AFP UK

A Mozart sonata that can calm epileptic brain activity may get its theraputic power thanks to melodies that create a sense of surprise, according to a study published Thursday. 

The research on 16 patients hospitalised with epilepsy that did not respond to medication has bolstered hopes that music could be used for new non-invasive treatments. 

“Our ultimate dream is to define an ‘anti-epileptic’ music genre and use music to improve the lives of those with epilepsy,” said Robert Quon of Dartmouth College who co-authored the study published in Scientific reports.

Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major K448 is known for its effects on cognition and other brain activity, but researchers are still seeking to understand why.

In this study, scientists played the piece for patients equipped with brain implant sensors to monitor the occurrence of IEDs — brief but harmful brain events suffered by epileptics between seizures. 

They found IEDs decreased after 30 seconds of listening, with significant effects in parts of the brain associated with emotion. 

When they compared the response to the structure of the work, they found the effects increased during transitions between longer musical phrases — ones that lasted ten seconds or more.

Quon says the findings suggest that longer phrases may create a sense of anticipation — and then answer it in an unexpected way “creating a positive emotional response”.

The so-called ‘Mozart effect’ has been the subject of research since scientists in 1993 claimed people who had listened to K448 for 10 minutes showed improved spatial reasoning skills.

Subsequent research has has tested K448’s effects on various brain functions and disorders, including epilepsy.

But the authors said this is the first to break down observations based on the song’s structure, which they described as “organised by contrasting melodic themes, each with its own underlying harmony”.

As with previous studies, patients showed no change in brain activity when exposed to other auditory stimuli or pieces of music that were not K448 — even those from their preferred musical genres.

The patients in this study listened to 90 seconds of a Wagner work characterised by changing harmonies but “no recognisable melody”. 

Listening to Wagner did not produce any calming effect, leading researchers to home in on melody as important in K448.  

The study notes further testing could use other carefully-selected pieces of music for comparison to further pinpoint the sonata’s theraputic components.

A new climate change report out Thursday shows that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be impossible without immediate, large-scale emissions cuts, the UN chief said.

The United in Science 2021 report, published by a range of UN agencies and scientific partners just weeks before the COP26 climate summit, said climate change and its impacts were accelerating.

And a temporary reduction in carbon emissions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had done nothing to slow the relentless warming, it found.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, struck at the COP21 summit, called for capping global warming at well below 2 C above the pre-industrial level, and ideally closer to 1.5 C.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the report’s findings were “an alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are” in meeting the Paris goals.

“This year has seen fossil fuel emissions bounce back, greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to rise and severe human-enhanced weather events that have affected health, lives and livelihoods on every continent,” he wrote in the report’s foreword.

“Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 C will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet.”

COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, will be held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12.

– Pandemic effects –

Fossil greenhouse gas emissions peaked in 2019, shrinking by 5.6 percent in 2020 due to the Covid-19 restrictions and economic slowdown.

But outside aviation and sea transport, global emissions, averaged across the first seven months of 2021, are now at about the same levels as in 2019.

And the report said concentrations of the major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — continued to increase in 2020 and the first half of 2021.

Overall emissions reductions in 2020 likely shrank the annual increase of the atmospheric concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases, but the effect was “too small to be distinguished from natural variability”, it said.

The global average mean surface temperature for 2017 to 2021 — with this year’s data based on averages up to June — is estimated to be 1.06 C to 1.26 C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels, the report said.

The global mean near-surface temperature was meanwhile expected to be at least 1 C over pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years, with a 40-percent chance it could climb to 1.5 C higher in one of those years, it said.

Guterres said the world had reached a “tipping point”, and the report showed “we really are out of time”.

– Net-zero goal –

World Meteorological Organization chief Petteri Taalas warned that in the worst case scenario, sea levels could rise by up to two metres before 2100 if the Antarctic glacier melts more quickly than expected.

The report said that in 2020, an estimated 267 million people — four percent of the world’s population — were living within two metres above sea level.

