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The United Nations’ massive annual summit returns in person Tuesday to a world divided by multiple crises starting with Ukraine.

After two years of pandemic restrictions and video addresses, the UN General Assembly is again asking leaders to come in person if they wish to speak — with a sole exception made for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But the death of Queen Elizabeth II disrupted the summit anew. President Joe Biden of the United States, by tradition the second speaker on the first day, will instead speak on Wednesday.

The first day will feature French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the two largest economies of the European Union, which has mobilized to impose tough sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This year, Ukraine will be very high on the agenda. It will be unavoidable,” top EU diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters in New York.

“There are many other problems, we know. But the war in Ukraine has been sending shock waves around the world.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock vowed to support countries hardest hit by the fallout from the war as she headed to the General Assembly on Tuesday.

“The brutality of Russia’s war of aggression and its threat to the peace order in Europe have not blinded us to the fact that its dramatic effects are also clearly being felt in many other regions of the world,” Baerbock said.

But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been urging leaders not to forget other priorities such as education, the topic of a special summit on Monday.

“Education is in a deep crisis. Instead of being the great enabler, education is fast becoming the great divide,” Guterres told the summit.

He warned that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on learning, with poor students lacking technology at a particular disadvantage, and conflicts further disrupting schools.

In a report earlier this month, the UN Development Programme said Covid has set back humanity’s progress by five years.

With the Ukraine war leading to a global grain crisis, hunger could be another major issue on the agenda. On Tuesday, more than 200 NGOs called for urgent action from leaders gathered for the General Assembly to “end the spiralling global hunger crisis.”

“Around the world, 50 million people are on the brink of starvation in 45 countries,” they said, adding that as many as 19,700 people are estimated to be dying of hunger every day, which translates to one person every four seconds.

– Talks between rivals –

Other leaders to speak Tuesday include Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has staked out ground as a broker between Russia and Ukraine, including through a deal to ship out badly needed grain to the world.

Erdogan is also expected to meet in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, a dramatic rebound in relations after the Turkish leader’s strident criticism of the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians.

In the type of last-minute diplomacy common at previous UN sessions, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken convened a first meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia since a flare-up in fighting.

“Strong, sustainable diplomatic engagement is the best path for everyone,” Blinken told them.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was visiting despite a hostile reaction from the United States.

He met Monday with his French counterpart, Catherine Colonna, who urged Russia to allow a security zone outside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose occupation by Moscow has raised mounting concerns.

Also high on the agenda for the UN week will be Iran, whose hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, is traveling to the General Assembly for the first time and will meet Tuesday with French President Emmanuel Macron.

In a US television interview ahead of his arrival, Raisi said that Iran wanted “guarantees” before returning to a nuclear deal that former president Donald Trump trashed in 2018.

“We cannot trust the Americans because of the behavior that we have already seen from them. That is why if there is no guarantee, there is no trust,” he told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” program.

Biden supports a return to the 2015 agreement, under which Iran drastically scaled back nuclear work in return for promises of sanctions relief.

But the Biden administration says it is impossible in the US system to promise what a future president would do.

“There is no better offer for Iran,” Colonna said ahead of the meeting with Macron.

“It’s up to them to make a decision,” she said.

Raisi can expect to be dogged by protests during his visit including by exile groups that have called for his arrest over mass executions of opponents a decade after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

SpaceX will apply for an exemption from US sanctions against Iran in a bid to offer its satellite internet service to the country, owner Elon Musk said on Monday.

“Starlink will apply for an exemption from sanctions against Iran,” Musk said in response to a tweet from a science reporter.

Musk had initially announced that the Starlink satellite internet service had been made available on every continent — “including Antarctica” — with the company planning to launch up to 42,000 satellites to boost connectivity.

Iranian-born science journalist Erfan Kasraie had said on Twitter that bringing the service to Iran could be a “real game changer for the future” of the country, which elicited Musk’s response. 

Launched at the end of 2020, Starlink offers high-speed broadband service to customers in areas poorly served by fixed and mobile terrestrial networks through a constellation of satellites in low earth orbit. 

The service received notoriety after supplying antennas and modems to the Ukrainian military to improve its communications capabilities in its war with Russia. 

Starlink is monetized through the purchase of antennas, modems and subscriptions with rates that vary by country. 

Nearly 3,000 Starlink satellites have been deployed since 2019 and SpaceX is conducting about one launch a week, using its own Falcon 9 rockets to speed up its deployment.

Iran has been under a tightened US sanctions regime since former president Donald Trump terminated a 2015 agreement over its nuclear activities. 

While current President Joe Biden supports a renegotiation of the deal, Iranian insistence on long-term guarantees from Washington has stalled discussions. 

New rounds of sanctions were imposed on Iran this month after a Tehran-based company helped ship drones to Russia, and in response to a massive cyberattack targeting Albania in July allegedly carried out by Iran’s intelligence ministry.

The Kremlin on Monday denied its forces were responsible for large-scale killings in east Ukraine and accused Kyiv of fabricating its discoveries of mass graves in recaptured territory.

