Live. 75 UN General Assembly
Pandemic: The UN warns that there will be millions of deaths if the coronavirus is allowed to advance
US President Donald Trump ruled this Tuesday before the 75th United Nations General Assembly that "China should be held responsible for its actions" related to the coronavirus pandemic.
"The Chinese Government and the World Health Organization, which is virtually controlled by China, falsely declared that there was no evidence of person-to-person transmission," Trump accused in a message recorded yesterday from the White House.
"Later, they falsely said that people without symptoms would not spread the disease. The United Nations should hold China accountable for its actions," he asked.
The president, who has promised to distribute a vaccine, said: "We will defeat the virus, we will defeat the virus and we will end the pandemic, and we will enter a new era of prosperity, cooperation and peace."
Trump, a frequent critic of the United Nations, also warned that for the UN to be effective it must focus on "the real problems of the world" such as
"terrorism, the oppression of women, forced labor, drug trafficking, human trafficking. and sexual, religious persecution and ethnic cleansing of religious minorities. "
For its part, China has once again rejected the accusations leveled against it by the US.
"They are totally unfounded. China will firmly support multilateralism and the UN," the Beijing spokesman said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has assured during his speech that "the pandemic will be defeated, humanity will win this battle."
"We must focus on the people and life. We must strengthen unity and solidarity, come out of this together and propose an international response to overcome the pandemic.
We must reject any attempt at stigmatization,"
Xi stressed.
The Chinese president recalled that his country already has several vaccines, which it will offer as "global public goods."
"The coronavirus will not be the last crisis for humanity," he predicted, "this pandemic reminds us that we live in a global village, that humanity shares a common future."
"If a country wants to take advantage of its neighbors, soon the threats of others will become its own challenges."
"China does not intend to enter a Cold War or a 'hot war' with other countries,"
said Xi, who has announced that Beijing will offer another 50 million dollars to the world plan in the fight against the coronavirus.
Before the American and Chinese leaders, and as the first speaker of the extensive debate, his Brazilian counterpart,
Jair Bolsonaro
,
spoke,
who started with a firm defense of his criticized policies for the environment and reiterated that
his government is "the victim of a brutal Bell".
Brazil "stands out as the world's largest producer of food and that is why there is so much interest in programming disinformation" in relation to the fires in the Amazon and the Pantanal, Bolsonaro said in a recorded message.
According to official data, the outbreaks of fires and devastation in the Amazon have reached the worst rates in more than a decade in 2019 and this year, and the flames are currently advancing strongly in the vast wetlands of the Pantanal, which Brazil shares with Bolivia and Paraguay and in which thousands of animals have died burned.
Guterres asks "to avoid a new Cold War"
The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, opened the session warning that the world is facing a historic moment due to the coronavirus pandemic and
urged international leaders to be guided by science and put aside populism and nationalism.
"Populism and nationalism have failed. Used as approaches to contain the virus, many times they have led to a palpable worsening," Guterres said.
The head of the organization stressed that governments must unite, act with more solidarity and be humble to admit that
"a microscopic virus has brought the world to its knees."
Faced with the pandemic,
the world needs "a global ceasefire to stop all the 'hot' conflicts
" and "do everything possible to avoid a new Cold War," he declared.
"We are moving in a very dangerous direction," he warned, denouncing the growing rivalry between China and the United States in the world.
"Our world cannot afford a future where the two largest economies divide the planet into a Great Fracture, each with its own business and financial rules and internet and artificial intelligence capabilities," he said.
Guterres also recalled that since March he has called for a cessation of hostilities to facilitate the fight against Covid-19.
"The time has come to give a new impetus to peace and reconciliation together.
I call on the international community to redouble its efforts - under the leadership of the Security Council - to achieve a global ceasefire by the end of the year"
, said the secretary general, who welcomed the support that the issue has garnered since March.
A diplomacy without personal contact
The 75th General Assembly of the United Nations kicks off this Tuesday in New York in an essentially telematic way - it will last a week and leaders of 193 member states will participate, including the United States and China today - with a basic slogan in times of coronavirus, but diplomatically unimaginable:
banned handshakes to the few representatives who are allowed to occupy their seats.
This has been requested by the international body before the start of the main annual diplomatic event, that the pandemic has led to
a rosary of prerecorded and televised speeches
, in a meeting in which social distance has been imposed to avoid possible infections and where the few side events are held virtually.
An almost empty room with a diplomatic representative for each country, the meeting rooms off and the cafeterias closed, are the tonic of the Assembly, while the hotels of the city, accustomed at this time to a frenzied coming and going of international delegations that They take advantage of the great week of diplomacy to multiply meetings and negotiations in person, they look askance at the headquarters that sleeps on the banks of the East River.
Beyond the fact that no leader will look for the photo on this occasion to remember an empty handshake with an international leader, nor will journalists pursue the always eluded greeting between the presidents of the United States and Iran, Guterres himself recognized that the format of this House presents difficulties in moving complicated issues forward, because, in its own words,
"to be effective, diplomacy needs personal contact."
As an example, the last General Assembly hosted five summits,
half a thousand official meetings and more than 1,500 bilateral meetings
, a whole diplomatic swarm to string together relations, solve problems and find common denominators in an increasingly atomized and tense international scene.
Some meetings that this year are not going to take place in the ghostly corridors of the headquarters, used on a normal day to host thousands of diplomats, workers, visitors and journalists, who on this occasion also have limited access due to public health issues .
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