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The United Nations convenes its annual speeches to world leaders on Tuesday against the backdrop of catastrophic climate change, polarized superpower relations and a devastating pandemic that has deepening the rich-poor global divide.
It is also a major test of credibility for President Biden, who will be among the first to address the 193 members of the General Assembly.
Despite his avowed enthusiasm for the United Nations – a marked departure from President Donald J. Trump – Mr Biden makes his first speech as president amid strong new doubts about his ability to put the United States back into a position of power. world leadership after the death of its predecessor. tenure harassed and promotion of “America First” isolationism.
Many expect Mr. Biden to lay out the theme that the world faces a choice between democratic values embraced by the West and the contempt for them of China and other authoritarian governments. But he will speak against the backdrop of a wave of negative news.
He could not contain the Covid-19 pandemic at home, and his efforts to help deliver vaccines to other troubled regions of the world have done little to narrow the gaping gap in immunization rates between rich and poor countries. According to the World Health Organization, nearly three-quarters of the 5.7 billion doses of vaccine administered to date have gone to just 10 countries, including the United States.
Mr Biden’s appearance also comes less than a month after the United States’ chaotic exit from its 20-year military engagement in Afghanistan. The hastily organized withdrawal emboldened the Taliban, created a new wave of asylum seekers and recreated a possible refuge for terrorist groups.
And last week Mr. Biden France blinded and indignant, America’s longest-serving ally, in an arms deal with Australia that left one of France’s biggest military contracts in ruins and created new doubts in the European Union about honesty of its administration.
“The basic principles for allies are transparency and trust, and that goes hand in hand”, Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, said Monday during a briefing to the EU mission to the United Nations, expressing shock and bewilderment at the treatment of France by Mr Biden. “And what do we observe? We observe a glaring lack of transparency and loyalty.
Climate change and the pandemic are also expected to dominate the week, and Mr Biden was planning to host a Covid summit on the sidelines.
Other important topics include the crises related to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, this year’s military coup in Myanmar, the Iran nuclear deal, the political vacuum in Haiti and the conflicts in Ethiopia, Syria. and Yemen.
Many diplomats have characterized the personal relations of the General Assembly as crucial to the role of the United Nations as a forum for settling disputes and deterring armed conflicts, although they have often failed to resolve or to alleviate problems that could lead to war.
“The UN seems increasingly marginal in the management of international crises”, the International Crisis Group, an independent political organization, said this year in an assessment of the General Assembly session. Nonetheless, he said, “the United Nations system still plays a crucial role in managing an unstable international environment”.
Unlike 2020, when the United Nations General Assembly session was held almost entirely virtually due to the pandemic, more than 100 world leaders and other high-ranking officials plan to deliver their speeches in person this year. year.
But access to the 16-acre United Nations complex in Manhattan remains strictly limited, with mandatory masks and other Covid prevention measures. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield of the United States told reporters that the measures were aimed at ensuring that the General Assembly “does not turn into a large-scale event”.
Confusion erupted last week over a New York City requirement that all General Assembly attendees must show proof of vaccination. The President of this year’s General Assembly, Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid of the Maldives, approved the requirement. But it is not clear exactly how it will be applied.
UN officials have said staff at the organization’s headquarters must be vaccinated, but an honor system remains in place for VIPs and other guests.
In what appeared to be a goodwill gesture, the New York City government deployed a mobile vaccination clinic outside the United Nations compound, offering free tests and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
Many speakers this year still chose to deliver their remarks via pre-recorded video, as did all leaders last year when vaccines were still under development and every delegation in the General Assembly Hall. was limited to two people. Almost all of the events of the 2020 event took place virtually.
This year, each Member State can accommodate up to four people in the General Assembly Hall.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, an avowed vaccine skeptic whose popularity has fallen at home in part because of what critics are calling its disastrous management of the pandemic, swore before his speech that he would not be vaccinated.
He was infected with Covid over a year ago and then claimed to have been cured by taking hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that has not been shown to be effective in the treatment of Covid.
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