Ex-Cameroonian Prime Minister Philemon Yang Takes Over As President of United Nations General Assembly

The New Diplomat
Writer

Ad

The Gift of Hindsight: What I Would Tell My Younger Self, By Johnson Babalola

By Johnson Babalola @jbdlaw Hindsight, they say, is life’s most generous teacher—but it sends its lessons late. It is only after the storms that the patterns become clear; only after the wrong turns that the map begins to make sense. As I celebrate another birthday today and have grown older, I often find myself reflecting…

Gasoline Prices Drop Toward Pandemic-Era Lows

The national average price of gasoline dropped below $3 a gallon over the weekend. GasBuddy has predicted that prices will go even lower in the coming weeks, with good prospects of motorists enjoying sub-$3 prices for extended periods. This drop is overwhelmingly being driven by the significant increase in oil production from OPEC throughout 2025.…

Alleged Christian Genocide Claim is Damaging Nigeria’s Image– Tuggar Laments

By Abiola Olawale Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, has voiced concern over what he described as the damaging impact of the "Christian genocide" narrative on Nigeria's international image. This is as the Minister claimed that the country's complex security challenges are being falsely simplified as religious persecution. Speaking at the Reuters NEXT Gulf Summit…

Ad

By Abiola Olawale

A former Cameroonian prime minister, Philemon Yang has formally assumed office as the 79th President of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly.

Yang succeeds the president of the 78th session, Ambassador Dennis Francis, whose tenure officially came to an end on Tuesday, September 10, 2024.

The New Diplomat reports that Yang was elected in June, while Algeria’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Amar Bendjama, was elected Vice-President.

In his inaugural speech, Yang called on the world’s divided nations to come together and act to address global challenges, from climate change to poverty, conflict and armed violence.

Yang, a distinguished diplomat who served as prime minister of Cameroon from 2009 to 2019, told the 193-member world body that there were doubts about the ability of nations to join forces to tackle these and other pressing issues.

He said: “We must demonstrate that international cooperation remains the most effective tool at our disposal to address the deep and borderless problems we face.

“I will therefore urge the Assembly to intensify its determination to prioritize the resolution of conflicts, including the intractable conflicts in the Gaza Strip, Haiti and Ukraine, as well as to find lasting solutions to the situation in the Great Lakes region and elsewhere in Africa.”

The immediate past General Assembly, President Francis, in his address, urged the United Nations, which was created from the ashes of World War II, to live up to its mandate of maintaining international peace and security.

He said: “It is no exaggeration to say that the scale of man-made human suffering that we are witnessing around the world is simply staggering.”

Ad

X whatsapp