This Week @UN: Trump’s faltering Afrikaner program; women’s disability rights in Saudi Arabia; NPT-review marathon.
Plus: US money for “lifesaving” aid; the UN grows in Nairobi; Guterres’s “great emotion” for Africa; a new woman UN Sec-Gen candidate; Somalia’s famine risk.
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Our #1 story: How China Is Winning at the UN Without Even Trying, by Damilola Banjo
PassBlue this week:
• Cracks Are Showing in Trump’s Special ‘Refugee’ Program for Afrikaners, by Anton Ferreira (from South Africa)
• Putting Saudis on the Spot for Women’s Disability Rights in the Kafala System, op-ed by Meagan Kindrat
• Will the NPT Review End Successfully? High Barriers Stand in the Way, by Damilola Banjo
• Does Rafael Grossi, an Argentine, Also Have Italian Citizenship? Rafael Grossi, a candidate vying to succeed UN Secretary-General António Guterres by the end of the year, was nominated by Argentina. He is the director general of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, but in a previous role, he was Argentina’s ambassador to Austria, Slovenia and Slovakia. By multiple public records, Grossi is Argentine.
But he may also have Italian citizenship, according to numerous diplomatic sources and public records. Grossi did not respond to several emails sent by PassBlue requesting confirmation on whether he holds Italian citizenship. Some diplomats at the UN in New York City, who did not want to speak on the record about the secretary-general race — which currently includes five candidates — told PassBlue that Grossi has Italian citizenship. That theoretically makes him a European candidate in addition to being a candidate from South America, or what is known as the global South.
By his credentials, he is considered a candidate from Latin America and Caribbean, the region where the next UN boss is expected to come from, although the zoning rule is not formal and it has not always been followed. Yet, most diplomats abide by the UN’s geographical rotation system. (Guterres is considered a Western European secretary-general.) Additionally, there is no rule by the UN General Assembly, which set out the selection process, against a candidate having dual citizenship.
PassBlue also found that among the details appearing on Grossi’s Wikipedia page it says that he holds Italian citizenship. This information was added to the page on Dec. 28, 2025, according to a Wikipedia edit history page and Wayback Machine. Several edits were made to the Grossi account by a temporary Wikipedia account on the same day that details of his citizenship were added. The user added a birth month and day, March 12 (the year, 1961, was already included); university attended; start and end dates as an ambassador of Argentina, among other edits.
When edits are made on a Wikipedia page by an unregistered user, the platform automatically generates a temporary account, typically identified by the year it was created and randomized digits to represent the user name. These accounts are not linked to a verified identity and expire after 90 days. Wikipedia keeps the IP address of the temporary user.
PassBlue found that the temporary account that included citizenship to Grossi’s page also made a single edit to the page of Michelle Bachelet, a former president of Chile and one of Grossi’s rivals in the secretary-general race. The unidentified user inserted a date noting when Bachelet joined her political party.
Grossi has a well-documented relationship with Italy. He had Italian grandparents who immigrated to Argentina from Carbonara Scrivia, a town in the Piedmont region. This means Grossi could have gotten Italian citizenship through his grandparents in a process called jure sanguinis, Italy’s law permitting citizenship claims through an Italian-born ancestor.
Grossi is also a Commendatore of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, a decoration awarded by the Italian president. His nomination documentation submitted to the General Assembly listed honorary citizenships from two Italian municipalities, one conferred by the Capitoline Assembly of Rome in 2023 and another from Carbonara Scrivia. — DAMILOLA BANJO
Top UN news:
Monday, May 11
• Spokesperson’s briefing: In his remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new conference hall/office complex located in the UN Offices in Nairobi (UNON) compound, Secretary-General António Guterres called the project a “reaffirmation of the central role that Africa — and Kenya — play in the life and future of the United Nations.” Kenyan President William Ruto, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed and UNON Director-General Zainab Bangura attended the inauguration of the expanding site, which runs through onsite solar power and will reach energy neutrality by 2030, the UN said.
Tuesday, May 12
• Spokesperson’s briefing: The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said attacks between Ukraine and Russia “intensified again” and further from the front line after a three-day ceasefire, killing at least four civilians and injuring another 28, from May 11-12. Ukraine’s Donetsk, Dnipro and Kherson regions were among the hardest hit, with a strike on a Donetsk energy facility reportedly killing two energy workers and another in Dnipro, injuring a railroad worker. [May 15: The UN spokesperson said Guterres “is alarmed” that a UN vehicle was struck twice in Kherson city in Ukraine on May 14. The clearly marked vehicle was part of an interagency humanitarian mission, led by OCHA, that had been notified to the parties in advance, the UN said, adding that it is “working to establish the full facts surrounding this incident.”]
• María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, an ex-president of the UN General Assembly and a former minister of foreign affairs of Ecuador, has submitted a letter to the president of the General Assembly, announcing her candidacy for UN secretary-general, endorsed by Prime Minister Gaston Browne of Antigua and Barbuda.
