World leaders addressed multiple flashpoints and volatile crises in the Middle East and elsewhere during the third day of the General Assembly’s annual high-level general debate, with Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, urging the international community to hold Israel to account for carrying out a “full-scale war of genocide” and stressing that the Palestinian people “will not allow a single centimetre of Gaza to be taken”.
Acknowledging that antimicrobial resistance is an urgent threat to global human and animal health, food security, the environment and development, Member States approved a political declaration on the menace this morning.
Acknowledging the complex global problems facing beleaguered multilateral institutions, African leaders called today for not just a permanent seat at the Security Council table, but for an elevated presence in international affairs that reflects the continent’s potential, power and resources.
The rising level of impunity in the world is “politically indefensible and morally intolerable”, with many Governments and actors feeling entitled to a “get out of jail free” card, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned in his address to the General Assembly today as its annual high-level debate began, with world leaders raising alarm about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Government leaders emphasized the need to rethink global governance and create a fairer, more inclusive multilateral system that will “benefit all countries” rather than “increase the power of a few”, as the Summit of the Future concluded its second and final day.
Today the General Assembly adopted the Pact for the Future, in which Heads of State and Government — representing the peoples of the world — made 56 pledges to action seeking to protect the needs and interests of present and future generations amid the climate change, crisis and conflict currently gripping the globe.
Following are UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ remarks at the opening of the Summit of the Future, in New York today:
The General Assembly adopted the work programme for its seventy-ninth session today, deciding to include items on addressing the legacy of nuclear weapons and on lethal autonomous weapons systems in its agenda, while two Member States voiced opposing views on the body’s consideration of an item relating to Ukraine.
The General Assembly concluded its seventy-eighth session today, with outgoing President Dennis Francis (Trinidad and Tobago) urging Member States to recommit to ending poverty and hunger, combating inequalities and building peaceful societies that leave no one behind in a world currently aflame with heightened conflict.
The General Assembly opened its seventy-ninth session today, with its new President outlining his key priorities — fostering economic growth, preventing and resolving conflicts, protecting human rights and strengthening international law.
