Hello, this is Michelle with our last weekly digest before coming back in full force with our daily briefs on Monday. The new year hasn't even started, and political debate is already bubbling. A Swiss popular vote next month is set to prove decisive for the future of the country's centuries-old tradition of neutrality, and civil society groups don’t all see eye to eye.
UN elections are also heating up as the end of the year draws closer. We look at the race for the top job so far and what the latest straw poll tells us. At the UN health agency, the list of contenders is growing, with Indonesia’s health minister and a top WHO European official among the latest to throw their hats in the ring. |
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A Security Council meeting at UN headquarters in New York, July 23 2026. (Keystone/Loey Felipe/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua)
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Deep rifts and secrecy cloud race to pick next UN chief.
The contest to find the next UN secretary general is well underway, with no clear favourite emerging yet. The impasse has laid bare rifts within the UN Security Council, stoked concerns of closed-door horse-trading and raised the prospect of more mystery candidates entering the fray in the months ahead.
Michelle Langrand
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Here's what else has happened
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🗳️Indonesian health minister Budi Sadikin joins race to lead WHO.
Sadikin, who sits on the boards of the Stop TB Partnership and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is the fourth candidate throw his hat in the ring, alongside Belgian doctor Hans Kluge, Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari from Qatar and Hanan Balkhy from Saudi Arabia.
Devex (EN)
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⛰️Make the UN great again: The uphill struggle facing the next secretary general.
Observers are divided over whether Guterres' successor will be able to persuade powers large and small to invest in the organisation, or if they'll have to settle with overseeing its steady decline.
Time (EN)
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💼The faithful return: Lagarde says she’s 'ready to serve' as WEF chief.
Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, could take the lead at the World Economic Forum in 2027. The move would fulfil a long‑standing ambition of WEF founder Klaus Schwab. An old acquaintance, former Swiss central banker Philipp Hildebrand, is playing a key role in the succession process.
Le Temps🔒 (FR)
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🌐Superpowers are discovering their limits, says UN chief.
António Guterres tells the Financial Times that major powers no longer have the capacity to impose their will as they used to, pointing to protracted wars like Ukraine, which Russia expected to last a matter of days, not years.
Financial Times (EN)
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🚫Sudan seeks China-led bloc’s support to thwart UN rights mission renewal.
Sudan urged on Wednesday the 29‑country group to reject a western-led draft resolution aimed at renewing the UN Human Rights Council’s fact‑finding mission.
Sudan Tribune (EN)
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🇲🇲Human rights situation in Myanmar ‘plummets to new low’, UN says.
A new report says the “ever-worsening brutal abuse” against Rohingya minority and the impact of illicit economies, which has increased in the Myanmar’s military quest for legitimacy, has only deepened the suffering of civilians.
Al-Jazeera (EN)
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Have a good day!
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