The President of the Transitional Sovereign Council of Sudan told the UN General Assembly on Thursday that while his country was committed to peace, rebels funded by parties elsewhere in the region were waging “devastating aggression” against his country.
The Foreign Minister of Lebanon on Thursday said that the crisis in his country demanded urgent international action as Israeli attacks threatened to set off “a domino effect”, turning the entire Middle East region into “a black hole” of endless conflict.
The call for a more inclusive and representative Security Council resonated loud and clear at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, as African leaders demanded global powers address the longstanding inequity in the Council’s composition.
From Gaza to Ukraine and beyond, the vast majority of humanitarian needs are driven by conflict – a catastrophe made by human hands – that is turning the geopolitical dial away from the rule of law and towards brute force and aggression, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom told the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
Haiti is becoming more resilient, but can only fully recover with international solidarity, Edgard Leblanc Fils said on Thursday, voicing support for a UN-led peacekeeping mission to combat gang violence that has “paralyzed” the nation and left its people desperate and nearly without hope.
The Chairman of the Presidential Leadership Council of Yemen called on Thursday for increased international pressure to dry up sources of funding for Houthi militias and to curb “the flow of Iranian weapons” into his country, which was constantly working to de-escalate tension.
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, addressed world leaders at the UN General Assembly on Thursday, stressing that the Palestinian people will not leave their homeland – the land of their ancestors.
Amid ongoing wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan – and the escalating risk of wider conflict in the Middle East – world leaders and senior UN officials at the General Assembly’s annual debate warned that deep geopolitical divisions are hindering progress on critical global challenges – from securing peace to climate change and UN reform. Many stressed however, that a better future for all lay in decisive and united multilateral action and commitment to the ideals of the UN Charter.
As wars and crises dominate global headlines, leaders from small island developing States used the UN General Assembly platform to sound the alarm on climate change – their most pressing existential threat – warning that it is obliterating economies and livelihoods.
President Emmanuel Macron of France deplored on Wednesday what he saw as deepening divisions among the world’s nations, telling the General Assembly that effective multilateralism has never been more necessary to rebuild trust and tackle crises.
