World leaders will be allowed to send video messages to the UN General Assembly instead of attending in person, in a sign that the annual event is being scaled back again because of Covid-19.
The UN’s 193-nation assembly body agreed on Wednesday to permit recorded video statements from leaders at the annual diplomatic meeting, which begins on September 21 in New York City.
The gathering of leaders is now expected to involve countries sending scaled-down delegations or having mask-wearing diplomats already in New York take the lead due to concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.
A successful vaccination programme has seen life in New York largely return to normal, but the arrival of large delegations from regions with worsening rates of Covid and its more virulent variants is a cause for concern.
“We very much depend on the New York authorities and we're going to work with them as we have in past [assemblies] to follow their guidelines,” UN spokeswoman Florencia Soto Nino said.
“If the variant gets worse, that is not great for anyone, either here or anywhere else in the world. That could potentially affect any events that have large gatherings.”
Last year’s UN assembly was supposed to be a 75th birthday party for the world body, which was formed after the Second World War, but it was pared back to mostly recorded video messages amid the pandemic.
During a regular General Assembly, leaders travel to Manhattan with entourages of sometimes more than 100 aides for a gruelling week of speeches and private meetings.
Richard Gowan, a UN analyst for the International Crisis Group, posted on social media that “tentative plans for an in-person” UN gathering were “starting to unravel".
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The Transfiguration
Director: Michael O’Shea
Starring: Eric Ruffin, Chloe Levine
Three stars
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Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
THE SPECS
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COMPANY PROFILE
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