As world leaders prepare to gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, conflicts are burning from Ukraine to the Middle East and Sudan. These wars may have different origins, but their consequences are increasingly crossing borders, testing alliances, disrupting trade and drawing other countries into their orbit. So, how will these tensions play out at this year's General Assembly?
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TRANSCRIPT
Every September, the United Nations General Assembly offers leaders a stage on which to describe the state of the world.
This year, the description is unlikely to be reassuring.
The wars in Gaza, Iran and Ukraine remain unresolved, essential shipping routes have been disrupted, and the international institutions established to contain conflict are themselves under pressure.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres says the meeting is taking place as global power and influence are being reshaped.
“World leaders will be gathering at the United Nations in an era of deep uncertainty. At the same time, power is shifting. The world is changing. And our institutions must change with it. But updating our structures can never mean abandoning our principles. It must mean applying those principles with even greater determination.”
By the time world leaders arrive in New York for the General Assembly meeting set to begin on 22 September, they will be confronting conflicts that remain separate, but are becoming increasingly difficult to contain within national or regional borders.
And even before the General Debate begins, one of the United Nations' most basic principles is already being tested - that world leaders can sit under the same roof and talk.
For the second year in a row, the Trump administration has denied Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a US visa.
Deputy Palestinian Foreign Minister Omar Awadallah says Washington is breaching its responsibilities as host of the United Nations.
"We reject this decision. ... The State of Palestine and the Palestinian leadership are going to New York to the General Assembly. No one is going as a tourist or a visit to the United States. ... Trying to silence the Palestinian leadership that is seeking to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the Arab-Israeli conflict by resorting to the UN as the body responsible for resolving questions peacefully, is something unacceptable."
The General Assembly has voted to let Mr Abbas address the meeting by video.
Yet Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will attend in person, despite Iran being at war with the United States.
That conflict has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, while a drone attack has closed Saudi Arabia’s alternative oil pipeline to the Red Sea.
And with Houthi forces threatening the route through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, Mr Guterres says preventing further escalation must come first.
"At this crucial moment in the Middle East, de-escalation must be priority one, priority two and priority three. All parties must cease any actions that harm civilians and ensure that humanitarian operations can proceed safely and without obstruction. Navigational rights and freedoms in and around the Straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab must be fully restored and respected by all, in accordance with international law. The only path forward is de-escalation, diplomacy and dialogue.”
Also expected to attend in New York is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli prime minister, referring to him as a war criminal and questioning whether International Criminal Court warrants could be enforced in New York.
Israel's UN Ambassador Danny Danon says the Mayor of New York is antisemitic.
"Next week, Prime Minister Netanyahu will proudly address the General Assembly. He will do so despite the threats, the incitement and the anti-Semitic rhetoric we have heard from the Mayor of the City of New York (Zohran Mamdani). ... He is inciting, calling for people to demonstrate against our prime Minister. But none of that will stop us. Prime Minister Netanyahu will come to speak about the challenges facing Israel, but also about the opportunities we have in the region.”
One of those challenges is Gaza, where the human cost of the conflict will be highlighted only metres from where world leaders are meeting.
Across from UN headquarters, campaigners have displayed what they call the Gaza Children's Shroud, carrying the names of Palestinian children reported killed in the conflict.
Doctor Scott Hagaman is from Doctors Against Genocide, one of the groups behind it.
"We have over 15,000 names inscribed on the shroud, and when we're done, the shroud will be six feet wide and longer than a football field in length. What you see here today is only 6,000 names. It's not even one-third, not even one-third of the children who have died in Gaza."
Those figures are supplied by the organisers.
Palestine's Permanent Observer to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, says the focus must also remain on the children who are still alive.
"We cannot do anything to bring them back, but we can do a lot in order to save the one million children in the Gaza Strip today who are still alive. They need a ceasefire to be permanent and holding. They need to have humanitarian assistance, food, medicine. They need medical care."
Wars and conflict are not the only items on the agenda.
Mr Guterres is concerned that artificial intelligence is developing faster than governments can regulate it.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will take Australia’s digital-safety campaign to the meeting, after discussing child-protection measures with Apple executive chairman Tim Cook in California.
The issues may appear unrelated, but the challenge is the same: acting together when no country can manage the danger alone.
History shows that global wars begin as smaller fires, until alliances, retaliation and miscalculation draw them together.
The United Nations cannot extinguish every fire.
Its task is to stop them becoming one.
