The Security Council began meeting in its chamber this month, complete with plastic dividers, for the first time since the pandemic started: Nicolas de Rivière, France’s ambassador, left, and Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s envoy, right, Oct. 15, 2020. ESKINDER DEBEBE/UN PHOTO
David Beasley, the head of the World Food Program and an American, spoke to the media at UN headquarters in New York City remotely on Oct. 16, 2020. The agency was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize a week earlier, and he used the briefing to plea for billions of more dollars in donations to the agency to stave off famines in certain countries. He also asked billionaires to pitch in as nations are “tapped out” from the pandemic financially. JOHN PENNEY
Participants in the Windhoek Seminar, held in May 2000, from left: Former SRSG-UNMIBH Elisabeth Rehn; then-Namibian Minister for Women Affairs H.E. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah; author and UNMIK speaker Nina Lahoud; former SRSG-UNAVEM II and chair Margaret Anstee.
Anna Evstigneeva, the new deputy ambassador at the Russian mission to the UN. She is the first woman to have that role there, although she worked at the mission, including as a political coordinator, from 2011 to 2016. She began her diplomatic career in Oslo. JOHN PENNEY
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 PAK/UN PHOTO
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 threats for years, but the UN also waffled recently on ensuring such protection. EVAN SCHNEIDER/UN PHOTO
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 PHOTO
The 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing; the United States sanctions the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court; dissecting the failed ambitions of the US effort to force the UN mission in Lebanon to be more aggressive.
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 little avail. PASQUAL GORRIZ/UN PHOTO
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
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 ban. The five European countries in the Council and six other nations abstained in the vote. RON PRZYSUCHA/STATE DEPARTMENT