Mohamed Nasheed, the Maldives former president and current speaker of parliament, told a meeting in Geneva that low-lying island states were now “under stress to the extent that we might not have an island, or a country”. 

The report said the increasing number of countries committing to net-zero emission goals was encouraging, with about 63 percent of global emissions now covered by such targets.

But, it said, far greater action was needed by 2030 to keep those targets feasible and credible.

Calling for all countries to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, Guterres said: “I expect all these issues to be addressed, and resolved, at COP26.”

“Our future is at stake.”

China has fully vaccinated more than one billion people against the coronavirus — 71 percent of its population — official figures showed Thursday.

The country where the virus was first detected has mostly curbed the virus within its borders, but is racing to get the vast majority of its population vaccinated as a new outbreak flickers in the southeast.

“As of September 15, 2.16 billion vaccine doses have been administered nationwide,” said National Health Commission spokesman Mi Feng at a press briefing. 

Chinese health authorities said late last month that 890 million people in China had been fully vaccinated and two billion doses administered. 

The government has not publicly announced a target for vaccination coverage, but top virologist Zhong Nanshan said last month that the country is likely to have 80 percent of its population inoculated by the end of the year, reaching herd immunity.

China is currently battling an outbreak of the Delta variant in the southeastern province of Fujian that has infected almost 200 people so far in three cities, dozens of whom are schoolchildren.

The Fujian cluster is the biggest rebound in weeks and comes after the country declared the Delta variant under control, in a test of China’s “zero-case” approach to the pandemic.

China reported 49 new domestic transmissions on Thursday, the vast majority in Fujian.

Authorities said the cluster’s suspected patient zero was a man who had recently returned from Singapore to the city of Putian, and developed symptoms after completing a 14-day quarantine and initially testing negative for the virus.

The man’s 12-year-old son and a classmate were among the first patients detected in the cluster last week, shortly after the new school term began.

The variant then raced through classrooms, infecting more than 36 children including 8 kindergartners, city authorities said Tuesday, in the first major school-linked spread the country has seen since the start of the pandemic.

Despite rolling out its vaccine campaign to include minors aged 12-17 in July, most young children remain unvaccinated in China, sparking fears that the latest Fujian outbreak could hit the most vulnerable people in the country disproportionately.

Authorities have rushed to quash the outbreak with targeted lockdowns, travel restrictions, mass testing and school closures before the upcoming October 1 public holiday, a week-long tourism peak.

Chinese vaccines have nearly 60 percent efficacy against the Delta strain, with antibodies rising with a booster shot, Zhong previously said.

The country is also racing to produce its own mRNA vaccine — whose technology is believed to be more effective against the Delta variant — with candidates by state-owned Sinopharm and domestic firm Walvax Biotechnology currently in development.

Life-sized carvings of camels and horses hewn into rock faces in Saudi Arabia could be around 7,000 years old, according to new research that suggests they are significantly older than previously thought. 

The 21 reliefs, which were only recently discovered, are heavily eroded and were initially estimated in 2018 to be some 2,000 years old based on similarities with artworks found in Petra in Jordan. 

But the new research by Saudi and European institutions used a variety of different methods, including analysing tool marks and erosion patterns as well as x-ray technology, and suggests the reliefs are around 7,000 to 8,000 years old.   

This would mean that the area of carvings, known as the Camel Site, “is likely home to the oldest surviving large-scale (naturalistic) animal reliefs in the world,” the study said. 

In the era that it was created, the region would have looked very different to the arid landscape of today, with a savannah-like grassland dotted with lakes and trees, where wild camels roamed and were hunted. 

“We can now link the Camel Site to a period in prehistory when the pastoral populations of northern Arabia created rock art and built large stone structures called mustatil,” the authors said in a press release issued by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 

“The Camel Site is therefore part of a wider pattern of activity where groups frequently came together to establish and mark symbolic places.”

– ‘Annual gathering’ –

The research, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Wednesday, was carried out by the Saudi Ministry of Culture, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, France’s CNRS research institutes and the King Saud University.

The team included a stone mason, who estimated that each relief would have taken up to 15 days of carving to complete. 

