UNSG @antonioguterres's speech Friday to the UNGA [here >> unmultimedia.org/avlibrary/asse… ] is more important than his Press Conference [in the quoted thread]. He addresses structural issues in International Governance - especially wrt Global Finance, Climate Change and Technology.
At the beginning of the speech he issues numerous issues relevant to the developing world generally with a focus on Africa. He also addresses the need for reform of global governance institutions - presumably including the UN.
Later in the speech he addresses security issues - beginning a lengthy list of specific crises with a mention of Ethiopia - on which no questions were asked in his Press Conference.
This year @antonioguterres begins his 2nd five year term. He is certainly starting with a bold agenda and vision for vital change.
Whether he is able to achieve the global alliance for change which will be needed to deliver the changes needed to address the "five emergencies" that he identifies will be something to watch in the lead up to #COP27 in Egypt later this year.
The manner in which @DrTedros appears to have delivered himself responsibility to dictate his own disciplinary process in today’s @WHO Executive Board meeting is disgraceful and reflects extremely poorly on the UN and its agencies.
It should not be allowed to stand. @WHO is a global organization funded publicly to the tune of well over $4 Billion USD per year.
Completely separate from the serious allegations raised by the Govt of Ethiopia about his partiality in favour of a rebel group in which he is part of the leadership, it is wholly inappropriate for @DrTedros to be standing unopposed for such an impt. global position.
I listened to the UN Geneva Briefing from Friday. There was a video stream of today's @WHO Executive Board meeting it seems, which was the basis of the @Reuters report .
It took a bit of time to find it - Ethiopia's intervention comes 7:50 into the Second session today. Ambassador Kebebe (@kebede_zenebe) attempted to read a statement but was twice ruled out of order by the chair. who.int/about/governan…
The Chair of the @WHO'2 150th Executive Board Meeting did so on the basis of a decision made 15 minutes into the 1st session concerning the "Note Verbal" from the Govt of Ethiopia.
Super weird UN Daily Press Conference underway. Its been going for 75 minutes, albeit with several breaks. @UN_Spokesperson@StephDujarric has just returned to the podium. It appears to be about Burkina Faso. The UNSG is concerned about a coup, and the whereabouts of President.
The press conference proper has effectively started 75 minutes late. He is finally delivering the daily read-out - which apparently was very late being prepared.
The press conference has so far included two briefings - one on Syrian weather disasters for 1.7m snowbound refugees.
The second briefing - scheduled - was on International day of Education and was super interesting about the impact of Covid on children's education. A rather dire situation.
Forecast models show the period of relative quiet in terms of tropical atmospheric river activity in the North Atlantic has come to an end, and the next fortnight will bring significant rain and snow across most of Europe and the Mediterranean.
The forecast above shows the next 8 days of precipitable water as forecast by the @NOAA GFS model. The combination of this atmospheric water and a stationary high pressure system in the North Atlantic create conditions for very high levels of precipitation.
Days 8-16 days below.
Both 8 day periods include an interesting new feature, caused by significant levels of convection off the West Coast of the North Africa. This is a 24 hour satellite loop of the first of these events currently underway.
This rainfall forecast for Madagascar on Friday (10 days) was/is seriously dire. A waterlogged South Indian Ocean atmosphere has been forecast for some time to develop multiple tropical storms. And on Friday they arrived.
So far floods have produced rains killing at least 10 people in the Capital City, Antananarivo [Location: goo.gl/maps/NipR18bSo…] hahttps://www.africanews.com/2022/01/18/10-killed-by-floods-in-madagascar/
At 587k km2 Madagascar is larger than France with a pop. of 28 million.
If @FareedZakaria is right about Putin. Then if America responds to some form of additional provocation wrt to Ukraine with extreme economic sanctions, gambling that the EU follows the US lead, precipitating an energy crisis in Europe… then Putin gets what he wants.
I.E either Europe breaks with the US, thereby creating at least a fracture in NATO. Or at best (for Putin), a significant political split in between the EU and both the UK and US, his old Cold War enemies.
Europe is unusually weak at present for numerous reasons. Brexit related mostly. And reasons which the US and UK understand poorly, and which to a large part Putin engineered. sophisticated Russian active measures were involved in facilitating Brexit and the Trump election.