KUALA LUMPUR: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took a swipe Saturday at the United Nations and other multilateral institutions, saying they “stopped working” and failed to protect Gaza’s war victims.
Lula was speaking after meeting Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, ahead of a major regional summit where the Brazilian leader would likely meet US President Donald Trump.
“Who can accept the genocide that has been going on in the Gaza Strip for so long?” Lula told reporters after the bilateral meeting to deepen ties between the two nations.
“The multilateral institutions that were created to try to prevent these things from happening have stopped working. Today, the UN Security Council and the UN no longer function,” Lula said.
Lula also appeared to take a swipe at Trump, saying “for a leader, walking with their head held high is more important than a Nobel Prize.”
Trump departed Washington Friday for Asia and high-stakes talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea on Thursday, the last day of his trip.
But first, the US president is expected to witness the signing of a peace deal between Thailand and Cambodia on Sunday, which he – in part – helped to broker.
The White House lashed out this month at the Norwegian Nobel Committee after it awarded the peace prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and overlooked Trump.
Since returning to the White House for his second term in January, Trump had repeatedly insisted that he deserved the Nobel for his role in resolving numerous conflicts – a claim observers say is broadly exaggerated.
Meanwhile, Trump and Lula have begun to patch up their differences after months of bad blood over the trial and conviction of Trump’s ally, the far-right former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro.
Trump has instituted a 50-percent tariff on many Brazilian products and imposed sanctions on several top officials, including a top Supreme Court judge, to punish Brazil for what he termed a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro.
Brazil’s Supreme Court sentenced Bolsonaro in September to 27 years in prison for his role in a botched coup bid after his 2022 election loss to Lula.
But relations between Trump and Lula began to thaw when the two 79-year-old leaders had a brief meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September.
They then spoke by phone on October 6 and first raised the possibility of meeting at the ASEAN summit.
Brazil’s Lula: UN, other multilateral institutions have ‘stopped working’
https://arab.news/w32hg
Brazil’s Lula: UN, other multilateral institutions have ‘stopped working’
- Brazilian leader: ‘Today, the UN Security Council and the UN no longer function’
- ‘Who can accept the genocide that has been going on in the Gaza Strip for so long?’
Kyiv ready for talks ‘next week’ with US over Russia proposals: Zelensky
- “Ukraine is ready to work in all working formats,” said Zelensky.
- “It is important that there are results and that the meetings take place“
KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday his negotiators were waiting to hear from the United States on further meetings about ending the war with Russia.
Zelensky’s remarks in his evening address appeared to suggest that a second round of talks scheduled to start in Abu Dhabi on Sunday between US, Russian and Ukrainian officials on ending the fighting had been postponed.
“Ukraine is ready to work in all working formats,” said Zelensky.
“It is important that there are results and that the meetings take place. We are counting on meetings next week and are preparing for them.”
Zelensky was speaking as US envoy Steve Witkoff said he had had “productive and constructive” talks with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Florida on Saturday.
Teams from Ukraine and Russia met Friday and Saturday last week in Abu Dhabi in their first in-person negotiations on a plan being pushed by President Donald Trump to end the war.
They had agreed to resume talks there on Sunday.
On Thursday however, Zelensky suggested that the date and venue could change given the current tensions between Washington and Tehran.
The US says both sides are close to a deal, but they have so far been unable to find a compromise on the key issue of territory in a post-war settlement, according to Kyiv.
