9 September - As the UN General Assembly opened its 80th session on Tuesday, new President Annalena Baerbock called on Member States to unite in addressing global crises ¨C from war and poverty to climate change ¨C taking her oath on the original 1945 Charter and pledging to lead with courage and inclusiveness.
This will be ¡°no ordinary session,¡± she pledged, with the multilateral system beset by overlapping crises and heightened disunity.
A former foreign minister of Germany, Ms. Baerbock becomes only the fifth woman in history to .
In a symbolic gesture linking past to present, she swore her oath on the UN¡¯s founding Charter from the San Francisco Conference in 1945 ¨C and accepted the Assembly¡¯s ornate gavel from her predecessor, Phil¨¦mon Yang of Cameroon.
The Charter itself, preserved by the US National Archives, has returned to UN Headquarters for the first time in decades.
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