The authors, who said the reliefs are part of a wider culture of rock art in the region depicting life-sized animals, suggest the works could have been a communal effort that could have been part of an annual gathering of a Neolithic group.  

They said references to the mating season in the sculptures could mean they were symbolically linked to the annual cycles of wet and dry seasons. 

Given the extensive erosion of the carvings, the researchers said efforts to secure the site were urgent. 

“Time is running out on the preservation of the Camel Site and on the potential identification of other relief sites as damage will increase and more reliefs will be lost to erosion with each passing year,” said lead author Maria Guagnin, of the Max Planck Institute.

In a landmark victory for Indonesian environment campaigners, a court on Thursday ordered President Joko Widodo to clean up Jakarta’s notorious air pollution, ruling that the leader and other top officials had been negligent in protecting citizens.

The capital and its surroundings form a megacity of about 30 million people, which routinely ranks among the most polluted cities in the world.

Experts have warned for years about the threat posed by Jakarta’s smog to the health of residents, especially children.

A group of 32 activists and citizens impacted by pollution had filed the lawsuit two years ago, accusing Widodo, as well as his ministers for health, home and environment, and the governor of Jakarta, of negligence over the state of the city’s environment.

The officials were found to have “violated the law”, presiding judge Saifuddin Zuhri of the Central Jakarta District Court said, ordering them to tighten environmental regulations and enforcement.

They asked the officials to especially crack down on the pollution generated by vehicles and the coal-fired power plants around Jakarta, including with sanctions for violations.

The judges also told authorities to improve air monitoring systems and make pollution data public.

The petitioners had not asked the court for any monetary compensation.

Ayu Eza Tiara, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said that the defendants must accept their “defeat” and comply with the ruling.

There was no immediate response from Widodo or the other officials found negligent by the court. 

Outdoor air pollution causes an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths around the world, hitting poor and middle-income countries such as Indonesia hardest, according to the World Health Organization.

Indonesian activists say standards have improved in recent years, but are far from what is needed. They have also warned that smog can make the effects of Covid-19 worse, in addition to aggravating asthma and other respiratory problems.

Jakarta residents got some respite when pandemic restrictions reduced traffic, but air pollution has slowly returned.

Air pollution is one of several environmental issues facing the Indonesian capital.

It is also one of the world’s fastest-sinking cities because of excessive groundwater extraction.

The government in 2019 announced plans to move the administrative capital of the country to a new location on Borneo island to reduce stress on Jakarta.

A new climate change report out Thursday shows that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will be impossible without immediate, large-scale emissions cuts, the UN chief said.

The United in Science 2021 report, published by a range of UN agencies and scientific partners just weeks before the COP26 climate summit, said climate change and its impacts were accelerating.

And a temporary reduction in carbon emissions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had done nothing to slow the relentless warming, it found.

The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, struck at the COP21 summit, called for capping global warming at well below 2 C above the pre-industrial level, and ideally closer to 1.5 C.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the report’s findings were “an alarming appraisal of just how far off course we are” in meeting the Paris goals.

“This year has seen fossil fuel emissions bounce back, greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to rise and severe human-enhanced weather events that have affected health, lives and livelihoods on every continent,” he wrote in the report’s foreword.

“Unless there are immediate, rapid and large-scale reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, limiting warming to 1.5 C will be impossible, with catastrophic consequences for people and the planet.”

COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, will be held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12.

– Pandemic effects –

Fossil greenhouse gas emissions peaked in 2019, shrinking by 5.6 percent in 2020 due to the Covid-19 restrictions and economic slowdown.

But outside aviation and sea transport, global emissions, averaged across the first seven months of 2021, are now at about the same levels as in 2019.

And the report said concentrations of the major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — continued to increase in 2020 and the first half of 2021.

Overall emissions reductions in 2020 likely shrank the annual increase of the atmospheric concentrations of long-lived greenhouse gases, but the effect was “too small to be distinguished from natural variability”, it said.

The global average mean surface temperature for 2017 to 2021 — with this year’s data based on averages up to June — is estimated to be 1.06 C to 1.26 C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels, the report said.

