>> time for a quick check of the headlines. a man was sentenced to 25 years in prison on terrorism charges. the trial has been rejected as a sham. polls have closed in canada's parliamentary election. justin trudeau is hoping to consolidate his leadership but is facing stiff competition. the united russia party retained

a dominant majority in parliament. supporters protested in moscow. the french prime minister says his country was blindsided by a deal announced last week by the u.s. and u.k. >> it's not just about an unexplained bridge of the contract, the 2016 contract implemented with australia. what matters now is the breach of trust between partners. alliance means transparency and requires explanations and involves talking to one another, not hiding on matters of importance. that didn't happen and we need to talk about it. >> at least six have been killed in a shooting at a university in russia.

local media identified the gunman as an 18-year-old student who was shot and detained by police. the u.s. says it is relaxing a travel ban, allowing fully vaccinated foreigners into the country starting in november upon proof of vaccination and a negative test. a photo was posted online saying that helping afghans is priority for an organization. the news will continue on al jazeera after inside a story. stay tuned. goodbye. ♪ >> world leaders are in new york

for the u.n. general assembly. countries are divided on climate change and the pandemic. is there a future for global cooperation? this is inside story. ♪ hello and welcome to the program. after a year of virtual meetings, world leaders are in new york to attend the u.n. general assembly this week. they have a lot to get through. climate change is a major concern. access to covid vaccines will also be discussed. the un's general says growing mistrust between countries is

making it harder to tackle covid-19 countries -- covid-19. he is urging the u.s. and china to repair ties or risk another cold war. >> there was a risk of nuclear destruction and there were back channels always working and several things to guarantee things would not get out of control. today, everything is more fluid and even the experiences we had in the past to manage crises are not there. but what is clear is we only have one planet and all of these countries are powerful enough to be a mechanism that undermines

our capacity to deal with the global challenges. >> more countries are being urged to set ambitious goals. global emissions will be 16% higher in 2030 than they were in 2010. they want to ensure equal access to covid vaccines. 70% of covid-19 doses are administered in n 10 countries. if they want to also decide on how the newly formed governments should be approached. the taliban take over in afghanistan and the military coup in myanmar are on the top of the agenda. let's bring in our guest, a security consultant in desk consultant.

also guests from cape town and istanbul. welcome to the program. let's start with matthew in istanbul. the u.n. has been a powerhouse organization since 1945 but is more divided now than ever. has -- have they failed? >> thank you for the great question. i think the security council is definitely failing. anything that the u.s., u.k., and france oppose, russia and china support. the u.n. security council is supposed to be the highest body enforcing international law but there is no enforcement mechanism. but they have done great things in terms of delivering humanitarian assistance, fostering cooperation and

getting people to become aware of humanitarian problems around the world or the plight of women and girls around the world. unicef does great help for children. but overall, it is an unwieldy organization and aspirations are bigger than outcomes. so it is a mixed record. >> you make a point that it is unwieldy. if this was a company in the united states, congress would love to break it up. but they are not doing it. unicef does great work. but as a whole, when it comes to multilateralism, it's not doing it. >> that's true and that is partially a symptom of the world we live in today, so divided.

the u.s. and europe on one side and china and russia on the other. or the north and south disagreeing on how to allocate resources. we see that on the climate issue as well. the western countries are not fulfilling pledges they made to help other countries who are not responsible for the climate crisis. if this were a company, you are right, it would be broken up but this is unusual in that it is comprised of sovereign member states and u.n. reform is a perennial topic. in turkey where i live, is a big issue, to expand the reach of the security counsel beyond five. some countries want to expand the united nations but from my

perspective, it is too big. >> in cape town, you worked for an institute called global dialogue. they don't have much of that going on. >> global dialogue is also how you frame dialogue and what you wanted to cover. you can have broad trajectories and talk about big ticket issues and talk about climate change and peace and humanitarian issues exacerbated under covid conditions. but it is also about creating prosperity and peace and stability for everyone. i think the challenges come down to the power dynamics and also how to get them to become more equitable.

and how do you redistribute power globally? nobody wants to give up power or be seen as vulnerable. there are pockets of excellence in the year when we need to learn lessons from but the world still reflects a power imbalance so i think these issues will continue to arise. who will decide we are going to move towards a better environmental footprint, there are a lot of questions and i think the challenge is how you get those agreements to be practical and implemented. >> often what i hear from you when defenders is that yes, it is a flawed system, but it is the only one we have. do you agree? >> i absolutely do.

also the points my colleagues made. there are hits and misses. we live in an unequal world and the u.n. system is trying to work in a world where divisions are rising. earlier where we saw a communist or socialist ideologies, there was a struggle and there was hope that maybe the distribution of power and wealth could be fixed. but it was not fixed. we had a capitalist, unequal system where the u.s. dominated the world and i think we saw more space for multilateralism because connection was happening under u.s. leadership but in the

last two decades we have seen a shift in global power. multilateralism to me, how do you work together in a world where there are rising security challenges and basically russia and china are together against older western power centers and then we have new power centers like india coming in. so i think the disconnect in certain areas, the u.n. is delivering. like in pakistan, the fastest action we are seeing is coming on the humanitarian space by the u.n.

