UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly unanimously elected Antonio Guterres to a second term as secretary-general on Friday.
Guterres was given another five years at the helm of the 193-member organization at a time a deeply divided world faces numerous conflicts, the growing impact of climate change, and a pandemic still circling the globe.
Ambassadors in the assembly chamber burst into applause as Assembly President Volkan Bozkir announced Guterres’ re-election by “acclamation,” without a vote. Just before the announcement, Estonia’s UN Ambassador Sven Jurgenson, the current Security Council president, read a resolution adopted by the 15-member council recommending Guterres for a second term.
Under the UN Charter, the General Assembly appoints the secretary-general on the recommendation of the Security Council.
Guterres was the only candidate nominated by a UN member state, his home country Portugal where he previously served as prime minister, and the country’s current president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, was in the assembly chamber to watch the event.
Immediately after his re-election, Guterres took the oath of office and delivered an address urging UN member nations “to do everything we can to overcome current geostrategic divides and dysfunctional power relations.”
“There are too many asymmetrics and paradoxes,” he said. “They need to be addressed head on.”
Guterres expressed hope that “what we are living through today in terms of mistrust is, I hope, an aberration but it cannot become the norm.”
He pledged to “give it my all to ensure the blossoming of trust between and among nations, large and small, to build bridges and to engage relentlessly in confidence building” — and to “seek to inspire hope that we can turn things around, that the impossible is possible.”
Traditionally, candidates for the UN’s top job have been nominated by a UN member state, but that is not a requirement in the UN Charter or in a resolution adopted by the General Assembly in 2015.
That measure made the previously largely secretive selection of the secretary-general more open and transparent, allowing member states for the first time to see basic information about all candidates, including their resumes, and to question them at open sessions.
Guterres, a former UN refugee chief, was elected by the assembly to succeed Ban Ki-moon after a hotly contested and transparent race in October 2016 that initially included 13 candidates — seven women and six men. Guterres took office on Jan. 1, 2017.
This year, seven individuals submitted applications to be secretary-general without backing from any government, including most recently former Ecuadorian President Rosalia Arteaga.
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UN re-elects Antonio Guterres as secretary-general
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UN re-elects Antonio Guterres as secretary-general
- Ambassadors burst into applause as Assembly President announced Guterres’ re-election by “acclamation,”
- The General Assembly appoints the secretary-general on the recommendation of the Security Council
Russian strikes cut heating to thousands of buildings in Kyiv amid freezing cold
Russia launched a combined drone and missile attack on Ukraine early on Tuesday, knocking out power and heating supplies to thousands of apartment buildings in Kyiv amid freezing temperatures, Ukrainian officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russian attacks cut heating supplies to 5,635 multi-story residential apartment buildings.
One person was wounded, debris damaged a school building, and water supplies were disrupted on the left bank of the city of more than 3 million people, he said.
Regional officials said one person was killed in attacks in the wider Kyiv region and two petrol stations damaged.
It was the second major attack on the energy sector and other critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital so far this month as temperatures hover well below zero Celsius.
“Thousands of houses are without heating in Kyiv at -15°C outside, following Russia’s mass strike overnight,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a message posted on X.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s barbaric strike this morning is a wake-up call to world leaders gathering in Davos: support for the Ukrainian people is urgent.”
Sybiha reiterated the call for urgent additional energy assistance, air defense, and interceptors from Ukraine’s allies.
As the war with Russia approaches its four-year mark, diplomatic efforts to find a way to end the conflict have yielded no tangible results so far despite pressure from US President Donald Trump on both Kyiv and Moscow.
Kyiv has already been suffering from severe power and heating outages following previous strikes on the city earlier in January, and dozens of repair crews have worked around the clock for more than a week to restore supplies to residents.
Klitschko said that out of the buildings which were hit in the latest attack, 80 percent had already been struck in the previous attack.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the Holos party, said on the Telegram app that parliament’s support office would work remotely today due to a lack of water and heating in the building. There were no parliamentary sessions scheduled on Tuesday.
Russian strikes also damaged energy and other critical infrastructure in Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Sumy regions, Sybiha said.
In the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a production facility was hit, and two people were wounded, officials said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Russian attacks cut heating supplies to 5,635 multi-story residential apartment buildings.
One person was wounded, debris damaged a school building, and water supplies were disrupted on the left bank of the city of more than 3 million people, he said.
Regional officials said one person was killed in attacks in the wider Kyiv region and two petrol stations damaged.
It was the second major attack on the energy sector and other critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian capital so far this month as temperatures hover well below zero Celsius.
“Thousands of houses are without heating in Kyiv at -15°C outside, following Russia’s mass strike overnight,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a message posted on X.
“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s barbaric strike this morning is a wake-up call to world leaders gathering in Davos: support for the Ukrainian people is urgent.”
Sybiha reiterated the call for urgent additional energy assistance, air defense, and interceptors from Ukraine’s allies.
As the war with Russia approaches its four-year mark, diplomatic efforts to find a way to end the conflict have yielded no tangible results so far despite pressure from US President Donald Trump on both Kyiv and Moscow.
Kyiv has already been suffering from severe power and heating outages following previous strikes on the city earlier in January, and dozens of repair crews have worked around the clock for more than a week to restore supplies to residents.
Klitschko said that out of the buildings which were hit in the latest attack, 80 percent had already been struck in the previous attack.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a lawmaker from the Holos party, said on the Telegram app that parliament’s support office would work remotely today due to a lack of water and heating in the building. There were no parliamentary sessions scheduled on Tuesday.
Russian strikes also damaged energy and other critical infrastructure in Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Odesa, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava and Sumy regions, Sybiha said.
In the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, a production facility was hit, and two people were wounded, officials said.
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