The UN’s massive annual summit yesterday returned in person to a world divided by multiple crises starting with Ukraine.
After two years of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and video addresses, the UN General Assembly asked leaders to come in person if they wish to speak — with a sole exception made for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
However, the death of Queen Elizabeth II disrupted the summit anew. US President Joe Biden, by tradition the second speaker on the first day, would instead speak today.
Photo: Reuters
The first day was to feature French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the two largest economies of the EU, which has mobilized to impose tough sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“This year, Ukraine will be very high on the agenda. It will be unavoidable,” EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell told reporters in New York.
“There are many other problems, we know, but the war in Ukraine has been sending shock waves around the world,” he said.
German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock yesterday vowed to support countries hardest hit by the fallout from the war as she headed to the General Assembly.
“The brutality of Russia’s war of aggression and its threat to the peace order in Europe have not blinded us to the fact that its dramatic effects are also clearly being felt in many other regions of the world,” Baerbock said.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been urging leaders not to forget other priorities, such as education, the topic of a special summit on Monday.
“Education is in a deep crisis. Instead of being the great enabler, education is fast becoming the great divide,” Guterres told the summit.
He warned that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on learning, with poor students lacking technology at a particular disadvantage, and conflicts further disrupting schools.
Other leaders scheduled to speak yesterday included Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has staked out ground as a broker between Russia and Ukraine, including through a deal to ship out badly needed grain to the world.
In the type of last-minute diplomacy common at previous UN sessions, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken convened a first meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia since a flare-up in fighting.
“Strong, sustainable diplomatic engagement is the best path for everyone,” Blinken told them.
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov was visiting, despite a hostile reaction from the US.
He met on Monday with his French counterpart, Catherine Colonna, who urged Russia to allow a security zone outside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose occupation by Moscow has raised mounting concerns.
Also high on the agenda for the UN week would be Tehran, with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi joining the General Assembly for the first time and expected to meet yesterday with French President Emmanuel Macron.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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