(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) NEW YORK, Sept 22 (KUNA) -- UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, on Tuesday, said that the world is facing a fateful health crisis, an economic disaster, and losses are the largest since the Great Depression.
This came in Guterres' speech during the opening of the high-level public deliberations of the UN 75th General Assembly.
Guterres said that the pandemic has exposed fragilities and inequalities across the globe and it has generated an epochal health crisis, the biggest economic and job losses since the Great Depression, and dangerous new threats to human rights, among other challenges.
The Secretary General referred to the increase in poverty for the first time in 30 years, while human development indicators are declining and the world is moving very quickly away from the correct path that would lead to achieving the sustainable development goals.
Guterres also referred to the retreat of efforts to combat nuclear proliferation and the inability to take serious action to face emerging challenges, especially cyberspace. He stressed the need to address the current crisis with unity and solidarity and being guided by science, noting that populism and nationalism have failed and made the situation worse.
Regarding the situation in the Middle East, Guterres urged Palestinian and Israeli leaders to return to negotiations in earnest for the implementation of the two-state solution, with calm conditions in Gaza and the abandonment of annexing parts of the occupied West Bank.
"Now is the time for a collective new push for peace and reconciliation," he said. "I appeal for a stepped-up international effort led by the Security Council to achieve a global ceasefire by the end of this year". (end)
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