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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about Covid-19 and the race for a vaccine, among other matters in his UN speech. He started his remarks, however, asking, “For how long will India be kept out of the decision-making structures of the United Nations?”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi...
Besides bragging about his perceived accomplishments and castigating China, President Trump was surprisingly benevolent toward the United Nations in his pre-recorded video speech to the General Assembly opening session. JOHN PENNEY
Fake news alert: President Donald Trump said something...
President Stevo Pendarovski of North Macedonia. The mosaic behind him, by a native artist, is titled “Macedonia: The Land of Light.” It is located in the presidential palace. JOHN PENNEY
The first-ever virtual General Assembly session has been full of both challenges and opportunities:...
President Stevo Pendarovski of North Macedonia. The mosaic behind him, by a native artist, is titled “Macedonia: The Land of Light.” It is located in the presidential palace. JOHN PENNEY
The first-ever virtual General Assembly session has been full of both challenges and opportunities:...
President Zuzana Caputova of Slovakia was the first woman to speak at the opening of the 75th General Assembly session, more than 50 speakers in. The dearth of women speaking at the virtual gathering generated lament if not outrage on social media sites. JOHN PENNEY
A pre-recorded...
President Trump spoke about seven minutes in his video speech at the United Nations General Assembly opening-day speeches, the same day America’s death toll from the coronavirus hit 200,000. JOHN PENNEY
Donald Trump, speaking on the opening day of the United Nations’ 75th General Assembly...
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Secretary-General António Guterres at the ceremony marking the 59th anniversary of the death of former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, a Swede; Sept. 15, 2020. The UN General Assembly begins its formal 75th session this week, with no world leaders coming to New York City but sending video...
President Trump attending the United Nations lunch for world leaders at last year’s annual opening debate of the General Assembly, in the pre-Covid-19 universe. It is unclear if he is physically attending this year’s session; if not, he will likely deliver his remarks by video, like other...
Secretary of State Pompeo with the United States envoy to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, about to meet with the Security Council president, Dian Triansyah Djani, in August at the UN in New York City. The US entourage was delivering a letter saying the US was triggering the snapback in the Iran...
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump meeting at the 2017 G-20 Hamburg summit. After Trump’s nearly four years as president, there is still no obvious reason he defers to Putin on major issues. It is a chief question that the United States faces as a country, but there are clues, the essayist writes....
Zuzana Caputova, the president of Slovakia, addressing the General Assembly’s 74th session, Sept. 24, 2019. This year, she is the first woman to speak at the opening session, No. 53 on the UN’s provisional list of speakers, reflecting the abysmally low number of female heads of state, 22. CIA...
In Minsk, Belarus, the state apparatus prepares for yet another public protest, on Sept. 6, 2020, against the dictatorship of Aleksandr Lukashenko. Nine experts are to be voted on for the UN Human Rights Committee, which ensures such universal privileges as peaceful assembly. CREATIVE COMMONS...
President Zuzana Caputova of Slovakia spoke at last year’s opening session of the General Assembly, and is the first woman to speak at this year’s, albeit 53rd on the list. RICK BAJORNAS/UN PHOTO
The first woman scheduled to speak at this year’s opening session of the United Nations...
Secretary-General António Guterres and Dr. Denis Mukwege, founder and head of Panzi Hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Feb. 1, 2019. The UN peacekeeping mission in Congo has been providing security to Dr. Mukwege, as he has been receiving death...
California endured a slew of fires caused by more than 12,000 dry-lightning strikes in August, and experts say such wildfires will become normal if major steps are not taken soon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The United States’ “dynamic society,” rather than government policy, is driving...
Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, right, and Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, left, meeting in Tehran, Aug. 25, 2020. Iran agreed to allow the agency access to possible nuclear sites even as it has accumulated 10 times the amount of low-enriched uranium...
The first lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton, addressing the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, Sept. 5, 1995. Twenty-five years later, a prominent American feminist asks in an essay, where do women stand now? (Hint: She’s optimistic.) MILTON GRANT/UN...