Wednesday, May 13
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Speaking at the 10th African Union-UN high-level dialogue with the chair of the AU Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, in Ethiopia, Guterres said with “great emotion” that the summit could be his last as UN chief, but he emphasized that the organization would “support the AU fully in their initiatives and ensure that the international community understands that Africa’s success is absolutely essential for global success.” Guterres told the press later that Africa should get “fairer representation” in the Security Council: “This is not about privilege or symbolism,” he said, “[this] is about ensuring that the Council is fit for purpose and able to act with legitimacy and effectiveness.”
• Pekka Haavisto, Guterres’s personal envoy for Sudan, ended a series of consultations with government officials, Sudanese civilian parties and diplomats in Doha, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh from May 4-11, in which he communicated that there is “no military solution to the conflict in Sudan and underscored the urgent need for immediate de-escalation.” Haavisto emphasized “sustained international coordination” among regional blocs and other partnerships, including with the US, Arab nations, the AU, EU and UN, to “advance a credible political pathway led by Sudanese civilians and preserve Sudan’s unity.”
Thursday, May 14
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Guterres welcomed the US announcement of an additional $1.8 billion pledge for humanitarian work of the UN and its global partners, which he said would “reach millions of people in the most urgent crises with lifesaving support.” OCHA chief Tom Fletcher said at a May 14 press briefing (led by J.P. Freire, held with Jeremy Lewin, US undersecretary for foreign assistance, and US Ambassador Mike Waltz) that in December 2025, when the US pledged a first tranche of $2 billion, it was intended for “principled, impartial, needs‑based humanitarian action across 18 crises, aiming to reach more than 22 million people with life‑saving support.”
Fletcher’s May 14 remarks
Waltz’s May 14 remarks
Lewin’s May 14 remarks
Press briefing on the US/UN news, held at the Foreign Press Association, US mission to the UN
• Yemen parties agreed under UN mediation to a prisoner swap of 1,600 detainees (they did not include UN, international and nongovernmental personnel currently being held by the Houthis).
• WFUNA’s debate with the three Western Europe and Other bloc candidates, Austria, Germany and Portugal, running for two open seats in the UN Security Council (election is June 3).
• Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert of the Netherlands is named undersecretary-general for safety and security, succeeding Gilles Michaud of Canada. Hennis-Plasschaert served most recently as the UN special coordinator for Lebanon.
Friday, May 15
• Spokesperson’s briefing: The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Unicef, the World Food Program (WFP) and OCHA warn that six million Somalis, almost a third of the country, face “critical levels of food insecurity,” with a threat of famine in some regions caused by severe drought, insecurity, extremely limited humanitarian aid and “the ripple effects of conflict in the Middle East,” according to a recent Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report. The UN agencies are calling for an urgent scale-up of aid within the coming weeks to prevent famine.
ICYMI:
Ukraine: Myths and Ways Forward: Transitional Justice in Ukraine, NGO report
Venezuela: UN Secretary-General Says Internal ‘Complicity’ Aided Maduro Capture, news article
Israel/Gaza: How to Sell a Genocide: Media Critic’s Book Details Biased Coverage of Israeli Assault on Gaza, analysis
US/Migration: The United States Rejects International Migration Review Forum, State Dept. statement [UN deputy spokesperson said the organization doesn’t understand the statement’s reference to “replacement migration” and that it wass not a “term that we use.”]
US/Gaza: Trump Aid Cuts Help Push Gaza’s Struggling Mothers to the Brink: ‘Our Suffering Is Immense,’ news article
US/Forced removals: Tracking All of Trump’s Third-Country Removals That We Know Of, blog
UN Vienna: New Director General of the UN Office at Vienna & Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Takes Office, NGO report
Dulcie Leimbach is a co-founder, with Barbara Crossette, of PassBlue. For PassBlue and other publications, Leimbach has reported from New York and overseas from West Africa (Burkina Faso and Mali) and from Europe (Scotland, Sicily, Vienna, Budapest, Kyiv, Armenia, Iceland, The Hague and Cyprus). She has provided commentary on the UN for BBC World Radio, ARD German TV and Radio, NHK’s English channel, Background Briefing with Ian Masters/KPFK Radio in Los Angeles and the Foreign Press Association.
Previously, she was an editor for the Coalition for the UN Convention Against Corruption; from 2008 to 2011, she was the publications director of the United Nations Association of the USA. Before UNA, Leimbach was an editor at The New York Times for more than 20 years. She began her reporting career in small-town papers in San Diego, Calif., and graduating to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. Leimbach has been a fellow at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies as well as at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; taught news reporting at Hofstra University; and guest-lectured at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the CUNY Journalism School. She graduated from the University of Colorado and has an M.F.A. in writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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