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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.”
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — More than 60 organizations urged the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday to establish an investigative body to gather and preserve evidence of serious human rights violations during Yemen’s seven-year conflict, including possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease expert, said Tuesday the COVID-19 pandemic has diverted scientific and financial resources from the fight against AIDS, seriously impeding global efforts to achieve the U.N.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A “people's tribunal” opened Tuesday in the Netherlands to highlight the number of journalists around the world who were killed for doing their jobs, often with impunity for their killers.
POINTE-AUX-CHENES, Louisiana (AP) — On a boat ride along a bayou that shares the name of his Native American tribe, Donald Dardar points to a cross marking his ancestors’ south Louisiana burial ground — a place he fears will disappear.
BERLIN (AP) — The head of the United Nations says a “leadership gap” is undermining the world's efforts to curb global warming, days before presidents and prime ministers from around the globe gather for a climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Koreans living under strict pandemic restrictions are facing a growing food crisis and the most vulnerable children and elderly people in the isolated Asian nation are at risk of starvation, a U.N.
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron said he was “shocked” when Mali's prime minister described France's plans to reduce its troop commitment in the African country as an “abandonment."
“These comments are unacceptable,” Macron said Thursday night in his first reaction to Prime Minister Choguel Maiga’s remarks at the U.N.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea leader Kim Jong Un expressed willingness to restore stalled communication lines with South Korea in coming days while shrugging off U.S. offers for dialogue as “cunning ways” to conceal its hostility against the North, state media reported Thursday.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations chief is urging unified regional and international action to prevent the crisis in Myanmar from becoming a large-scale conflict and multi-faceted “catastrophe” in the heart of Southeast Asia and beyond.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The foreign minister of the divided island of Cyprus is accusing Turkey’s president of attempting to promote a new Ottoman empire in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East — and says such an approach to geopolitics could adversely impact regional security.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — China’s U.N. ambassador expressed hope Tuesday that President Joe Biden will translate his statement that the United States has no intention of starting a “new Cold War” with China into actions, saying he should avoid “a confrontational approach” and “provocative attacks against China."
NEW YORK (AP) — It was the Marshall Islands' turn to speak, and the president wanted to remind world leaders of a cause the United Nations has espoused since its founding.
“No effort should be spared," President David Kabua told the U.N.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Monday accused the United States of keeping up its “hostile policy” and demanded the Biden administration permanently end joint military exercises with South Korea even as it continued its recent streak of weapons tests apparently aimed at pressuring Washington and Seoul over slow nuclear diplomacy.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hosted a lunch Monday for the leaders of divided Cyprus, hoping to bring them back to negotiations to reunite the Mediterranean island nation — talks that have been stalled since 2017.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s new prime minister appealed to the international community Monday to stand together against Iran, accusing Tehran of marching toward the development of a nuclear weapon and threatening to act alone if the world does not take action.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that two Canadians detained in late 2019 who were allowed to return to Canada in a prisoner swap were released on bail for health reasons.
BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s top diplomat said Monday that his country's doors are open for the safe return of refugees, accusing Western countries of taking advantage of the suffering of Syrians while pretending to care for their well-being.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The foreign minister of Belarus accused Western nations on Monday of carrying out “a large-scale hybrid war” against the country because it failed to change the government in elections last year, which he insisted were won by President Alexander Lukashenko.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Many leaders saying many things about many topics that matter to them, to their regions, to the world: That's what the U.N. General Assembly invariably produces each year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — State Department spokesman Ned Price has tested positive for COVID-19 and will be self-quarantining for the next 10 days.
Price, who is vaccinated, said he tested positive for coronavirus on Monday morning after returning from New York, where he attended the annual UN General Assembly meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week.
The top diplomat of Yemen's internationally recognized government said Monday his conflict-torn country needs millions more coronavirus vaccines to ensure some of the world's poorest are not left behind.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The dispute between Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers and its former government over who should speak at the United Nations' annual meeting of world leaders finally has an answer: no one.
NEW YORK (AP) — Come visit the Maldives, its president entreated the world at this year's United Nations General Assembly, moments before switching to an impassioned plea for help combating climate change.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan is traveling to Saudi Arabia on Monday to meet with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as the U.S. presses for a cease-fire in the yearslong war between the kingdom and Houthi rebels in Yemen.
BANGKOK (AP) — In his speech last week to open the U.N. General Assembly, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres bracketed Myanmar with Afghanistan and Ethiopia as nations where "peace and stability remain a distant dream.”
UNITED NATIONS (AP) —
Russia’s top diplomat on Saturday defended the Mali government's right to hire a private Russian military company to help fight terrorists, accusing French troops in the country of failing to get rid of them and scolding the European Union for demanding that the Russian mercenaries leave.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia, China, Pakistan and the United States are working together to ensure that Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers keep their promises, especially to form a genuinely representative government and prevent extremism from spreading, Russia’s foreign minister said Saturday.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Ethiopia told the international community Saturday to steer clear of sanctions and avoid meddling over its war with forces from its Tigray region, and to let the African Union work on bringing all parties together.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Many leaders saying many things about many topics that matter to them, to their regions, to the world: That's what the U.N. General Assembly invariably produces each year.
The Latest on the UN General Assembly:
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UNITED NATIONS — The prime minister of Sudan’s transitional government urged world leaders on Saturday to work together to get developing countries more COVID-19 vaccines.