World close to being a ‘powder keg’ – UN boss

The international community must seek “global solutions” to the unprecedented challenges that have gripped the world, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged in his keynote speech ahead of the General Debate of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

He pointed out that geo-political divisions across the world continue to deepen, temperatures are rising, wars are raging with no end in sight, while nuclear posturing and new weapons are casting “a dark shadow” over the planet.

“We are edging towards the unimaginable – a powder keg that risks engulfing the world,” Guterres warned.

The Secretary General stressed that the current state of the world is “unsustainable” but noted that the challenges it faces are all solvable, which means that the international community must make sure that “mechanisms of international problem-solving actually solve problems.”

Guterres singled out three “major drivers of unsustainability” that must be addressed by global leaders – impunity, inequality and uncertainty. 

In a “world of impunity,” Guterres said, violations and abuses threaten the fundamentals of international law and of the UN Charter. He pointed out that the current level of impunity in the world is “indefensible and morally intolerable,” and suggested that a growing number of governments are feeling entitled to a “get out of jail free” card as they trample international law, ignore human rights conventions and international humanitarian law.

“We see this age of impunity everywhere – in the Middle East, in the heart of Europe, in the Horn of Africa, and beyond,” he said, pointing to the ongoing Ukraine conflict, Israel’s latest escalation in Lebanon, the “non-stop nightmare” in Gaza, and the “brutal power struggle” in Sudan.

Guterres also stated that inequality in the world today threatens to undermine countries and push them over the edge while the uncertainty of unmanaged global risks “threatens our future in unknowable ways.”

“These worlds of impunity, inequality and uncertainty are connected and colliding,” the Secretary General said, urging the international community to come together to manage the epic transformations underway and to “join forces to steer our world to a more sustainable path.”

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