Prime Minister Sanna Marin of Finland, June 15, 2020, in Helsinki. One major gain for women since the 1995 Beijing conference on gender equality has been a rise in female representation in national legislatures. Only 21 countries, however, have female national executives, the author notes. LAURI...
Finnish peacekeepers with the UN mission in Lebanon on patrol with the Lebanese Armed Forces along the Blue Line, June 23, 2020. The author writes that the recent renewal of the UN mission’s mandate was marked by rising tensions between the United States and other Security Council members, to...
Abdou Abbary, Niger’s envoy to the UN, assumes the Security Council presidency for September 2020. It is the first time the nation has been in the Council for almost 40 years. JOHN PENNEY
Niger hasn’t been a member of the Security Council for almost 40 years, and now that it has a voice...
“Digital Future of Development Dialogue,” a UN event, above, was held in September 2019. The UN is pushing to widen traditional pools of funding through digital channels to lift the faltering Sustainable Development Goals, especially in the Covid-19 era. But risks to such an approach abound. ©...
Nikki Haley, a former US envoy to the UN, spoke at the Republican National Convention, Aug. 24, 2020. Although she did not land on the Trump re-election ticket, as some prominent pundits suggested she might, her speech evoked the air of a presidential candidate down the road.
US asylum...
Sweden’s steps to cope with the coronavirus have aroused both global curiosity and condemnation, but it has been a set of “peculiar circumstances” that have shaped the country’s response, the writer explains. Here, a recent scene at Lake Kottla, Stockholm. KJELL ENGELBREKT
STOCKHOLM — For...
Nikki Haley, an ex-US ambassador to the UN, spoke on the first night of the Republican Party Convention, Aug. 24, 2020. Although she is not on the re-election ticket — as pundits suggested she could have been to replace Pence — she is likely not disappearing from national politics.
If...
Secretary of State Pompeo with Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani of Indonesia, president of the Security Council for August, at the UN in New York City, Aug. 20, 2020. Pompeo delivered a letter to trigger a 30-day process that could reimpose UN sanctions on Iran. RON PRZYSUCHA/STATE DEPARTMENT...
Tlaleng Mofokeng, the just-appointed UN special rapporteur for physical and mental health. Dr T, as she’s known, is a reproductive health expert as well as an advocate for legalizing prostitution, a stance that has alarmed global opponents of decriminalization.
To keep tabs on the lives...
President Trump, joined by White House male senior staff members, announces an agreement of normalizing relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Aug. 13, 2020. The author of this essay argues that Israel and the UAE were already “quietly cooperating” for quite a while. JOYCE N....
A day after the devastating Aug. 4, 2020 blast in Beirut’s port, one ship in the maritime section of the UN mission in Lebanon was damaged, injuring naval peacekeepers, some of them seriously. Here, the Bangladeshi contingent prays on Aug. 5 near the scene. PASQUAL GORRIZ/UN PHOTO
The...
Secretary of State Pompeo visiting the Patton Museum, which commemorates the United States role in liberating Czechoslovakia, in Pilsen, Czech Republic, Aug. 11, 2020. While Pompeo was traveling in Europe last week, the UN Security Council rejected a US draft resolution to extend the Iran arms...
In New York City at the UN, Ambassador Kelly Craft with Talal Alhaj of Al Arabiya TV, Aug. 11, 2020, discussing the US effort to extend the Iran arms ban. Craft tweeted: “Allowing Iran to gain access to new, more powerful weapons would only fuel new terror, chaos & bloodshed in the region...
Lieut. Gen. Ricard Costa Neves, center, the force commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, May 2020. He is one of a succession of Brazilians to have led the UN operations there militarily. The authors reflect on Brazil’s long, extensive role in the UN but...
