UN Summit returns to New York amid global crisis

The United Nations’ massive annual summit returns in person Tuesday to a world divided by multiple crises starting with Ukraine. Senegalese President and African Union Chairperson Macky Sall, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron were set on Tuesday to address the assembly.

After two years of pandemic restrictions and video addresses, the UN General Assembly is again asking leaders to come in person if they wish to speak -- with a sole exception made for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But the death of Queen Elizabeth II disrupted the summit anew. President Joe Biden of the United States, by tradition the second speaker on the first day, will instead speak on Wednesday.

The first day will feature French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the two largest economies of the European Union, which has mobilized to impose tough sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This year, Ukraine will be very high on the agenda. It will be unavoidable,” top EU diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters in New York.

“There are many other problems, we know. But the war in Ukraine has been sending shock waves around the world.” The UN’s Transforming Education Summit has offered an opportunity to galvanize global action to recover learning losses and rethink education systems.

With Covid-19 exposing the fault lines of education systems globally, more than 130 countries have committed to rebooting their education systems.