This Week @UN: The latest UN SecGen candidate; football/soccer diplomacy; anti-gang force lands in Haiti; US-China summit’s meaning for the UN.
Plus: False ceasefire in Lebanon; Ebola outbreak in Congo & Uganda; Rubio calls Guterres; Israeli breaches of UN property; Cuban straits; Japan comes through; Latvia is fuming.
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Our #1 story: [UN: May 15] US Pledges $1.8 Billion to Humanitarians, Guterres’s Farewell to Africa, by Dulcie Leimbach
PassBlue this week:
• After Beijing: An Architecture Still Adrift, op-ed by Tatiana Carayannis
• “There Is No Lack of Money in the World”: María Fernanda Espinosa, video interview by Damilola Banjo
• Yes, Ball Diplomacy Works, text and video by Jessica Le Masurier
• The New UN-Backed Anti-Gang Force Is Finally Arriving in Haiti as Violence Surges, by Arshi Qureshi
Top UN news:
Monday, May 18
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the US-facilitated 45-day extension of the “cessation of hostilities” between Israel and Lebanon, despite the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers observing “sustained kinetic air activity across the area of operations,” said UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric. The actions include 430 “firing incidents” from IDF positions and 7 presumed to be from Hezbollah on May 16; 377 IDF launches and 15 more from Hezbollah on May 17; and 251 launches from IDF positions and 19 trajectories from Hezbollah on May 18.
Tuesday, May 19
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO), held the first emergency committee on the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the WHO representative there said the spread is “occurring in a highly complex epidemiological, operational and humanitarian context — marked by insecurity, population displacement, and both densely populated and remote areas.” In Uganda, another site of an outbreak, the WHO said it was leading a “coordinated, systemwide response” with NGOs and led by the UN resident coordinator, Leonard Zulu, to help the government contain the spread of Ebola.
[Update, May 22]: Tom Fletcher, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, has allocated up to $60 million from the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to accelerate the response to the Ebola outbreak in the DRC and wider region. This outbreak is happening in some of the most difficult operating environments for humanitarians worldwide, the UN says. In Geneva, Dr. Tedros said it was revising the outbreak’s risk assessment to very high at the national level, high at the regional level and low at the global level. The Panzi Foundation said that as of May 22, 670 suspected Ebola cases have been reported in eastern DRC and 160 suspected deaths, with most overall cases reported in Ituri. Three cases have been identified in North Kivu, and one has now been reported in South Kivu, 50 kilometers from the Panzi Hospital’s base of operations in Bukavu.
Wednesday, May 20
• Spokesperson’s briefing: As the US still owes approximately $4 billion in mandated dues to the UN, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in a social media post on May 19 that he had called Guterres to discuss Iran’s restrictions on the Strait of Hormuz; the outbreak of Ebola in Uganda and the Congo; and selecting Luke Lindberg, a US government trade official, as the new World Food Program (WFP) boss. Dujarric said that in Guterres’s conversation with Rubio, he “reaffirmed his call to reestablish full freedom of navigation in the Strait” and agreed on the need to address global humanitarian pressures such as the Ebola outbreak. He also explained to Rubio that appointing the next WFP head entailed not only the secretary-general himself but also the head of the Food and Agriculture Organization, which is led by Qu Dongyu, a Chinese national.
Thursday, May 21
• Spokesperson’s briefing: Guterres “condemned in the strongest terms” Israel’s establishing military facilities on the site of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at the Sheikh Jarrah compound, in East Jerusalem, which Israel seized in January. Guterres’s statement called the “unprecedented and escalatory” actions against UNRWA a “breach of the inviolability of United Nations premises,” as well as “unlawful” under the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Guterres urges the Israeli government to “immediately return” the compound to the UN.
• Britain has named a new ambassador to the UN, Dame Sarah MacIntosh. She fills the seat vacated by Dame Barbara Woodward, who returned to London in October 2025.
• Dujarric said “arigato gozeimas” to the Japanese government for paying its annual UN dues in full to the regular budget, totaling a whopping $221,861,490, one of the largest mandated contributions to the organization, adding that “it is an extremely appreciated payment at a time where the cash flow is an extremely challenging situation.” In other words, the UN’s lights could stay on through the summer amid the liquidity crisis.
Friday, May 22
• The 11th review conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) ended without consensus on a final declaration, after nearly four weeks of negotiations at the UN. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) said: “Efforts to advance nuclear disarmament under the treaty were met with fierce resistance by the nuclear armed states and those who support the use of nuclear weapons in their security strategies. The vast majority of states, however, engaged vigorously throughout the month, calling for urgent action to reduce nuclear risks.”
• Spokesperson’s briefing: The World Food Program is “closely monitoring” the food situation in Cuba, which imports 80 percent of its food and provides basic commodities to Cubans through a state-owned rationing system, as access to food has become “increasingly unequal, with those not receiving remittances being hit the hardest,” Dujarric said. As shortages and distribution delays and increased reliance on high-priced, dollar-indexed markets continue, the WFP is delivering aid to 900,000 Cubans and has sourced 15,000 liters of privately sourced fuel to resume distributions in the country’s east.
ICYMI:
UNOPS: Accountability Request From UNOPS, exclusive via PassBlue: watchdog letter to president of UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS executive board
US: World Health Assembly to Suspend USA’s Voting Rights, news article
US: First progress report of the Board of Peace to the UN Security Council, document
US/Gaza: Trump’s Board of Peace Demands That Hamas Surrender to Netanyahu’s Gaza Agenda, news article
Palestine/US: Palestinian Ambassador Drops UN General Assembly Bid, news article
Latvia/Russia: Latvian Complaint About Russia’s “Open Threats” in UN Security Council, letter
Leadership: Bineta Diop on Leadership, Institutions and Lasting Change, interview
Climate change: UN General Assembly adopts a resolution endorsing the advisory opinion of the ICJ regarding states’ obligations to climate change, resolution
UN: Cash-Strapped UN Refugee Agency to Cut More Jobs, Even as Crises Mount, news article
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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