Tag: United Nations

Remarks by Mathilde Marie Christine Ghislaine d’Udekem d’Acoz, Queen of Belgium, during the SDG Moment 2025.

The SDG Moment serves to place an annual spotlight on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and will be held at the beginning of the United Nation’s General Assembly’s High-Level Week (UNGA80).

The SDG Moment is held every year — as mandated by the 2019 SDG Summit — to highlight inspiring action on the Sustainable Development Goals. It showcases stories of transformation from communities, countries, and regions driving change across sectors — from renewable energy to gender equality. As we cross the two-thirds mark on the road to 2030, the 2025 SDG Moment marks a critical juncture. The event will bring together a constellation of transformative global and national efforts and will demonstrate how just and inclusive transitions are accelerating progress, even in the face of global challenges.

Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/live/UDeH7qiQpjU

At the United Nations General Assembly, world leaders marked the 30th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995. The high-level meeting focused on recommitting to, resourcing and accelerating the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, considered the most progressive blueprint ever adopted for advancing women’s rights.

Secretary-General António Guterres described the Beijing Declaration as “the most ambitious global political commitment on women’s rights ever achieved.” He said it helped power advances in education, maternal health, and legal protection, but warned that “progress has been slow and uneven. And no nation has achieved full equality for women and girls. Sustainable Development Goal Five – gender equality – is lagging far behind.”

“Let us be clear: equal rights and opportunities are not partisan issues,” Guterres said. “They are global imperatives – and the foundation of peace, prosperity and progress.”

He noted that earlier this year, governments recommitted to the Beijing platform. “The Commission on the Status of Women adopted a new Political Declaration, committing to implement the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – fast and in full,” Guterres said. “So now, all countries must live up to that responsibility. We need strong, visible support at the highest levels – and concrete plans, backed by real investment.”

Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenča today told the Security Council that a series of recent incidents, including Russian fighter jets reportedly breaching Estonia’s airspace last week, “further underscore the already high tensions that endanger European security,” and stressed that “violations of sovereign country’s airspace are unacceptable.”

Jenča urged all concerned “to act responsibly, to use all available channels and to take immediate steps to de-escalate tensions and prevent further risks to regional security.”

He said, “the world simply cannot afford such danger to spiral out of control and for the devastating war in Ukraine to further escalate and expand.”

On the Ukraine war, Jenča said, “the continuing trend of intensifying widespread attacks once again underscores the need to build on recent initiatives for diplomatic efforts towards peace before the situation reaches even more dangerous levels.”

He called “for a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire to pave the way for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in Ukraine, in line with the UN Charter, international law and relevant UN resolutions.”

Russian Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the Council that “any events are immediately interpreted through an anti-Russian prism,” and said, “Russia is being branded all sorts of things portrayed as an enemy, not even going to the trouble in principle of using facts or evidence.”

“When these assertions turn out to be false,” Polyanskiy said, “no one even thinks about apologising for spreading such blatant lies.”

The Russian Ambassador said, “our neighbours have now imagined that Russia is at fault for an incursion into Estonian airspace. As always, there is no proof except the rise of phobic hysteria coming from Tallinn, which our Estonian colleague will wax lyrical about a little bit later. As for the facts, the facts prove that on the 19th of September, three Russian MiG 31 fighter jets conducted a planned flight from Karelia to an airbase in Kaliningrad Oblast, carried out in strict accordance with international airspace use rules. The Russian aircraft did not stray from the agreed route, nor did they cross into Estonian airspace. The trajectory of their flight was over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea, over three kilometres from the island of Väima. Flight recorder data confirmed this.”

The new United States Ambassador Mike Waltz, in his first Council intervention said the US “stands by our NATO allies in the face of these airspace violations,” and emphasised that “the United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory.”

Waltz said, “Russia must urgently stop such dangerous behaviour. At a time when President Trump in the United States has been focussed and spent an enormous amount of time and effort to end this horrific war between Russia and Ukraine, we expect Russia to seek ways to de-escalate, not risk expansion.”

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told the Council that “on 19th September 2025, three armed Russian MiG 31 fighter jets deliberately entered Estonia airspace in violation of our territorial integrity. They remained in our skies for 12 minutes, penetrating up to ten kilometres deep and covering nearly 100km inside our sovereign territory.”

Tsahkna said, “these are the hard facts based on solid evidence, whatever Russia is claiming.”

Opening remarks by Annalena Baerbock, President of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, at the High-level plenary meeting to commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations – General Assembly, 80th session.

Watch the full video here: https://youtube.com/live/Mws45VNffA0?feature=share

Highlights:

UNGA 80 General Debate – Speakers
UNGA
General Assembly/Secretary-General
Two-State Solution
Occupied Palestinian Territory
Thirtieth Anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women
SDG Moment Event
Global Initiative in Support of the Global Initiative to Galvanize Political Commitment to International Humanitarian Law
Security Council
Ukraine
Central African Republic
Sudan
South Sudan
Haiti

UNGA 80 GENERAL DEBATE – SPEAKERS
We expect about 193 delegations in total with approximately 89 Heads of State, 5 Vice-Presidents, one Crown Prince, 43 Heads of Government.
Also, about 1,642 bilateral meetings have been scheduled in the lobby of the General Assembly building, where the temporary meeting booths are.

UNGA
Tomorrow at the opening of the 80th session of the high-level session of the General Assembly, the Secretary-General will address world leaders.
His speech will be a stark wake-up call to the world, framed around the need to make clear decisions in this decisive time.
It will be an appeal for renewal and the urgency of action and moral leadership. He will call out the impunity and the lawlessness that threatens the world’s order.
His speech will be framed around a fundamental question that he will pose to world leaders: What kind of world do we want to choose to build together?
The Secretary-General will speak of the unique challenges facing our world – and the organization itself and point out that we have our work cut out for us … as our ability to carry out that work is being cut from us.
He will lay out five critical choices facing humanity: peace, dignity, climate justice, technology in the service of humanity, and a stronger UN.
He will also remind world leaders that it is not enough to know what the right choice is, we must have the courage to act.
He will also recall his own experience growing up in the dictatorship of Portugal and underscore the importance of never giving up.
We will share the Secretary-General’s remarks under embargo later today.
The Spokesman also reminded reporters that because of the many competing events, there will be no briefing Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, unless there is major breaking news.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY/SECRETARY-GENERAL
This morning, in the General Assembly Hall, the Secretary-General delivered remarks marking the 80th Anniversary of the United Nations.
Eight decades ago, he said, this organization was established to become the place where all nations, whether large or small, could come together to solve problems that no country can solve alone.
And yet, he added, at this moment, the principles of this same organization are under assault as never before.
The Secretary-General listed a number of challenges facing the world today. To address these challenges, we must not only defend the UN, he said, but we must also strengthen it.
Those remarks were shared with you.

TWO-STATE SOLUTION
This afternoon, the Secretary-General will speak at the conference on a two-state solution co-sponsored by France and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
He is expected to say that the situation on the ground is intolerable, and it is deteriorating by the hour.
He will also welcome the measures many Member States are taking to galvanize support for the Two-State solution – including pledges to recognize the State of Palestine.
The Secretary-General is to emphasize that we must recommit ourselves to the Two-State solution before it is too late – a solution in which two independent, democratic, viable and contiguous and sovereign States are mutually recognized and fully integrated in the international community.
And he will stress that statehood for the Palestinians is a right, not a reward, and denying statehood would be a gift to extremists everywhere.