UNITED NATIONS — The
UN’ massive global summit returned Tuesday with a stark warning from
the world body’s chief of an upcoming “winter of global discontent” from rising
prices, a warming planet, and deadly conflicts.
اضافة اعلان
After two years of
pandemic restrictions and video addresses, the UN General Assembly again asked
leaders to come in person if they wish to speak — with a sole exception made
for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, while saluting efforts for global
cooperation, warned of a dire state of the planet.
“A winter of global
discontent is on the horizon,” Guterres said as he opened the annual General
Assembly.
“Trust is
crumbling, inequalities are exploding, our planet is burning. People are
hurting — with the most vulnerable suffering the most.”
With global
temperatures rising and a chunk of Pakistan the size of the
United Kingdom recently under water, Guterres lashed out at fossil fuel companies and the
“suicidal war against nature”.
“Let’s tell it like
it is — our world is addicted to fossil fuels. It’s time for an intervention.
We need to hold fossil fuel companies and their enablers to account,” Guterres
said.
He called on all
developed economies to tax profits from fossil fuels and dedicate the funds
both to compensate for damage from climate change and to help people struggling
with high prices.
“Polluters must
pay,” Guterres said.
Ukraine in focus
The summit was disrupted
after the death of
Queen Elizabeth II, with US President Joe Biden, by
tradition the second speaker on the opening day, instead due to speak on
Wednesday.
Day one featured French President
Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the two largest economies of
the EU, which has mobilized to impose tough sanctions over Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine.
“This year, Ukraine will be very high on the agenda.
It will be unavoidable,” top EU diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters in New
York.
“There are many other problems, we know. But the war
in Ukraine has been sending shock waves around the world.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock vowed to
support countries hardest hit by the fallout from the war as she headed to the General
Assembly on Tuesday.
“The brutality of Russia’s war of aggression and its
threat to the peace order in Europe have not blinded us to the fact that its
dramatic effects are also clearly being felt in many other regions of the
world,” Baerbock said.
Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov was visiting
despite a hostile reaction from the US.
With the Ukraine war leading to a global grain
crisis, hunger is another major issue on the agenda. More than 200 NGOs called
for urgent action from leaders gathered for the General Assembly to “end the
spiraling global hunger crisis”.
“Around the world, 50 million people are on the
brink of starvation in 45 countries,” they said, adding that as many as 19,700
people are estimated to be dying of hunger every day, which translates to one
person every four seconds.
Talks between rivals
Other leaders to speak
Tuesday included Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has staked out
ground as a broker between Russia and Ukraine, including through a deal to ship
out badly needed grain to the world.
Erdogan is also expected to meet in New York with
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, a dramatic rebound in relations after the
Turkish leader’s strident criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
In the type of
last-minute diplomacy common at previous UN sessions, US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken convened a first meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan
and Armenia since a flare-up in fighting.
Also high on the agenda for the UN week will be
Iran, whose hardline president,
Ebrahim Raisi, is traveling to the General
Assembly for the first time and met Tuesday with France’s Macron.
In a US television interview ahead of his arrival,
Raisi said Iran wanted “guarantees” before returning to a nuclear deal that
former president Donald Trump trashed in 2018.
Biden supports a return to the 2015 agreement, under
which Iran drastically scaled back nuclear work in return for promises of
sanctions relief.
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