In the latest incident spurring fears of an atomic emergency, Ukraine said Russian rockets landed dangerously close to a nuclear power station in southern Ukraine.

Ukraine recaptured Izyum and other towns in the east this month, crippling Kremlin supply routes and bringing fresh claims of Russian atrocities with the discovery of hundreds of graves — some containing multiple bodies.

“These are lies,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday. Moscow, he said, “will stand up for the truth in this story”.

Fighting in the northeast has raged and AFP journalists heard artillery exchanges in frontline Kupiansk on Monday, as traumatised civilians headed out of the town now mainly in Ukrainian hands.

The streets were strewn with broken glass, spent cartridge casings and the discarded remains of ration packs issued by both forces.

Most of the fire was outgoing, with Ukrainian tanks and artillery targeting Russian positions on the west side of the town, over a mess of broken bridges. A column of smoke rose in the distance.

At the entrance to the town, cowering from the sounds of Ukrainian tank shells passing overhead towards Russian lines, civilians gathered to hitch rides or join buses to head out into safer Ukrainian territory. 

“It was impossible to stay where we were living,” said 56-year-old Lyudmyla, who braved the constant crack of shells to cross the Oskil river from the disputed east bank to the relative safety of the west.

“There was incoming fire not just every day, but literally every hour. It’s very tough there, on the other bank of the river.”

In his address to the nation on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russians were “panicking” as his forces held recaptured territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

– ‘Lost a lot of blood’ –

Russian-backed authorities in east Ukraine said a “punitive” strike by Kyiv’s forces had killed more than a dozen people and wounded more in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk.

The rebel head of the region claimed the strike was “deliberate” and said it would “not go unpunished”.

A court in the neighbouring rebel-held region of Lugansk meanwhile sentenced two employees of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to 13 years on treason charges.

OSCE chairman Zbigniew Rau condemned the “unjustifiable” detention of the mission’s members since the outbreak of the war, calling it “nothing but pure political theatre… inhumane and repugnant”.

Ukrainian civilians in the Kharkiv region have recounted months of brutality under Russian occupation.

In Kupiansk, Mykhailo Chindey told AFP he had been tortured on suspicion of supplying targeting coordinates to Ukrainian forces.

“One person was holding my hand and another one was beating my arm with a metal stick. They were beating me up two hours almost every day,” he told AFP. 

“I lost consciousness at some point. I lost a lot of blood. They hit my heels, back, legs and kidneys.”

Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency, Energoatom, said Russia struck the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant overnight, with a “powerful explosion” just 300 metres (985 feet) from its reactors.

The strike damaged more than 100 windows at the station, but the reactors were not damaged, Energoatom said, publishing photos of glass shattered around blown-out frames.

It also released images of what it said was a two-metre-deep crater from where the missile landed. No staff were wounded, it said.

– ‘Russia endangers the whole world’ –

Attacks around Ukrainian nuclear facilities have spurred calls from Kyiv and its Western allies to de-militarise surrounding areas.

Europe’s largest atomic facility — the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Russian-held territory in Ukraine — has become a hot spot for concerns after tit-for-tat claims of attacks.

The Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine, where the Pivdennoukrainsk plant is located, is close to the front line of a Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Russian forces have continued to shell Ukrainian-held towns near the front lines.

The UN’s atomic agency deployed a monitoring team to the site in early September after new fighting.

“Russia endangers the whole world. We have to stop it before it’s too late,” Zelensky said early Monday.

Ukraine will be “very high on the agenda” when world leaders formally begin meeting in New York on Tuesday for the United Nations General Assembly, said the European Union’s foreign policy chief.

“There are many other problems, we know, but the war in Ukraine has been sending shockwaves around the world,” Josep Borrell said after meeting EU foreign ministers on the eve of the UN gathering, which Zelensky is to address by video.

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The United Nations’ massive annual summit returns in person Tuesday to a world divided by multiple crises starting with Ukraine.

After two years of pandemic restrictions and video addresses, the UN General Assembly is again asking leaders to come in person if they wish to speak — with a sole exception made for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But the death of Queen Elizabeth II disrupted the summit anew. President Joe Biden of the United States, by tradition the second speaker on the first day, will instead speak on Wednesday.

The first day will feature French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leaders of the two largest economies of the European Union, which has mobilized to impose tough sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“This year, Ukraine will be very high on the agenda. It will be unavoidable,” top EU diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters in New York.

“There are many other problems, we know. But the war in Ukraine has been sending shock waves around the world.”

But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been urging leaders not to forget other priorities such as education, the topic of a special summit on Monday.

“Education is in a deep crisis. Instead of being the great enabler, education is fast becoming the great divide,” Guterres told the summit.

He warned that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on learning, with poor students lacking technology at a particular disadvantage, and conflicts further disrupting schools.

In a report earlier this month, the UN Development Programme said Covid has set back humanity’s progress by five years.

– Talks between rivals –

Other leaders to speak Tuesday include Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has staked out ground as a broker between Russia and Ukraine, including through a deal to ship out badly needed grain to the world.