others are trying to think about how to bring together action but there humanitarian -- their humanitarian work was the fastest responder. unicef is stepping in. we need it and i think that is why the u.n. continues despite problems. but in a growing divide in a world with rising concerns with china, you have seen the new deal coming out between the u.s., u.k., and australia, splitting europe. so i am afraid connective action is becoming more difficult. >> what is the point of the u.n. if they cannot do multilateralism? >> we need to somewhere where

countries can gather and sovereign states can exchange views. in my diplomatic career i always felt it was important to sustain a regime or an organized form of behavior among sovereign states because they are difficult to build and it is hard to get countries to agree on the same rules. so it is something we need to preserve because it is the best we have. but the u.n. was forged in the spirit of common interest where everyone in the security council after world war i and world war ii, everybody wanted to start over and try to work together. and we got something out of that, the universal declaration of human rights. but in reality, russia and china do not accept that declaration

so this whole system that the u.n. is supposed to nurture and protect is being undermined by those countries every day. the world is a brutal place and power means something and often it destroys the best laid plans about doing good things for humanity. >> so matthew says it is russia and china's fault. they disagree on human rights. but he is american. he is going to say that. but there is built in prejudiced -- prejudices towards other nations like south africa. >> right. it is the nature of the security council. when you go back and look at

that point about the forged common interest and how it came about, yes, it was after 1945. you had a dynamic of the global system and the way power dynamics evolved at that time. it strikes me that we are still trying to forge that system based on how the world was perceived after 1945. i think those common ideologies are important but also important is how the u.n. evolves within changes in the global arena. i am wondering if perhaps the idea of what we talk about in terms of structural contradictions that exist within the security counsel in terms of how they manage peace, security, human rights, and so forth, is that does everything that goes in have to be about how

interests are designed in the security council? perhaps the real challenge for us as it moves forward in a changing global architecture is, what is the viability of the security counsel? is that the real issue or the entire u.n. architecture? that is the big question we have to confront. it has always been a political issue in terms of what happens. perhaps the challenge is to ask if it is needed for all the states. >> i also want to talk about change in the united nations. the secretary-general has been

clear that multilateralism is the way forward. he keeps giving the same message to anyone he speaks with but he is dealing with 198 sovereign nations. he cannot dictate to them and change has to come from somewhere. are there a few key players holding this change up? is it the china -- is it china and the u.s. as antonio guterres says? >> yes. the power dynamic, as long as politics and security are stuck in this dynamic, and we haven't moved away from it, even the definition of nation states are tied to a system of power. there are certain securities.

it was central to u.n. rule in the developing world, linked to the responsibility to protect. it never got back to universal acceptance among the sovereign countries. we thought it would become an instrument of u.n. intervention of big global powers. so national sovereignty has always clashed with the multilateralism bun represents. i think the -- and -- multilateralism that the u.n. represents. i think even how china has been defined is by laying out how much naval power they are

building up or how much economic power they are accruing. on one side we have a global consensus, the whole global communities agree to certain pathways forward for the next 20 years. but on the other side, how you move the things around on who gets what is still defined not on principles. it is sometimes couched in universal values but often the developing world and china feels it is being defined by the advanced western world who wants to maintain their position of power. so since we are stuck on this,

humanity is still stuck. i don't think we can talk about the real purpose of why we set up a global organization and why we continue to work with them and i think the majority still sees value in the u.n.. -- u.n. defining a global system is beyond the u.n. about what defines power. >> one of the things just said is that there are fundamental disagreements on things like security, arms treaties, etc. but one thing that could unite the u.n. is if they stop looking at security and start looking at climate change, something that affects every country.

do they need to be narrower in order to unite? >> i don't think so. i do not think any organization will be able to compel very powerful state actors to do anything. they have to want to do it. so to me, just use a term like selfishness. if this covid-19 crisis that affects everyone cannot bring us all together, i think there is just a fundamental problem of selfishness in the countries that have the vaccines. the united states, there are millions of people who want to do good and are doing good and the u.s. is stepping up and providing billions of dollars to deliver vaccines around the world, but it is not enough. the head of the world health

organization has said that the u.s. and other countries should not be moving towards booster shots until we do better in africa, where only 2% of the population has been vaccinated. in the united states, only 70% have had their first dose and we lamented that but in africa, only 2% have gotten the vaccine. we all have to be better vaccines and care about what is happening beyond our borders. no matter how vaccinated we are, the variant has come back and has put the u.s. back in a terrible new surge. so i'm pessimistic that organizational reform will make the human character better. but hopefully climate change and the question of our existence

will bring us together. >> if not for the existential dread of bringing us together, what is the u.n. for? >> i think the valium system -- value system is about how countries in the system defined collective or national interest in context of the organization. part of the debate about whether or not we look at the lens of security in a state centric approach or a collective approach on what collective means comes back to how we look at the nation states as parts of a bigger. i think the challenge is around the question of how to drive the value of human security and

collective humanity, but the challenge is whether or not they will move out of the state centric view and whether or not we will create a universal value system that is not necessarily unique to particular ideologies but just an intrinsic value system. if we are going to say climate change is an existential threat to humanity, everything we are seeing in the u.n. is for nothing because if humanity is reaching the tipping point in survival, where do we -- >> we are running out of time. the league of nations was disbanded after world war ii because it failed to stop the horrors of the world. it has been rebranded as the united nations. it has been 30 years and we have

not had real action on climate change. is it time to disband? >> i don't think so. no organization exists to provide that support. it is a contested debate about how we define universal values but i think some universal values are not contested. education for women, safety and security for children, food, health care. there is hardly any contestation. so do not disband the u.n. because there is a need for it. it is not fulfilling the reasons it was set up for, but we do not

have anything else to replace it right now. the narratives about nuclear submarines and arms building and war, maybe it will lead to a point of collapse where we set up something new but right now, we need the u.n. and i am glad it is there. >> i want to thank all of our guests and i want to thank you for watching. you can see the program any time by visiting our website or facebook. and you can join the conversation on twitter. goodbye for now. ♪ ■@ñ@ñ@ñxññññññññ■wwññ■ñ■ñ■ 8

[shouting] ♪♪♪ [firecracker popping] [shouting] [woman shouting] [shouting] [gun fire] [shouting] [woman shouting] [shouting] adam harvey: it's february on the battle-scarred streets of downtown beirut.