Ukrainian president, US president Joe Biden, Brazil’s president Lula to speak amid hopes 77th annual summit will focus on global development
The half-time show in the US is normally associated with the football Super Bowl, superstars and adverts, but the UN in the form of the film director Richard Curtis put on its own version on Monday night in New York and blew the place away.
Curtis is of course in the optimism business – his glass is so permanently half full, it overflows – and the one hour show he helped put on at the Es Devlin designed UN Sustainable Development Goals pavillion included Orlando Bloom, Al Pacino, Dia Mirza, Forest Whitaker, Sabrina Elba, singers, poet laureates, football stars, Ecuadorian activists, UN goodwill ambassadors and inspirational politicians such as Mia Mottley, the Barbados prime minister.
Choices we make will have impact for thousands of years ahead. The time for excuses and baby steps are over.
It is hearts that move people and not always logic. Artists and musicians had a duty to communicate the need for change or else we will all have to look for a different planet to live on.
9am Eastern time. António Guterres, the UN’s secretary general, will deliver his state-of-the-world address at Tuesday’s opening of what is called the general debate.
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be the first world leader to address the general assembly, in a tradition dating to 1955.
US president Joe Biden will address the assembly next, in a speech that is likely to repeat his criticisms of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and emphasise the US’s desire to address challenges in the developing world.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy will also speak at the general assembly on Tuesday, where he will aim to convince leaders from the global south to back Kyiv against Russia. Zelenskiy is also scheduled to speak at the UN security council meeting on Wednesday.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is expected to use his speech to push for a deal to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea to be revived, after Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin withdrew from the UN-backed initiative.
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2023-09-19 07:31:54
Article from www.theguardian.com
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