The global mean near-surface temperature was meanwhile expected to be at least 1 C over pre-industrial levels in each of the coming five years, with a 40-percent chance it could climb to 1.5 C higher in one of those years, it said.

Guterres said the world had reached a “tipping point”, and the report showed “we really are out of time”.

– Net-zero goal –

The all-time Canadian heat record was broken in June when a high of 49.6 C was recorded in Lytton, British Columbia.

Though the Pacific Northwest 2021 heatwave was a rare or extremely rare event, it would be “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change”, the report said.

As for the severe flooding in Germany in July, the report said with high confidence that human-induced climate change “increased the likelihood and intensity of such an event to occur”.

The report said the increasing number of countries committing to net-zero emission goals was encouraging, with about 63 percent of global emissions now covered by such targets.

But, it said, far greater action was needed by 2030 to keep those targets feasible and credible.

Calling for all countries to commit to net zero emissions by 2050, Guterres said: “I expect all these issues to be addressed, and resolved, at COP26.”

“Our future is at stake.”

Two people were killed and dozens injured when a shallow earthquake struck southwestern China in the early hours of Thursday, triggering the second-highest level of emergency response by rescuers in Sichuan province.

The quake struck Luxian county before dawn on Thursday around 120 kilometres southwest of the sprawling megacity of Chongqing, which along with its surrounding area is home to around 30 million people.

The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 5.4 but the China Earthquake Networks Centre measured it at magnitude 6.0. Both put it at a shallow depth of 10 kilometres (six miles).

National earthquake authorities said the seismic event left “two dead, three seriously injured and 57 slightly injured.”

Dozens of houses in Luxian had collapsed and many others were damaged, while communications to tens of thousands of people had been disrupted, authorities said.

Live footage from Luxian by state broadcaster CCTV showed workers climbing up ladders in pouring rain to remove hazardous debris hanging off buildings, including half-broken panes of glass.

Another video from the Sichuan Daily showed students evacuating their dormitories in the dark, clutching umbrellas and wearing backpacks.

Authorities downplayed the immediate threat of a larger aftershock.

“It is unlikely there will be a larger earthquake in the area in the near future, but aftershocks will continue for some time,” Du Bin, deputy chief of the Sichuan Earthquake Administration, told reporters.

State-run CGTN confirmed the death toll, sharing security camera footage showing TVs and refrigerators shaking on the walls of houses as the quake struck, as ornaments smashed onto floors and cracks ran through buildings.

Bricks were strewn across roads and trees felled in some areas as firefighters clawed through the rubble of collapsed houses, the images showed.

Residents were urged to stay outside of their homes, state media reported, although images showed there was little sense of wider panic by residents in an area of high seismic activity.

The USGS said that “significant damage is likely and the disaster is potentially widespread”, in a preliminary assessment.

Multiple power lines had been disrupted and 62,000 households were hit by power cuts after the earthquake, the local government in Sichuan said in a Weibo post.

Traffic on highways passing through the area has been rerouted to make way for emergency vehicles and to avoid damaged roads, the local government said.

China is regularly hit by earthquakes, especially in its mountainous western and southwestern regions.

A powerful 7.9-magnitude quake in Sichuan province in 2008 left 87,000 people dead or missing.

Among them were thousands of children, killed when poorly constructed school buildings collapsed, but the government failed to release an exact number of dead as the issue took on a political dimension.

Police detained activists who attempted to count the number of children who had died and mark the buildings that collapsed amid suspicions of poor construction.

Thursday’s quake comes months after a series of strong earthquakes shook sparsely populated areas in northwest and southwest China in May, killing at least two people and injuring dozens.

Ebola survivors can relapse and trigger outbreaks at least five years after infection, and long-term follow-up of former patients is needed to prevent devastating flare-ups, according to new research.

Scientists already knew Ebola could lie dormant in survivors, who test negative because the virus is in tissue rather than circulating in the blood.

But analysis of an outbreak this year in Guinea, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, found these “virus reservoirs” appear able to awaken and cause new infections and transmission years on.

