Antonio Guterres

In the cyclone-hit city of Beira, Mozambique, the World Food Program springs into action, 2019. A new external survey of the agency’s workplace found a range of grievances, including sexual harassment. DEBORAH NGUYEN/WFP
The World Food Program may be receiving millions of more donations from the Trump administration than under past presidencies, but its management is skidding around amid complaints of sexual harassment, retaliation, abuse of authority and, most startling, rape, according to a new external survey.

Recent events have pointed to the weakness of the United Nations in dealing with international crises. The UN is experiencing the same diplomatic inertia that doomed its predecessor, the League of Nations. The UN Secretary General is not using all the powers granted to him by the UN Charter to try to extinguish flames of civil conflict breaking out around the world, from Catalonia to Syria and Hong Kong to the British Isles.

The flag of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, embedded in the mountains, can be seen from everywhere in Nicosia, the capital of the Republic of Cyprus. It is a stark reminder of the Mediterranean island’s division for the last 55 years. CREATIVE COMMONS
Anywhere from the capital of Nicosia, day and night, Greek Cypriots can see a giant flag painted into the mountains in the north, in a separate region that calls itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It is an area that is recognized only by Turkey and isolated internationally.

Vershinin Vasilievich, deputy foreign minister of Russia, chairs a Security Council meeting on Syria, Sept. 30, 2019. Behind him is Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the UN. Russia and Iran are delaying certain General Assembly committee meetings, including on disarmament, to protest the denial of visas for their delegations by the United States. KIM HAUGHTON/UN PHOTO

The UN pension fund for staff members has been mired in problems for years. Now, it is slow-walking reforms, says a close observer. Here, a scene at the UN General Assembly opening session, Sept. 28, 2019. CIA PAK/UN PHOTO
Since 2014, when staff members of the United Nations Pension Fund blew the whistle on serious mismanagement in its secretariat, a change in leadership has been made on both sides — assets and liabilities — of the $67.4 billion fund. Yet the turmoil persists.

A pro-Kurdistan independence rally in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region of Iraq, 2017. Governments missed an opportunity to advance the Sustainable Development Goal on good governance at the recent UN gathering of world leaders as attacks on civil society rise. LEVI CLANCY/CREATIVE COMMONS

Agnès Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, center, has been the sole voice in the UN system to demand a criminal investigation into resolving the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the American-based journalist who was slaughtered on Oct. 2, 2018. Here, Callamard is speaking on the subject at Columbia University.

Progress on the universal Sustainable Development Goals was scrutinized during the UN’s annual opening session of the General Assembly in September, and the news was not good. Some ambitions, like safe sanitation, are not making headway. In India, above, for example, about half of its population still openly defecates. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, and Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, at the VIP luncheon during the annual UN General Assembly opening session, Sept. 24, 2019. It was Merkel’s first time to the UNGA, as it is called, in four years and may be her last. EUROPANEWSWIRE/UNCA POOL
This year’s opening session of the United Nations General Assembly stood out for revealing the stark divide now defining international relations: the split between globalists and patriots.

President Trump at the General Assembly lunch, Sept. 24, 2019, only hours before the US House of Representatives announced it would begin an impeachment inquiry of Trump. LI MUZI-XINHUA/UNCA POOL