World leaders and thousands of other diplomatic participants will not gather in New York in September for the annual U.N. General Assembly, Secretary General Antonio Guterres lamented Thursday, as the globalist body marks 75 years since it was inaugurated in the shadow of the end World War II.
In an interview with the French weekly magazine Paris-Match, published Thursday, the U.N. chief said he was looking at “various alternatives” made possible by digital technology, which he will present to member states in lieu of a physical gathering made impossible by the march of the global Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
Several U.N. envoys have already predicted videoconference in will be used an alternative, especially as this year marks the 75th anniversary of the globalist body and its multiple agencies.
The first meeting of the U.N. General Assembly was held in London in 1946 under the roof of the Methodist Central Hall in Westminister.
Fifty nations gathered then in the hope that they could provide a lead in colloborative diplomacy that would put an end to all wars after the abject failure of the League of Nations to be anything other than a spectacularly funded but ultimately useless debating society:
Now in the age of coronavirus the chance of a physical meeting of diplomats and representatives to recall that historic beginning is remote.
Since mid-March — because of the pandemic and the anti-virus lockdown measures in place in New York, the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak — U.N. employees and diplomats have worked from home.
The U.N. headquarters building technically remains open but for the most part is empty.
The start of the annual General Assembly is scheduled for September 15, with the session featuring speeches from dozens of world leaders due to begin on September 22, all designed to recall the very first meeting in London:
The meeting, the largest annual diplomatic gathering in the world, features hundreds of events on the sidelines in New York, as well as bilateral and multilateral meetings between agencies and NGOs who all set up camp in Manhattan for two-weeks of talks.
It has never been canceled since the U.N.’s founding in 1945 although it has been delayed twice — after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, and in 1964 due to a financial crisis within the organization.
Even as the U.N. strives to work around the limitations posed by thousands of representatives not flying into New York for a week of chat and cocktails, it also has to battle a more pressing concern – finance.
As Breitbart News reported, as of last October the organization was running a deficit of $230 million with U.S. taxpayers expected to provide an immediate cash injection into the global organization.
The United States is by far the U.N.’s biggest financial contributor, providing 22 percent of its operating budget and funding 28 percent of peacekeeping missions, which currently cost $8 billion annually.
The next two major contributors are Germany and the U.K.
U.S. President Donald Trump has long pushed for root and branch reform of the taxpayer-funded organization.
He is on the record pushing for it to become relevant again, saying the “future does not belong to globalists, the future belongs to patriots, the future belongs to sovereign and independent nations,” in a warning to the U.N. leadership last year.
AFP contributed to this story