To trace the source of the Guinea outbreak, which involved 16 confirmed cases, 12 of whom died, researchers analysed the genomes of samples from several patients.

Ebola outbreaks are usually thought to result from the virus “spilling” from an animal host to a human.

But the analysis showed the Guinea strain was virtually identical to that from a 2013-16 wave.

If the virus had been circulating actively in the community since then, it would have accumulated a certain number of mutations as it spread.

Instead, the 2021 virus had just 12 changes, “far fewer than would be expected… during six years of sustained human-to-human transmission”.

That strongly suggests the source was a reactivated virus that had lain dormant in a survivor, said Alpha Keita, a researcher at the University of Montpellier who led the study.

“This is the longest known time between the declared end of an epidemic and a viral resurgence,” he told AFP.

“It’s a new paradigm: the possibility that transmission from an individual infected during a previous epidemic could be the source of a new outbreak.”

How and why a dormant Ebola virus suddenly awakens and sickens a person remains something of a mystery, though there are some tantalising clues.

Sometimes a spike in Ebola antibodies can be detected in survivors at a given time — a possible sign that the body is responding to a resurgent virus.

Around two-thirds of Ebola survivors have high antibody levels even five years after infection, but “the question to pose is what happens if there’s a resurgence in the people whose immunity has dropped”, said Keita.

– Fears of stigma –

The study’s findings have “considerable implications for public health and care of survivors of Ebola”, said Robert F. Garry of Tulane University’s School of Medicine.

“Humans can now be added to the list of intermediate hosts that can serve as long-term Ebola virus ‘reservoirs’ and trigger new outbreaks,” he wrote in a review commissioned by Nature.

There is a need to prioritise healthcare workers for vaccination and monitor Ebola survivors for signs of a flare-up, he added.

Keita said a broader definition of “Ebola survivor” is now needed, beyond those who battled through symptoms.

Even asymptomatic individuals “could be the starting point” for an outbreak, he warned.

“We need a real, long-term follow-up protocol… so we can catch resurgence in previously infected people in time.”

He cautioned though that follow-up must be done cautiously to avoid ostracisation of survivors, a point echoed by Trudie Lang, director of Oxford University’s Global Health Network.

“These people are considered heroes by some for surviving,” she said.

“Yet (they) could also be stigmatised and excluded if there is a fear of these individuals presenting a risk.”

Lang, who was not involved in the study, said it offered “impressive new findings”.

The study illustrates “what we still do not understand, but really need to learn, if we are to tackle these dangerous threats,” she added.

Going forward, Keita wants to see work on what causes viral resurgence and research on eradicating Ebola reservoirs in survivors.

“We have to consider Ebola as a global problem,” he said.

“Each individual exposed to the virus who had a strong serological (antibody) response could be the starting point for a new resurgence.”

All leaders and diplomats attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week will have to provide proof of vaccination, the city government said Wednesday, sparking anger from Russia.

Delegates must be vaccinated to enter the debate hall, the mayor’s office told the assembly president in a letter dated September 9, but Moscow queried whether New York had the authority to enforce the mandate.

Attendees must also be vaccinated if they want to eat or exercise indoors, the letter added.

More than one hundred leaders including US President Joe Biden, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have announced they plan to attend in person.

Others will make an address via videolink.

Bolsonaro, who had the virus last year, has said he would be the “last Brazilian” to get vaccinated.

His office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from AFP regarding the New York announcement.

New York began enforcing a vaccine mandate on Monday, requiring proof of at least one shot for many indoor activities, including restaurants and entertainment venues.

The letter signed by New York City’s health commissioner and confirmed by his spokesman said the UN debate hall was classified as a “convention center,” meaning all attendees must be vaccinated.

“They must also show proof of vaccination prior to dining, drinking or exercising indoors on the UN campus, and in order to partake in all of New York City’s wonderful entertainment, dining and fitness activities,” he said.

– ‘Clearly discriminatory measure’ –

But Russia’s ambassador requested an urgent meeting of the General Assembly to discuss the move.

