New York – The high-level week of the 80th United Nations General Assembly session begins in New York on Tuesday, bringing together around 150 heads of state and government along with foreign ministers.

Over the week, world leaders will debate pressing global challenges, including peacebuilding, sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, artificial intelligence regulation, combating infectious diseases and mental health issues, and tackling climate change.

This year’s assembly marks the UN’s 80th anniversary, under the theme “Better Together: 80 Years and More for Peace, Development, and Human Rights.” Representatives from all 193 UN member states, along with the Vatican, Palestine, and the European Union, are taking part.

The general debate began with speeches by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Annalena Baerbock, president of the 80th session. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be the first among world leaders to take the floor, which is a tribute to a long-standing tradition. It dates back to the fact that it was a representative of this Latin American state, Oswaldo Aranha, the then Brazilian foreign minister, who led the work of the first and second special sessions of the General Assembly in 1947. The Brazilian president will be followed by US President Donald Trump.

About 30 speakers from different countries are scheduled to speak on the first day and on the second day, there will be about 40 speakers, including the presidents of France, Ukraine, Finland and Slovakia.

Russia will be represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who will speak on September 27 and will be also taking part in multilateral meetings within the framework of BRICS, the CSTO, the Group of Twenty and the Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter. According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Lavrov will also hold numerous bilateral and multilateral meetings, including the US.