There's actually no such thing as vegetables. Here's why you should eat them anyway
The rumours are true: Vegetables aren't real — that is, in botany, anyway.
Racism, climate change and worsening divisions among nations and cultures topped the agenda Wednesday as leaders from China to Costa Rica, from Finland to Turkey to the United Nations itself outlined reasons why the world isn't working as it should -- and what must be done quickly to fix it. Said one country's president: "The future is raising its voice at us."
For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began early last year, more than two dozen world leaders appeared in person at the UN General Assembly on the opening day of their annual high-level meeting Tuesday. In speech after speech, the atmosphere was somber, angry and dire.
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned that "the world has entered a period of new turbulence and transformation." Finland President Sauli Niinisto said: "We are indeed at a critical juncture." And Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada declared: "The future is raising its voice at us: Less military weaponry, more investment in peace!"
Speaker after speaker at Tuesday's opening of the nearly week-long meeting decried the inequalities and deep divisions that have prevented united global action to end the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed nearly 4.6 million lives and is still raging, and the failure to sufficiently tackle the climate crisis threatening the planet.
COVID-19 and climate are certain to remain top issues for heads of state and government. But Wednesday's UN agenda will first turn the spotlight on the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the controversial UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, which was dominated by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery.
The U.S. and Israel walked out during the meeting over a draft resolution that singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism to racism -- a provision that was eventually dropped. Twenty countries are boycotting Wednesday's commemoration, according to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which urged more countries to join them "in continuing to fight racism, bigotry, and anti-Semitism."
Following the commemoration, heads of state will start delivering their annual addresses again in the vast General Assembly hall. Speakers include King Abdullah II of Jordan, Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Perhaps the harshest assessment of the current global crisis came from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who opened his state of the world address sounding an "alarm" that "the world must wake up."
"Our world has never been more threatened or more divided," he said. "We face the greatest cascade of crises in our lifetimes."
"We are on the edge of an abyss -- and moving in the wrong direction," the secretary-general warned.
Guterres pointed to "supersized glaring inequalities" in addressing COVID-19, "climate alarm bells ... ringing at fever pitch," upheavals from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yemen and beyond thwarting peace, and "a surge of mistrust and misinformation (that) is polarizing people and paralyzing societies."
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the pandemic was a reminder "that the entire world are part of a big family."
"But the solidarity test that we were put to failed us miserably," he said. "It is a disgrace for humanity that vaccine nationalism is still being carried on through different methods," and underdeveloped countries and poor segments of societies have been "literally left to their fate in the face of the pandemic."
As for the climate crisis, Erdogan said whoever did the most damage to nature, the atmosphere and water, "and whoever has wildly exploited natural resources" should make the greatest contribution to fighting global warming.
"Unlike the past, this time no one can afford the luxury to say, 'I'm powerful so I will not pay the bill' because climate change will treat mankind quite equally," the Turkish leader said. "The duty for all of us is to take measures against this enormous threat, with a fair burden-sharing."
Romania's President Klaus Iohannis did find something positive from the COVID-19 crisis.
"While the pandemic affected almost all aspects of our lives," he said, "it also provided us with opportunities to learn, adapt and do things better."
Two of the most closely watched speeches on Tuesday were delivered by U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
In an Associated Press interview on Saturday, Guterres warned that the world could plunge into a new and probably more dangerous Cold War if China and the United States don't repair their "completely dysfunctional" relationship. "Unfortunately, today we only have confrontation," he said.
Biden said in his UN address that the United States was not attempting to be divisive or confrontational.
"We are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs," he said. "The United States is ready to work with any nation that steps up and pursues peaceful resolution to shared challenges even if we have intense disagreements in other areas."
Speaking later, Xi said disputes among countries "need to be handled through dialogue and cooperation."
"One country's success does not have to mean another country's failure," Xi said. "The world is big enough to accommodate common development and progress of all countries."
By tradition, the first country to speak was Brazil, whose president, Jair Bolsonaro rebuffed criticism of his handling of the pandemic and touted recent data indicating less Amazon deforestation. He said he was seeking to counter the image of Brazil portrayed in the media, touting it as a great place for investment and praising his pandemic welfare program, which helped avoid a worse recession last year.
Bolsonaro said that his government has successfully distributed first doses to the majority of adults, but doesn't support vaccine passports or forcing anyone to have a shot. He has said several times in the past week that he remains unvaccinated. He had COVID-19 last year.
Brazil's health minister, Marcelo Quiroga, who was with Bolsonaro, later tested positive for the coronavirus and will remain in isolation in the United States, the government said. Quiroga got his first shot of coronavirus vaccine in January.
The rumours are true: Vegetables aren't real — that is, in botany, anyway.
Israeli tanks seized control of Gaza’s vital Rafah border crossing on Tuesday as Israel brushed off urgent warnings from close allies and moved into the southern city even as ceasefire negotiations with Hamas remained on a knife’s edge.
The Met Gala and its fashionista A-listers on Monday included Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya and a parade of others in a swirl of flora and fauna looks on a green-tinged carpet lined by live foliage.
A daily spoonful of olive oil could lower your risk of dying from dementia, according to a new study by Harvard scientists.
As Canadians brace themselves for summer temperatures, forecasters say a weakening El Nino cycle doesn’t mean relief from the heat.
Defence lawyers of Jeremy Skibicki have admitted in court the accused killed four Indigenous women, but argues he is not criminally responsible for the deaths by way of mental disorder – this latest development has triggered a judge-alone trial rather than a jury trial.
The owner of three Calgary dogs that got loose and mauled a woman to death in 2022 has been ordered to pay a $15,000 fine within one year and banned from owning any animal for 15 years.
Some Ontarians are expressing frustration after they said that they were removed from their family doctor’s patient list for visiting a walk-in clinic in a process being called “de-rostering.”
Residents in Ottawa’s Elmridge Gardens complex are dealing with a rat infestation that just won’t go away. Now, after doing everything they can to try to fix the issue, they are pleading with the city to step in and help.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.