More than a year after Black Lives Matter protests launched a worldwide reckoning about the centuries of racism that Black people continue to face, the question of reparations emerged — unevenly — as a high-profile issue at this year’s largest gathering of world leaders.
It's been little more than a month since Kalashnikov-toting Taliban fighters in their signature heavy beards, hightop sneakers and shalwar kameezes descended on the Afghan capital and cemented their takeover.
The speeches may be scripted, but the U.N. General Assembly can sometimes be the only direct window into the regional challenges that command global concern.
On Saturday, world leaders were speaking on behalf of some of the most unstable and unsettling current conflicts.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Amid an outcry over the U.S. treatment of Haitian asylum-seekers, the beleaguered island country's embattled prime minister pointedly said Saturday that inequalities and conflict drive migration.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Britain's Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, met Saturday with a top U.N. official amid the world body's biggest gathering of the year.
NEW YORK (AP) — With cascading crises casting a pall over the proceedings at this year's United Nations General Assembly, Slovakian President Zuzana Čaputová had this reminder on the first day of debate: “We cannot save our planet if we leave out the vulnerable — the women, the girls, the minorities.”
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The right-wing populist government in Hungary is attracting conservative thinkers from the United States who admire its approaches to migration, LGBT issues and national sovereignty — all matters that have put the country at odds with its European partners, who see not a conservative haven but a worrying erosion of democratic institutions on multiple fronts.
At the United Nations this week, the pandemic-era rules of engagement for General Assembly week are strict. Entourage sizes are tightly regulated, and there are no exceptions for kings, presidents or other “excellencies.” Yet somehow, in the middle of it all, the U.N.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iran’s new foreign minister said Friday the country will return to nuclear negotiations “very soon,” but accused the Biden administration of sending contradictory messages — saying it wants to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal while slapping new sanctions on Tehran and not taking “an iota of positive action.”
JERUSALEM (AP) — In an unusually harsh speech, President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday gave Israel one year to end its occupation of territories the Palestinians want for a future state. He threatened to withdraw recognition of Israel — a cornerstone of three decades of failed peace efforts — if it failed to do so.
As wealthy countries begin to consider whether to offer their populations a third COVID-19 shot, African nations still waiting for their first gave this stark reminder to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday: “No one is safe unless we are all safe.”
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Russia's foreign minister said his country supports reforming the U.N. Security Council to give a more powerful role to developing nations, including African countries.
Sergey Lavrov spoke Tuesday in Kampala, the Ugandan capital, after meeting with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Britain’s Prince Harry challenged people everywhere Monday to adopt Nelson Mandela’s spirit of hope in today’s divided world to reclaim democracies and leave a better future for children, movingly citing the inspiration of the anti-apartheid leader on his own life and his memories of his late mother, Princess Diana.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Britain’s Prince Harry will address the U.N. General Assembly at its annual celebration Monday of Nelson Mandela International Day and is expected to speak about the legacy of the South African anti-apartheid leader who spent 27 years in prison and became his country’s first Black leader.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — “Africa is actually taken hostage” in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid catastrophically rising food prices, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the African Union continental body during a closed-door address on Monday.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. member nations elected five countries to join the powerful U.N. Security Council on Thursday with no suspense or drama because all were unopposed — Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — China and Russia defended their vetoes of a strongly backed U.S. resolution that would have imposed tough new sanctions on North Korea, speaking at a first of its kind General Assembly meeting Wednesday.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Hungarian Ambassador Csaba Korosi was elected Tuesday as the next president of the U.N. General Assembly, and he warned immediately that the world is in the throes of a dangerous crisis and the credibility of the United Nations is at stake.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States said Tuesday it will push for additional sanctions on North Korea if it conducts a new nuclear test explosion.
U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials have said North Korea could soon conduct its first nuclear test in nearly five years.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House emphatically approved a fresh $40 billion Ukraine aid package Tuesday as lawmakers beefed up President Joe Biden’s initial request, signaling a magnified, bipartisan commitment to thwart Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bloody three-month-old invasion.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted its first statement on Ukraine since Russia’s military action began on Feb. 24, expressing “strong support” for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ efforts to find a peaceful solution to the 10-week “dispute."
