In September 2020, the UN session takes place remotely.

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Richard Drew / AP / SIPA

We know that a video meeting (just a meeting?) Can be long.

Nobody escapes it, not even the 193 members of the United Nations, who participated Monday evening in the summit-anniversary of the 75 years of the Organization.

A virtual summit because of the pandemic.

Faced with long-running speeches, the president of the UN General Assembly, the Turkish Volkan Bozkir, was forced to interrupt the meeting due to daylight saving time.

Secretary-General @antonioguterres and @UN_PGA @volkan_bozkir speaks ahead of the start of the General Assembly meeting to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the United Nations.

# UN75, #UNGA pic.twitter.com/tAeDs3DONm

- United Nations Photo (@UN_Photo) September 21, 2020

Unable to continue broadcasting the remaining 55 speeches.

In question ?

The speaking time limit was not to exceed 3 minutes, but very few of the 126 leaders who were able to deliver their speech did so.

Put end to end, these extra minutes caused a considerable delay in the course of the event.

No date for the broadcast of the missing speeches

To make matters worse, a diplomat representing each country was required, for this anniversary summit, to speak at its headquarters to “introduce” the speech of its leader.

A cumbersome and restrictive procedure imposed by diplomats by Russia, resistant to the virtual.

Moscow threatened not to have the videos recognized as official United Nations documents if they were not linked to a physical presentation, the same sources said.

After cutting the session short, Volkan Bozkir gave no indication on when this summit could resume.

According to a diplomat, the remaining 55 speeches could not be broadcast until Wednesday of next week.

As of Tuesday, the 193 members of the United Nations participate in the annual session of the Assembly, also virtual because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This time, the time for the video speeches should not exceed 15 minutes.

Sufficient?

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