BREAKING: The U.N. General Assembly convenes with leaders in attendance for the first time since the pandemic began. World leaders face a formidable agenda of escalating crises, including the still-raging pandemic and a relentlessly warming planet.
Other pressing issues include rising U.S.-China tensions, Afghanistan’s unsettled future under its new Taliban rulers and ongoing conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who opens the weeklong event, “will pull no punches in expressing his concern about the state of the world, and he will lay out a vision to bridge the numerous divides that stand in the way of progress,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Guterres has already demonstrated that in pointed pre-meeting remarks about the virus and climate change.“I’m here to sound the alarm.