169票赞同！美国反对！丨UN General Assembly adopts resolution on COVID-19
当地时间9月11日，联合国大会通过一项“全面和协调应对”新冠病毒大流行的决议，仅有美国和以色列投票反对。
The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a wide-ranging resolution on tackling the coronavirus pandemic Friday over objections from the United States and Israel, which protested a successful last-minute Cuban amendment that strongly urged countries to oppose any unilateral economic, financial or trade sanctions.
The 193-member world body adopted the resolution by a vote of 169-2, with Ukraine and Hungary abstaining. It was a strong show of unity by the UN's most representative body, though many countries had hoped for adoption by consensus.
The General Assembly says the pandemic poses "one of the greatest global challenges in the history of the United Nations", and calls for "intensified international cooperation and solidarity to contain, mitigate and overcome the pandemic and its consequences".
The resolution urges UN member states "to enable all countries to have unhindered timely access to quality, safe, efficacious and affordable diagnosis, therapeutics, medicines and vaccines… as well as equipment for the COVID-19 response".
Cuba succeeded in changing a paragraph in the resolution that originally called for "the urgent removal of unjustified obstacles in order to ensure the universal, timely and equitable access to, and fair distribution of, all quality, safe, efficacious and affordable essential health technologies and products, including their components and precursors that are required in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic".
By a vote of 132-3, the assembly amended the resolution to urge all countries "to refrain from promulgating and applying any unilateral economic, financial or trade measures not in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations that impedes the full achievement of economic and social development, particularly in developing countries".
The United States was then overwhelmingly defeated in attempts to remove two paragraphs from the resolution, one referring to women's rights to "sexual and reproductive health" and the other to "promoting global sustainable transport".
In addition to arguing against the language on sanctions, the United States opposed all references to the World Health Organization, which the administration stopped funding, accusing the UN agency of failing to do enough to stop the virus from spreading.
It accused China of hiding the truth about the outbreak from the world in the early days which "imperiled all of us and caused needless additional suffering and death".
Chinese diplomat responded, referring to the recent revelation that the US administration "recognized the danger of the virus at a very early stage, but deliberately played it down to avoid panic". He asked: "Who is hiding the truth?"
The diplomat also asked why the US, with the most advanced medical system in the world, has the most COVID-19 cases. "If the United States is serious about fighting the pandemic, it should focus on protecting lives and health of its people, instead of being busy with blame-shifting," he said.
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