Washington, DC – Since its first session in 1946, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has served as a platform for world leaders and diplomats to spell out their international locations’ priorities and provide assessments of the issues and wishes of humanity.
UNGA conferences, significantly the final debate, have introduced sworn enemies to the identical constructing and allowed a number of the United States’ most hostile adversaries to go to New York, the place the UN headquarters are positioned.
Because the meeting convenes for its annual session this week, right here’s a take a look at some unforgettable, and typically comical, UNGA moments.
Gaddafi rages in opposition to superpowers for 100 minutes
After greater than 4 a long time in energy, the late Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi made it to the UN podium in 2009. And it was a debut to recollect.
Gaddafi delivered a scathing speech in opposition to world powers that lasted almost 100 minutes.
The eccentric authoritarian chief — who can be overthrown and subsequently killed in a NATO-backed rebellion two years later — decried the veto powers of the 5 everlasting members of the UN Safety Council.
“Veto energy must be annulled,” Gaddafi mentioned. “The Safety Council didn’t present us with safety however with terror and sanctions.”
He learn aloud sections of the UN Constitution to spotlight what he mentioned had been the shortcomings of the worldwide physique and its failure to use the principles.
Gaddafi additionally known as for an investigation into the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, questioning why the UN Constitution’s provisions in opposition to aggression had been held in sacred standing when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 however “thrown within the bin” when the nation itself was invaded.
“The invasion of Iraq — with out justification, in violation of the Constitution — happens by superpowers on the Safety Council,” he mentioned.
“And Iraq is an impartial nation and a member of the Common Meeting. How is it that it was attacked and the way is it that the Constitution was not utilized?”
Whatever the speech’s content material, will probably be most remembered for its size. UNGA audio system are allotted 15-minute slots — a restrict Gaddafi blew previous with fiery abandon.
Hugo Chavez calls George W Bush ‘the satan’
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Amid a rising confrontation between Caracas and Washington in 2006, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez known as then-US President Geoge W Bush “the satan” from the UN stage.
“Yesterday, the satan got here right here — proper right here. And it smells of sulphur nonetheless at this time,” Chavez advised the UNGA.
He went on to ship a blistering assault on Bush’s insurance policies, citing a US-backed Israeli army operation in Lebanon that killed greater than 1,000 individuals and destroyed massive components of the nation’s civilian infrastructure weeks earlier.
“The federal government of the USA doesn’t need peace. It desires to use its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony by way of battle,” Chavez mentioned.
“It desires peace. However what’s occurring in Iraq? What occurred in Lebanon? In Palestine? What’s occurring? What’s occurred during the last 100 years in Latin America and on the planet? And now threatening Venezuela — new threats in opposition to Venezuela, in opposition to Iran?”
Years later, Chavez — who died in 2013 — mentioned that his “satan” remark was not scripted and that he did scent sulphur that day.
Trump threatens to ‘completely destroy’ North Korea
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Whereas UNGA speeches usually give attention to worldwide cooperation and shared challenges, former US President Donald Trump delivered a fiery assault on North Korea in his first look on the worldwide physique in 2017.
“America has nice energy and endurance, however whether it is compelled to defend itself or its allies, we can have no alternative however to completely destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime,” he mentioned, referring to North Korean chief Kim Jong Un.
“America is prepared, keen and ready, however hopefully this is not going to be obligatory.”
Lower than a yr later, Trump would turn out to be the primary US president to fulfill with Kim at a summit in Singapore.
Trump then softened his tone in direction of the North Korean chief, however a subsequent assembly in Hanoi in 2018 failed to provide a deal to resolve the standoff between Washington and Pyongyang.
North Korea has continued its ballistic missile testing and pushed on with its nuclear programme because the US strengthens safety ties with Japan and South Korea.
Extra lately, the US has been voicing considerations concerning the deepening alliance between North Korea and Russia.
Netanyahu attracts a purple line on Iran’s nuclear programme
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Eight years in the past, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Iran was months away from buying a nuclear weapon.
“How a lot enriched uranium do you want for a bomb? And the way shut is Iran to getting it?” Netanyahu requested. He then proceeded to reply his personal query. “Properly, let me present you. I introduced a diagram for you.”
Regardless of the complexities of nuclear science, Netanyahu’s diagram consisted of a cartoon depicting a spherical bomb with a fuse.
He claimed that Tehran had already amassed 70 p.c of the enriched uranium wanted to construct a nuclear weapon and was effectively on the best way to the second stage, marked as 90 p.c.
“If these are the information, and they’re, the place ought to a purple line be drawn? A purple line must be drawn proper right here,” Netanyahu mentioned, drawing an precise purple line on the 90-percent mark.
The Israeli prime minister would emerge as one of the outspoken critics of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that noticed Tehran reduce its nuclear programme in change for the US and its allies lifting sanctions in opposition to its financial system.
Trump nixed the settlement in 2018, and Iran has been escalating its programme since, however Tehran denies looking for a nuclear weapon.
Boris Johnson warns of AI risks
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Going through a political disaster at residence — as he had by way of most of his tenure as the UK’s prime minister — Boris Johnson warned in opposition to the potential hazard of synthetic intelligence (AI) in a 2019 UNGA speech.
Johnson painted some weird pictures of a potential dystopian future the place technological advances go awry, leading to “terrifying limbless chickens”, amongst different issues.
“A future Alexa will faux to take orders. However this Alexa will likely be watching you, clucking her tongue and stamping her foot,” he mentioned, referring to Amazon’s digital assistant Alexa.
The then-prime minister questioned whether or not AI will produce robots to assist ageing individuals or result in “terminators” trying to cull the human race.
“What is going to artificial biology stand for? Restoring our livers and our eyes with miracle regeneration of the tissues, like some incredible hangover remedy, or will it carry terrifying limbless chickens to our tables?” Johnson requested.
Whereas the speech drew some ridicule at the moment, current breakthroughs in AI at the moment are elevating questions concerning the ethics and utility of the instrument and spurring lawmakers internationally to consider regulations.
Fidel Castro speaks for 4 and a half hours
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Gaddafi’s speech — so long as it was — didn’t come near breaking the file for the longest speech on the UNGA.
Cuban chief Fidel Castro spoke for 4 and a half hours at a UNGA session in 1960. One yr after the Cuban Revolution introduced him to energy, Castro — who would turn out to be public enemy primary within the US — delivered a prolonged critique of world inequality.
“The Nationwide Common Meeting of the Cuban individuals condemns large-scale landowning as a supply of poverty for the peasant and a backward and inhuman system of agricultural manufacturing,” Castro mentioned, in keeping with a transcript of the speech printed by the University of Texas at Austin.
“It condemns hunger wages and the iniquitous exploitation of human work by illegitimate and privileged pursuits,” Castro continued. “It condemns illiteracy, the dearth of academics, of colleges, medical doctors and hospitals, the dearth of old-age safety within the international locations of America.”
He additionally denounced the “exploitation of ladies” in addition to “army oligarchies, which preserve our peoples in poverty, stop their democratic growth and the complete train of their sovereignty”.
He went on for 269 minutes, in keeping with UN information. One yr after that speech, the US tried however did not overthrow Castro within the Bay of Pigs invasion.