New York

UNITED NATIONS, Sept 30 (NNN-AGENCIES) – UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, called for further debt relief, for poor and middle-income countries for them to respond to COVID-19.

“I hope the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (of the Group of 20) will be extended and its scope expanded to all developing and middle-income countries in need. The private sector, including the credit rating agencies, must be engaged in relief efforts,” he told a joint press conference with Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau and Jamaican Prime Minister, Andrew Holness.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations and the European Union on Tuesday signed an agreement on the sidelines of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly to enhance cooperation and strengthen collective response in peace operations and crisis management.

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- The General Debate of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 75) on Tuesday lowered its curtain at the UN headquarters in New York on a positive note with the vast majority of world leaders and national representatives voicing strong support for multilateralism and the United Nations.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — This year’s U.N. General Assembly meeting began with calls for multilateralism and cooperation — a declaration that the urgency for countries to unite “has rarely been greater.” It concluded with a parade of divisive grievances that echoed when the final gavel fell.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Addressing the U.N. General Assembly last week, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina noted a milestone: the 25th anniversary of the Beijing women’s conference that produced a global roadmap for gender equality and a ringing rallying cry that became part of the event’s official declaration: “Women’s rights are human rights.”

The international community has “come a long way to ensure gender equality” since then, Hasina said, but “we need to strengthen our resolve and mutual cooperation.”

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 29 (APP): With over one million lives having succumbed to coronavirus globally, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that while the “agonizing milestone” is a “mind-numbing figure”, the world must never lose sight of each and every individual life.

“They were fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues,” he said in a statement on Monday night.

NEW YORK, Sept 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The rate of positive coronavirus tests is ticking up in New York, especially in neighborhoods with large Orthodox Jewish populations, the state’s governor Andrew Cuomo said.

Of the 52,936 tests reported Sunday, 834 were positive, or 1.5 percent of the total, tweeted Cuomo.

The positive rate had previously been at one percent for several days.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 28 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said he is “extremely concerned” over renewed hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh disputed region that erupted on Sunday.

According to news reports, at least 18 people have been killed along the line of contact in the worst fighting between the two former Soviet Republics in four years.

“He condemns the use of force and regrets the loss of life and the toll on the civilian population”, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

28 Sep 2020; MEMO: New York Democratic Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), on Friday cancelled her participation in an event commemorating the life of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

An AOC spokeswoman said Ocasio-Cortez would not attend the event, organised by Americans for Peace Now (APN) and which is scheduled to take place in October.

28 Sep 2020; MEMO: New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio pulled out of Saudi’s virtual world cities summit, citing the kingdom’s human rights abuses.