Erdogan is also expected to meet in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, a dramatic rebound in relations after the Turkish leader’s strident criticism of the Jewish state’s treatment of Palestinians.

In the type of last-minute diplomacy common at previous UN sessions, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken convened a first meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia since a flare-up in fighting.

“Strong, sustainable diplomatic engagement is the best path for everyone,” Blinken told them.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was visiting despite a hostile reaction from the United States.

He met Monday with his French counterpart, Catherine Colonna, who urged Russia to allow a security zone outside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose occupation by Moscow has raised mounting concerns.

Also high on the agenda for the UN week will be Iran, whose hardline president, Ebrahim Raisi, is traveling to the General Assembly for the first time and will meet Tuesday with French President Emmanuel Macron.

In a US television interview ahead of his arrival, Raisi said that Iran wanted “guarantees” before returning to a nuclear deal that former president Donald Trump trashed in 2018.

“We cannot trust the Americans because of the behavior that we have already seen from them. That is why if there is no guarantee, there is no trust,” he told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” program.

Biden supports a return to the 2015 agreement, under which Iran drastically scaled back nuclear work in return for promises of sanctions relief.

But the Biden administration says it is impossible in the US system to promise what a future president would do.

“There is no better offer for Iran,” Colonna said ahead of the meeting with Macron.

“It’s up to them to make a decision,” she said.

Raisi can expect to be dogged by protests during his visit including by exile groups that have called for his arrest over mass executions of opponents a decade after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Hurricane Fiona dumped torrential rain on the Dominican Republic and left one person there dead on Monday after triggering major flooding in Puerto Rico and widespread power blackouts across both Caribbean islands.

The storm strengthened to a Category Two hurricane late Monday, said the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), which forecast continuing rains and possible new catastrophic floods during the night in both Puerto Rico and the eastern Dominican Republic.

Red alerts were in effect in seven of the island’s 32 provinces — down from 18 earlier in the day — with more than 12,000 people sheltering in safe areas, according to emergency services.

One man died in the storm while cutting down a tree in his home as a precautionary measure, authorities said, without giving further details. 

Several roads were flooded or cut off by falling trees or electric poles around the Dominican resort of Punta Cana where the electricity was knocked out, an AFP journalist on the scene said.

President Luis Abinader declared three eastern provinces to be disaster zones: La Altagracia — home to Punta Cana — El Seibo and Hato Mayor.

Footage from local media showed residents of the east coast town of Higuey waist-deep in water, trying to salvage personal belongings.

“It came through at high speed,” Vicente Lopez, in the Punta Cana beach of Bibijagua told AFP, bemoaning the destroyed businesses in the area.

Fiona was packing maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per hour (155 kilometers per hour), according to the NHC, which expected it to strengthen Tuesday to a Category Three storm — making it this season’s first major Atlantic hurricane.

After passing close to Turks and Caicos late Monday or early Tuesday, the storm is expected to track north later in the week, out into the ocean — although it could come perilously close to tiny Bermuda.

In Puerto Rico — where the rain was still beating down — US President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance. 

— ‘They were crying’ —

Governor Pedro Pierluisi said the storm had caused catastrophic damage since Sunday, with some areas facing more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rainfall.

On Monday afternoon, Nelly Marrero made her way back to her home in Toa Baja, in the north of the US island territory, to clear out the mud that surged inside after she evacuated a day earlier.

“Thanks to God, I have food and water,” Marrero — who lost everything when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico five years ago — told AFP by telephone.

Hearing the flood alert ring out, Marrero headed out into the rain with her daughter and three infant grandchildren, seeking refuge at a relative’s house.

“It was very difficult with the babies — they were crying, they didn’t understand what was going on,” she said.

Across Puerto Rico, Fiona caused landslides, blocked roads and toppled trees, power lines and bridges, Pierluisi said.

A man was killed as an indirect result of the power blackout — burned to death while trying to fill his generator, according to authorities.

The governor said Fiona had caused “unprecedented” flooding and that more rain was expected “throughout the island today and tomorrow”.

Most of Puerto Rico, an island of three million people, was without power, but electricity had been restored for about 100,000 customers on Monday, the governor said.

The hurricane has also left around 800,000 people without drinking water as a result of power outages and flooded rivers, officials said.

“We are without electricity and water,” Elena Santiago, an anaesthesiologist at the Mennonite hospital in Aibonito told AFP. 

“The hospital is operating with a generator. Only emergencies are being attended to.

– Blackout problems –

Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category One hurricane, at the lowest end of the five-tier Saffir-Simpson scale.

Before that, the storm had caused one fatality in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe, when Fiona was still classified as a tropical storm.

After years of financial woes and recession, Puerto Rico in 2017 declared the largest bankruptcy ever by a local US administration. 

Later that year, the double hit from two Hurricanes, Irma and Maria, added to the misery, devastating the electrical grid on the island — which has suffered from major infrastructure problems for years.

The grid was privatized in June 2021 in an effort to resolve the problem of blackouts, but the issue has persisted, and the entire island lost power earlier this year.

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