HAVANA (AP) — Ricardo Alarcón, who was for years the head of Cuba’s parliament and one of the country’s most prominent diplomats, has died in Havana, authorities in Cuba said Sunday. He was 84 years old.
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida discussed the war in Ukraine with Vietnamese leaders on Sunday and said they agreed on the respect for international law and rejection of the use of force.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly took a first step Tuesday to put the five permanent members of the Security Council under the spotlight whenever they use their veto power, a move highlighted by Russia's veto threat paralyzing any action by the U.N.’s most powerful body on the Ukraine war.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Two days into Russia's attack on Ukraine, a majority of U.N. Security Council members voted to demand that Moscow withdraw. One thing stood in their way: a veto by Russia itself.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed on Tuesday for a halt in fighting in Ukraine during Orthodox Christians' Holy Week, invoking Easter to plead for a four-day “pause” to allow humanitarian aid and evacuations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Joe Biden declares Russia's Ukraine war “genocide,” it isn't just another strong word.
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden is set to speak with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday as he presses world leaders to take a hard line against Russia's Ukraine invasion.
India's neutral stance in the war has CANBERRA, Australia — The first of 20 Bushmaster armored vehicles has left Australia for Ukraine, one week after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy specifically requested the Australian-manufactured four-wheel drives.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly voted Thursday to suspend Russia from the world organization’s leading human rights body over allegations that Russian soldiers in Ukraine engaged in rights violations that the United States and Ukraine have called war crimes.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate will take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia and to ban the importation of its oil.
Both bills have been bogged down in the Senate, frustrating lawmakers who want to ratchet up the U.S.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly will vote Thursday on whether to suspend Russia from the U.N.’s premier human rights body. The move was initiated by the United States in response to the discovery of hundreds of bodies after Russian troops withdrew from towns near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, sparking calls for its forces to be tried for war crimes.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The war in Ukraine has put a spotlight on the U.N. Security Council’s failure to stop Russia’s aggression and carry out its mandate to ensure international peace and security. On Tuesday, that paralysis produced a demand from Ukraine's president: Radically reform global security.
UNITED NATIONS — A top official in the global campaign against the use of land mines is urging Russia to halt the use in Ukraine of these weapons that too often kill and maim civilians.
Alicia Arango Olmos, Colombia’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and this year’s president of the state parties to the 1997 convention banning the production and use of land mines, expressed deep concern at media reports that Russia is using land mines in its war in Ukraine.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will address the U.N. Security Council for the first time Tuesday at a meeting that is certain to focus on what appear to be widespread deliberate killings of civilians by Russian troops.
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — The United States plans to seek a vote this week to suspend Russia from its seat on the U.N.’s top human rights body, pointing to increasing signs that Russian troops may have committed war crimes in Ukraine, U.S.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N.’s powerful budget committee rejected an attempt by Ethiopia on Thursday to deny funding for an investigation of human rights violations in the war between Ethiopian government forces and fighters from the country’s northern Tigray region.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations chief launched an initiative Monday to immediately explore possible arrangements for “a humanitarian cease-fire in Ukraine” in order to allow the delivery of desperately needed aid and pave the way for serious political negotiations to end the month-long war.
LVIV, Ukraine — With the war headed into its second month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke of hope and determination in his nighttime video address to the nation late Thursday.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution Thursday blaming Russia for the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine and urging an immediate cease-fire and protection for millions of civilians and the homes, schools and hospitals critical to their survival.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. State Department says Russia has begun the process of expelling several more diplomats from the U.S. embassy in Moscow.
The department said it received a list of diplomats on Wednesday who have been declared “persona non grata” by the Russian foreign ministry.
WASHINGTON (AP) — As she pressed the Clinton administration into action against Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic over war crimes in the Balkans, Madeleine Albright would harken back to her own childhood as a refugee from war-torn Europe.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday overwhelmingly defeated a Russian resolution that acknowledged Ukraine’s growing humanitarian needs -- but didn’t mention the Russian invasion that caused the escalating crisis which has left millions of Ukrainians in desperate need of food, water and shelter.