UNITED NATIONS – The latest from the United Nations General Assembly (EDT of all time):
1:29 p. m.
Lithroughan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj calls on the UN for presidential and parliamentary elections, as the war-torn country remains divided between rival east and west administrations, all subsidized through armed teams and foreign governments.
Sarraj said next year’s elections can lead to democracy and end Libya’s “crisis of legitimacy. “While he called for a political discussion with all libyan factions and regions, he said the exception would be those who “spilled Libyan blood. “
Sarraj delivered his pre-recorded comments at the world’s first virtual general meeting since Tripoli, where he is based by the UN. You are helped through Turkey and Qatar. His rival, Khalifa Hifter, controls the east and is supported through neighboring Egypt. , the United Arab Emirates, France and Russian mercenaries.
Sarraj criticized Hifter’s attempted offensive against the capital, Tripoli, last year, calling it a “tyrannical attack” that attempted to return the country to dictatorship. However, as he spoke, he represented only one component of the country. Libya descended into chaos when a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 overthrew long-time leader Moamer Kadhafi, who then killed.
Instability has made Libya a major transit point for African and Arab migrants fleeing war and poverty into Europe.
Lithrougha’s handling of migrants has been criticized through rights groups, who say that refugees have been forced or forced by force, or who die in custody from violence, torture or hunger.
Sarraj defended his government’s appeal to migrants: “Libya is a victim of migration, not reason,” he said.
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12:22 p. m.
Here’s another COVID-19 challenge the UN is looking to solve: how more than 300,000 merchant sailors trapped at sea due to viral restrictions to return home.
Claiming that many sailors are at a “breaking point” after up to a year away from home, Captain Hedi Marzougui presented his case Thursday at an assembly organized through the UN with maritime transport and public transport.
He described his own joy at being trapped aboard his shipment when the pandemic invaded the world and caused navigation crews not to be welcomed in many ports.
“We gain very little data and Array . . . nations have replaced their regulations every day, if not every hour,” he said. Navigation teams felt like “second-class citizens” despite their increasingly important role in sending food and medical devices, as air transport almost collapsed.
Maritime affairs ministers from Panama, France, Kenya and the Philippines defended the steps they had taken to allow for team adjustments or alleviate the crisis.
But they deplored the lack of foreign coordination between states and shipping companies, and called for more cooperation and new regulations for virus countries, respecting the rights of stranded merchant sailors.
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12:17 p. m.
The king of the small island country of Bahrain used his appearance before world leaders to protect his country’s resolve to formalize with Israel.
In a pre-recorded speech to this year’s UN Virtual General Assembly, King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa also spoke in favor of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, a position that, according to the Palestinians, is undermined by formalizing ties with Israel before concessions are granted. engaged in peace talks.
Bahrain agreed to normalize relations with Israel two weeks ago after a similar initiative across the United Arab Emirates in August. The agreements, negotiated and pushed through the Trump administration, have been criticized as treason across the Palestinians. The king said a state of two states will solve the way forward.
“This would usher in a new era of smart cooperation and neighborhood to build and publicize unusual interests in the countries of the region,” he said.
Gulf Arab states have forged ties with Israel, in part because of unusual considerations about their rival Iran.
Bahrain’s Sunni leader accuses Iran of arming militants among the country’s Shiite majority and of planning attacks against the island nation, home of the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf.
The King of Bahrain welcomed the United Arab Emirates’ resolve to formalize relations with Israel as a courageous, successful and commendable measure. He said the United Arab Emirates resolution, which suspended Israel’s annexation of occupied West Bank lands sought through the Palestinians, “promoted a possibility of peace and opened a new page for others in the region. “
Bahrain’s agreement with Israel did not come with such concessions. The king’s speech marks the first televised comments on the monarch’s agreement since it was announced on September 11. The agreement has been criticized through Bahrain’s opposition groups.
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11:07 a. m.
Yemen’s exiled president and aide is urging his government’s rival, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, to avoid obstructing the delivery of urgent humanitarian aid. wounded to the Red Sea.
President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi called for a pre-recorded speech at the virtual summit of the United Nations General Assembly and spoke of Saudi Arabia, where he lived more than five years of war that ravaged the arab world’s poorest country at the western end of the Arabian Peninsula.
Hadi represents yemen’s government identified around the world that expelled sana’a from the capital Sana’a in 2014 through the Houthis. Since then, a Saudi-led coalition supporting Hadi has been at war in Yemen, causing the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Millions of others have been displaced, pushed into poverty and live on the brink of famine.
“We seek to save our country and identify a just and lasting peace,” Hadi said, accusing Iran of interfering in its nation. “The goal is to end the bloodshed in Yemen. “
More than 17,500 civilians have been killed and injured since 2015, and a quarter of all civilians killed in airstrikes are children, according to the Yemen Data Project. Last year, President Donald Trump vetoed a congressionally approved solution to end the U. S. military’s assistance in The Saudi Arabian War in Yemen.
Multiple attempts across the United Nations to negotiate a peace agreement have failed to end the conflict.
In addition to the humanitarian toll, the Yemeni government in exile, the UN and Western diplomats have sounded the alarm and insisted that the Houthis guard the decaying oil tanker near the port of Hodeida, which controls the organization.
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10:00
African countries made their way on the third day of the annual assembly of UN world leaders, calling for dramatic fiscal measures to help the continent’s economies cope with the coronavirus pandemic.
They seek to pay off debt to drop more resources to fight the virus and its effects, adding up the fight opposed to fatal diseases.
“We will have to write off this debt,” said Niger President Issoufou Mahamadou.
The president of Cote d’Ivoire, one of the most dynamic economies in the world before the pandemic, called for an extension of the debt moratorium and the special spinning rights factor in the International Monetary Fund.
“I call on all African partners to take bolder action,” Said Alassane Ouattara, noting that COVID-19 combat and its economic effects accounted for 5% of the country’s GDP.
African countries estimate they want $100 billion a year over the next 3 years, noting that this is a fraction of the trillion dollars that some rich countries are using to bring their economies to life.
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9:49 a. m.
The UN leader said the world has not cooperated in the fight opposing the COVID-19 pandemic and that if his reaction to the climate crisis is just as poor, “I am concerned about the worst. “
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the UN Security Council that the “small microscopic virus” is now the number one risk in our world and blamed the lack of preparation, cooperation, unity and solidarity for the failure of the foreign community.
The Council met on Thursday on the sidelines of the Annual Meeting of World Leaders of the General Assembly, either organized due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guterres pointed to nearly one million deaths and 30 million infections internationally and warned that coronavirus remains uncontrollable.
“While countries go in other directions, the virus goes in all directions,” he said.
Guterres called for global cooperation between nations, global and regional organizations, foreign monetary institutions, industrial alliances and others. He said the concept of global governance wants to expand “to reach business, civil society, cities and regions, universities and young people. .
Guterres said COVID-19 is a warning “that will have to motivate us to act. “
“We have no choice, ” he said. Either we meet in the world adapted to their goals, or we will be crushed by the department and chaos. “
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