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
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 permitted in the 2015 nuclear deal.
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
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 on one of the world’s most visible platforms, it intends to use it to build more alliances with influential world powers while furthering a regional agenda.
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.
A UN-donated Refugee Housing Unit in Ciudad Hidalgo, in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico. The units are similar to ones installed on the Mexico-United States border, where they are used to quarantine suspected or confirmed Covid-19 cases among refugees or to provide more shelter spaces. UNHCR
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.
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
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. BOGHOSIAN/WHITE HOUSE PHOTO
Talking heads are showering Donald Trump with praise over his surprise unveiling of an agreement that he said would alter the Middle East landscape by building a diplomatic bridge between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
