threatening the future of coastal communities worldwide.
“There is a people. A people who can wait no longer. A people waiting to regain security, to return home to work, to send their children to school, and to freely choose their leaders.” Those are the words of the Haitian Prime Minister, Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who spoke at a special UN meeting on the future of security in Haiti.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) continues to operate under “extraordinary pressure”, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Thursday.
Russian armed forces have carried out repeated attacks across Ukraine over the past several days, killing and injuring civilians and damaging homes, hospitals, shops and workplaces, UN human rights monitors said on Thursday.
Israeli policies now threaten “the very life and existence of the Palestinian people on their homeland”, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the UN General Assembly on Thursday, urging the world not to allow “another Nakba”.
Sea level rise is among the most visible consequences of global warming, but for some countries, it is an imminent existential threat. World leaders approved a new declaration on Thursday while debating the best ways to strengthen international cooperation and support vulnerable low-lying nations most at risk.
The Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) cautioned against growing global demand for “blood-stained minerals” in the rush to net-zero, in her speech to the UN General Assembly.
This edition of UN News's The Takeaway recaps key highlghts at the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, including focus on the war in Ukraine and a renewed push by African countries for Security Council reform.
Venezuela is seeking to rebuild after a period of political upheaval and the destruction caused by twin earthquakes earlier this year, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez told world leaders at the United Nations on Wednesday.
Kenyan President William Ruto told the General Assembly on Wednesday that the sovereign equality the UN proclaims is contradicted by its own structures, urging Member States to reform the Security Council and an international financial system “built for another age”.
“We are the first generation with the tools to end the fossil fuel age – and the last who can avert climate catastrophe,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday, calling on countries to draw up credible roadmaps with clear timelines to transition away from fossil fuels.
Nine years after the mass displacement of the Rohingya from Myanmar, their situation remains one of the world's most protracted and complex refugee crises, marked by years of persecution and uncertainty over the prospect of returning home.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday called for intensified pressure on Russia to end its war against Ukraine, arguing that Moscow continues to incur massive losses while prolonging a conflict whose consequences are increasingly being felt far beyond the battlefield.
