The world is facing “multiple and interlinked global crises,” the UN chief told journalists in Austria during a joint press conference with Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. Expressing his “deep gratitude” for the country’s “unwavering commitment to multilateralism,” Secretary-General António Guterres said that support and commitment are “more critical today than ever”. “In our time – a time of conflicts, climate crisis and COVID-19 – there is simply no sustainable alternative to dialogue, international cooperation, and global solutions,” he said.

Moldova, the most fragile of war-torn Ukraine’s neighbors, needs and deserves massive support to match its generosity as a recipient of nearly half a million refugees, and to preserve its own stability, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said. Speaking at a press conference alongside Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilița in the Moldovan capital of Chisinau, the UN chief said: “Moldova is not just another country receiving refugees … I am deeply concerned about the continuation and possible spread of the war Russia is waging in Ukraine, and by the impact it is having not only in the region but around the world.”  

Briefing the Security Council on his shuttle diplomacy last week in Russia and Ukraine, Secretary-General António Guterres declared that he “did not mince words” during meetings with Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy, on the need to end the brutal conflict. “I said the same thing in Moscow as I did in Kyiv…Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a violation of its territorial integrity and of the Charter of the United Nations,” he told the Ambassadors. “It must end for the sake of the people of Ukraine, Russia, and the entire world…the cycle of death, destruction, dislocation and disruption must stop.”

The “enormous challenges” faced by the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, which include a continuing terrorist insurgency, need to be recognized by the international community to create what the UN Secretary-General has called a “state of hope and a state of reality”, in a region which he said did not live up to its reputation for “terrorism, violence, displacement or despair.” António Guterres made the remarks after visiting a UN-supported reintegration centre for children who have been involved with armed groups, in Maiduguri, the capital and the largest city in Borno State.

The number of terrorist attacks in the Sahel region of Africa “continues to increase” according to the UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who arrived in the capital of Niger, Niamey, on Monday, the second of three countries he is visiting on a tour of West Africa to mark the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Speaking after meeting the President of Niger, Mohamed Bazoum, he said that the “international community must realize” that terrorism is “not just a regional or African issue, but one that threatens the whole world.”