A performance at a photo show in El Fasher, Sudan, 2018. The new transitional government of Sudan criminalized female genital mutilation this spring, but the practice has not ended. MOHAMAD ALMAHADY/UNAMID
Just four months ago, Sudan took the monumental step to ban female genital...
Reducing inequality within and among countries is a Sustainable Development Goal that is not progressing, as evidenced in demonstrations that erupted in many parts of the United States and abroad this year. Here, a protest in New York City, June 2020. JOHN PENNEY
The shock of the...
Public elementary school 29, in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn, N.Y., displays photos of its students who graduated in June in a virtual ceremony. The UN secretary-general is pushing schools globally to reopen, when local transmission of Covid-19 is managed. JOHN PENNEY
A major...
Brian Hook, the US envoy for Iran, with Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah, Kuwait City, July 27, 2020. Hook has left his job just as the US wants the UN Security Council to vote on a resolution extending the arms ban embedded in the Iran nuclear deal. Elliott Abrams, US envoy for...
Carlos Moisés Guillén Alfaro, un piloto de 46 años de El Salvador, fue el primer personal de mantenimiento de la paz de la ONU en morir por Covid-19, según funcionarios de la ONU. Pero su certificado de defunción no menciona la...
At a clinic at La Fossette Health Center in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, nurses vaccinate babies, among other health care services. The pandemic could further erode Haiti’s stability, experts say, given its precarious economic and political state. DANIEL LANARI/USAID
As Covid-19 continues to...
The Indonesian delegation, June 2018, when it was elected as a member from the Asia-Pacific region to the UN Security Council for 2019-2020. Retno Marsudi, foreign affairs minister, right; and Dian Triansyah Djani, center, the UN ambassador. The key to managing in the Council? Tolerance and...
India’s new ambassador to the UN, T. S. Tirumurti, has arrived in New York City, tweeting about sunsets and meeting fellow diplomats so far. The country joins the Security Council in January and will most likely refrain from allying with any big power. INDIAN MISSION TO THE UN
With five...
A Black Lives Matter protest in Philadelphia, June 2020. The UN’s top human-rights official must write a report within a year on systemic racism and violations of international human-rights law against Africans and people of African descent by law-enforcement entities. CREATIVE COMMONS
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Carlos Moisés Guillén Alfaro, a 46-year-old pilot from El Salvador, was the first UN peacekeeper to die from Covid-19, according to UN officials. But his death certificate cites no cause of death, and other major questions about his medical treatment in Mali, where he was based, prevail from his...
Carol Pasisi, an activist from the Pacific island nation of Niue, spoke to the Security Council on July 24 about the threats of climate change in her region, like damage to the blue economy.
The Security Council held a climate change and security debate, led by Germany, nearly 10 years...
The UN flag flew with United States and Canadian flags on the Peace Bridge, between Buffalo, N.Y., and Fort Erie, Ontario, until not long ago, but it’s unclear why it was there to begin with. OPEN SOURCE
BUFFALO, N.Y. — In the middle of a recent Zoom meeting with...
Precautions taken in Mali against Covid-19, March 2020. A UN-75 political declaration to reinforce global cooperation was approved recently by the General Assembly. But it had hit many sticking points, including the United States forcing language on climate change to be softened. OUSMANE TRAORE/...
At the UN in New York, participants at a Youth Standing Up for Human Rights event, Dec. 10, 2019. The bottom line to getting a full-time job at the UN, even in a world crisis, is that the route is not a straight shot. ESKINDER DEBEBE/UN PHOTO
Ever wonder how to crack the door open to a...
Secretary of State Pompeo during a question-and-answer session about his new report by the Commisson on Unalienable Rights, unveiled at the National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, July 16, 2020. Mary Ann Glendon, right, presided over the event and led the commission that wrote the report....
The UN Security Council visited South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, in 2016, where Samantha Power, the US envoy to the UN, led the entourage. As the Council boarded a UN plane to leave the country and go home, she said that it “does not mean that we are going to forget about them.” UNMISS...
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