During the 2022 General Assembly, the U.N. chief warned nations are “gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction” and aren’t ready or willing to tackle the challenges that threaten humanity's future. FOX13
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the head of the United Nations warned world leaders at the General Assembly that nations are "gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction" in opening remarks on Sept. 20, 2022.
Guterres made sure to start out by sounding a note of hope. He showed a photo of the first U.N.-chartered ship carrying grain from Ukraine — part of the deal between Ukraine and Russia that the United Nations and Turkey helped broker — to the Horn of Africa, where millions of people are on the edge of famine It is, he said, an example of promise and hope "in a world teeming with turmoil.
"The divergence between developed and developing countries, between North and South, between the privileged and the rest, is becoming more dangerous by the day," the secretary-general said. "It is at the root of the geopolitical tensions and lack of trust that poison every area of global cooperation, from vaccines to sanctions to trade.
At the top of the agenda for many: Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, which not only threatens the sovereignty of its smaller neighbor but has raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe at Europe’s largest nuclear plant in the country’s now Russia-occupied southeast.