UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the U.N.’s first-ever virtual meeting of global leaders Tuesday that the world is facing an “epochal” health crisis, the biggest economic calamity and job losses since the Great Depression, threats to human rights and worries of a new Cold War between the U.S. and China.
In his grim state of the world speech to the U.N. General Assembly’s annual high-level meeting, the U.N. chief said that the coronavirus that “brought the world to its knees” was but “a dress rehearsal for the world of challenges to come.”
He called for global unity, first and foremost to fight the pandemic, and sharply criticized populism and nationalism for failing to contain the virus, and for often making things worse.
Days after the pandemic shut down big parts of the world in March, Guterres called for a global cease-fire to tackle it. On Tuesday, he appealed for a 100-day push by the international community, led by the Security Council, “to make this a reality by the end of the year.”