Vassily Nebenzia wrote to assembly president Abdulla Shahid Wednesday saying he had been “very much surprised and disappointed” by a letter Shahid wrote to members in which he supported the proof of vaccination requirement.

“We strongly object that only people with a proof of vaccination should be admitted to the GA hall,” Nebenzia wrote in the letter seen by AFP.

He described it as “a clearly discriminatory measure,” adding that preventing delegates to access the hall was a “clear violation of the UN charter.”

New York accepts all vaccines that have been approved by either the World Health Organization or America’s federal Food and Drug Administration.

Nebenzia said the “rights of people who have received vaccines that are not approved by the CDC” must also be taken into consideration.

He added that the agreement between the United States and the UN over the world body’s headquarters prohibited US actors from regulating the running of the UN.

The city’s letter also reminded diplomats that New York state requires everyone to wear masks on public transport.

“New York City strongly encourages universal mask use indoors regardless of vaccination status,” the note added.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement that the city would set up a pop-up vaccination site at the UN headquarters next week offering free single-dose Johnson & Johnson shots.

The high-level week of the 76th session of the General Assembly starts on Tuesday and finishes the following Monday.

It will be a combined in-person and remote event after last year’s UNGA took place virtually because of the pandemic.

Dozens and sometimes hundreds of people usually accompany leaders on foreign trips but because of coronavirus each delegation is only allowed seven people into the UN headquarters and only four into the hall. 

All leaders and diplomats attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week will have to provide proof of vaccination, the city government said Wednesday, sparking anger from Russia.

Delegates must be vaccinated to enter the debate hall, the mayor’s office told the assembly president in a letter dated September 9, but Moscow queried whether New York had the authority to enforce the mandate.

Attendees must also be vaccinated if they want to eat or exercise indoors, the letter added.

More than one hundred leaders including US President Joe Biden, Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have announced they plan to attend in person.

Others will make an address via videolink.

Bolsonaro, who had the virus last year, has said he would be the “last Brazilian” to get vaccinated.

His office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from AFP regarding the New York announcement.

New York began enforcing a vaccine mandate on Monday, requiring proof of at least one shot for many indoor activities, including restaurants and entertainment venues.

The letter signed by New York City’s health commissioner and confirmed by his spokesman said the UN debate hall was classified as a “convention center,” meaning all attendees must be vaccinated.

“They must also show proof of vaccination prior to dining, drinking or exercising indoors on the UN campus, and in order to partake in all of New York City’s wonderful entertainment, dining and fitness activities,” he said.

– ‘Clearly discriminatory measure’ –

But Russia’s ambassador requested an urgent meeting of the General Assembly to discuss the move.

Vassily Nebenzia wrote to assembly president Abdulla Shahid Wednesday saying he had been “very much surprised and disappointed” by a letter Shahid wrote to members in which he supported the proof of vaccination requirement.

“We strongly object that only people with a proof of vaccination should be admitted to the GA hall,” Nebenzia wrote in the letter seen by AFP.

He described it as “a clearly discriminatory measure,” adding that preventing delegates to access the hall was a “clear violation of the UN charter.”

New York accepts all vaccines that have been approved by either the World Health Organization or America’s federal Food and Drug Administration.

Nebenzia said the “rights of people who have received vaccines that are not approved by the CDC” must also be taken into consideration.

He added that the agreement between the United States and the UN over the world body’s headquarters prohibited US actors from regulating the running of the UN.

The city’s letter also reminded diplomats that New York state requires everyone to wear masks on public transport.

“New York City strongly encourages universal mask use indoors regardless of vaccination status,” the note added.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement that the city would set up a pop-up vaccination site at the UN headquarters next week offering free single-dose Johnson & Johnson shots.

The high-level week of the 76th session of the General Assembly starts on Tuesday and finishes the following Monday.

It will be a combined in-person and remote event after last year’s UNGA took place virtually because of the pandemic.

Dozens and sometimes hundreds of people usually accompany leaders on foreign trips but because of coronavirus each delegation is only allowed seven people into the UN headquarters and only four into the hall.