“Here’s a little Black boy from Louisville, Kentucky, sitting in the United Nations talking to presidents of the world, why? Because I’m a good boxer,” he said at a press conference at UN Headquarters in 1979. “I needed boxing to get here. So, my purpose is to use boxing to get to people.” Devoting most…
Ahead of Zero Waste Day, marked annually on 30 March since 2022, we looked back at how that simple but heart-rending statement, a child’s plea to protect the East, echoed across the world. Long before activist Greta Thunberg launched the global Fridays for Future school strike movement in 2018, Ms. Cullis-Suzuki’s speech woke up the world…
UN rumour has it that the unofficial tradition began almost 40 years ago, when a delegate from the United Kingdom requested the floor to make a point of order at the end of an intense months-long session. The now annual tradition is flush with ribald diplomatic jocularity and acerbic wit. Watch the UK’s “poem lecture”…
“Women’s rights are human rights” has echoed throughout the UN Commission on the Status of Women for decades, including at its current session that runs from 11 to 22 March at UN Headquarters.
Ms. Pandit was a veteran politician and leader in her own right but also came from a family background steeped in politics, including her brother, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister following the country’s hard-won independence from a near century of British rule. An active Indian nationalist, she was also the first Indian woman to…
From expanding indigenous peoples’ seats at the UN table to appointing an Israeli-Palestinian orchestra co-founded by renowned scholar Edward Said as a UN Global Advocate for Cultural Understanding, here is a peek at some of what happened on this day across the decades. Zanzibar, which became independent on 10 December 1963, was admitted as the…
With its green glass and Vermont marble shimmering in the sunlight and the water of the East River, the building’s modern aesthetic was an intentional decision by the collaborating architects to symbolize change, embodying a sense of newness that sheds light on the optimistic future of the world’s nations working together as one collective body. It…
Actor Boris Karloff. Famous for his role in the film adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Mr. Karloff also acted in 130 movies, playing, as he called it, many “spine-chilling roles”. Stepping out of those roles and into his “real self”, Mr. Karloff worked with UN Radio in 1959 to record a feature on how…
Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell briefs the UN Security Council in February 2003 on evidence of Iraq’s failure to disarm. (file) This #ThrowbackThursday, we’re featuring UN Video’s visual collage of some of the most memorable moments in UN history through its Stories from the UN Archive series. Giving viewers a front-row seat, the…
This #ThrowbackThursday, we looked at his claim and what was in the vial. On 5 February 2003, Mr. Powell addressed the Council, laying out the case for the US invasion of Iraq the following month. “Every statement I make today is backed up by solid sources,” he said. “What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions….
