A year of unprecedented war looms over UNGA
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 749 Ratings
🗓️ 27 September 2024
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s the first UN General Assembly since October 7, in a year marked by the unprecedented escalation of violence in Gaza and war throughout the world. As world leaders take their time on the world stage, how has it all exposed the weaknesses of the United Nations?
In this episode:
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Biesan Abu-Kwaik (@BiesanAK), Al Jazeera Arabic UN Correspondent
Episode credits:
This episode was produced by Chloe K. Li, Amy Walters, and Sonia Bhagat with Sarí el-Khalili, Phillip Lanos, Hisham Abu Salah, Duha Mosaad, Hagir Saleh, Cole van Miltenberg and our host Malika Bilal.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Munera Al Dosari and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers.
Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio.
Connect with us:
@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Today, what does the UN General Assembly actually do? |
| 0:16.0 | The level of impunity in the world is politically indefensible and morally intolerable. |
| 0:25.0 | How a year of unprecedented war and conflict has exposed the underbelly of the United Nations. |
| 0:32.8 | I'm Olega Bil, and this is The Take. |
| 0:44.9 | My name is Bissan Abu Quaik. |
| 0:50.0 | I'm the Al Jazeera Arabic UN correspondent here in New York. |
| 0:57.2 | Bissan, welcome back to The Take. It's always good to have you. You know that there are 193 member states of the UN General Assembly, which means that some of the world's top |
| 1:02.7 | decision makers are walking the halls that you are walking in. What is the mood like? Set |
| 1:09.3 | the scene from me. What are you hearing? What are you feeling? |
| 1:12.2 | I mean, I think, you know, there's always excitement for this high-level week, as it's called here, where you have all of these world leaders coming to New York. |
| 1:20.7 | But I would say that the mood is a darker mood because of what we have been seeing happening over the past 11 months with |
| 1:29.3 | the war on Gaza, the failure of the international community to actually end and stop this war. |
| 1:35.3 | And it's not just Gaza. |
| 1:37.3 | What we hear from diplomats, it's Sudan, it's Ukraine, the continuous use of the veto at the Security Council. |
| 1:45.1 | So this comes at a time where questions are being asked. |
| 1:48.5 | Is this system that has been built after World War II? |
| 1:52.4 | Is it working? |
| 1:54.0 | I mean, even the UN Secretary General in his speech to the UN General Assembly |
| 1:59.1 | spoke about impunity. |
| 2:00.8 | Today, a growing number of... to the UN General Assembly spoke about impunity. |
| 2:01.6 | Today, a growing number of governments and others feel entitled to get out of jail-free |
... |
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