Follow the latest news from UNGA
The annual meeting of the United Nations is taking place at its headquarters in New York and top officials will discuss the yearly agenda and global issues.
The war in Ukraine and the climate are expected to dominate discussions. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday spoke to the global gathering in person for the first time about the need to uphold the UN Charter in Ukraine.
The high-level week begins with a summit aimed at energising worldwide efforts towards the UN's 2030 development goals, which have been experiencing significant delays. This summit is scheduled for Monday, September 18.
At the start of the General Debate this week on September 19, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres will present his annual report on the state of the world.
The UN’s 193 member states will be provided with a platform and 15 to 20 minutes to address the international community.
As is customary, Brazil's leader will be the first national figurehead to address the hall on Tuesday followed by US President Joe Biden.
After that will be a quick succession of world leaders over the course of the following six days.
This is the complete schedule of countries due to be speaking at the 78th UN General Assembly in New York:
Tuesday, September 19
Morning: Brazil, United States, Colombia, Jordan, Poland, Cuba, Turkey, Portugal, Qatar, South Africa, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Guatemala, Hungary, Switzerland, Slovenia, Uzbekistan.
Afternoon: Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Algeria, Argentina, El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan, Paraguay, Peru, Mozambique, Panama, Nigeria, Uruguay, Czech Republic, Costa Rica, Palau, Senegal, Germany, Japan.
Wednesday, September 20
Morning: Seychelles, Rwanda, Cyprus, Namibia, Romania, Suriname, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ghana, Lithuania, Ecuador, Slovakia, Finland, Bulgaria, Guyana, Croatia, Angola, Latvia, South Korea, Tajikistan, Honduras.
Afternoon: Estonia, Comoros, Dominican Republic, Moldova, Sierra Leone, Monaco, Chile, Mongolia, Mauritania, Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Marshall Islands, Botswana, Italy, Spain, Sao Tome and Principe, Belgium, Lebanon, Libya.
Thursday, September 21
Morning: Yemen, Central African Republic, Malawi, Kiribati, Zimbabwe, East Timor, South Sudan, Guinea, Burundi, Serbia, Dominica, Sri Lanka, Congo, Kenya, Micronesia, Montenegro, Palestine, European Union.
Afternoon: Nauru, Guinea-Bissau, Albania, Sudan, China, Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Gambia, Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Greece, Norway, Nepal, Kuwait, France, Austria, Chad, Togo, Denmark.
UNGA's best moments over the years
Friday, September 22
Morning: North Macedonia, Israel, Mauritius, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, Pakistan, Barbados, Thailand, Andorra, Saint Lucia, Fiji, Luxembourg, Bangladesh, Iraq, Antigua and Barbuda.
Afternoon: Vietnam, Solomon Islands, Lesotho, Cambodia, Georgia, Gabon, Ireland, Grenada, Tuvalu, Haiti, Tonga, United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia, Bahrain, Bahamas, Sweden, Madagascar, Costa Rica.
Saturday, September 23
Morning: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cape Verde, Somalia, Laos, Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea, Azerbaijan, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, New Zealand, Armenia, Iceland, Egypt.
Afternoon: Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, Belarus, UAE, Nicaragua, Oman, Belize, Eritrea, Burkina Faso, Brunei, Tunisia, Venezuela, Cameroon.
Tuesday, September 26
Morning: India, Jamaica, Bhutan, Cameroon, Zambia, Nicaragua, Holy See, Syria, Maldives,North Korea, Benin, San Marino, Canada, Vanuatu and Morocco.
– The order of nations can change on a daily basis.
Priyanka Chopra and other guest speakers at UNGA 2022
A general guide to how active you are:
Less than 5,000 steps - sedentary
5,000 - 9,999 steps - lightly active
10,000 - 12,500 steps - active
12,500 - highly active
Groom and Two Brides
Director: Elie Semaan
Starring: Abdullah Boushehri, Laila Abdallah, Lulwa Almulla
Rating: 3/5
UAE%20Warriors%2045%20Results
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Desert Warrior
Starring: Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Rating: 3/5
Who's who in Yemen conflict
Houthis: Iran-backed rebels who occupy Sanaa and run unrecognised government
Yemeni government: Exiled government in Aden led by eight-member Presidential Leadership Council
Southern Transitional Council: Faction in Yemeni government that seeks autonomy for the south
Habrish 'rebels': Tribal-backed forces feuding with STC over control of oil in government territory
Who has lived at The Bishops Avenue?
- George Sainsbury of the supermarket dynasty, sugar magnate William Park Lyle and actress Dame Gracie Fields were residents in the 1930s when the street was only known as ‘Millionaires’ Row’.
- Then came the international super rich, including the last king of Greece, Constantine II, the Sultan of Brunei and Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal who was at one point ranked the third richest person in the world.
- Turkish tycoon Halis Torprak sold his mansion for £50m in 2008 after spending just two days there. The House of Saud sold 10 properties on the road in 2013 for almost £80m.
- Other residents have included Iraqi businessman Nemir Kirdar, singer Ariana Grande, holiday camp impresario Sir Billy Butlin, businessman Asil Nadir, Paul McCartney’s former wife Heather Mills.
Hunting park to luxury living
- Land was originally the Bishop of London's hunting park, hence the name
- The road was laid out in the mid 19th Century, meandering through woodland and farmland
- Its earliest houses at the turn of the 20th Century were substantial detached properties with extensive grounds
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Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
Sheer grandeur
The Owo building is 14 storeys high, seven of which are below ground, with the 30,000 square feet of amenities located subterranean, including a 16-seat private cinema, seven lounges, a gym, games room, treatment suites and bicycle storage.
A clear distinction between the residences and the Raffles hotel with the amenities operated separately.
The biog
Name: Salvador Toriano Jr
Age: 59
From: Laguna, The Philippines
Favourite dish: Seabass or Fish and Chips
Hobbies: When he’s not in the restaurant, he still likes to cook, along with walking and meeting up with friends.
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Producers: KRTI Productions, T-Series
Director: Sree Narayan Singh
Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Divyenndu Sharma, Yami Gautam
Rating: 2/5
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
Major matches on Manic Monday
Andy Murray (GBR) v Benoit Paire (FRA)
Grigor Dimitrov (BGR) v Roger Federer (SUI)
Rafael Nadal (ESP) v Gilles Muller (LUX)
Adrian Mannarino (FRA) Novak Djokovic (SRB)
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Quick facts on cancer
- Cancer is the second-leading cause of death worldwide, after cardiovascular diseases
- About one in five men and one in six women will develop cancer in their lifetime
- By 2040, global cancer cases are on track to reach 30 million
- 70 per cent of cancer deaths occur in low and middle-income countries
- This rate is expected to increase to 75 per cent by 2030
- At least one third of common cancers are preventable
- Genetic mutations play a role in 5 per cent to 10 per cent of cancers
- Up to 3.7 million lives could be saved annually by implementing the right health
strategies
- The total annual economic cost of cancer is $1.16 trillion
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