Current world order ‘reflects a bygone era,’ says Cuban Foreign Minister

Mr. Parilla began by expressing solidarity with Palestine and condemning what he described as the "genocidal extermination and ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians by Israel.

He said that, at a time when "a handful of countries and individuals have amassed more wealth than the vast majority of all other countries combined," the United Nations continues to be the most representative body of the international community and must be protected and strengthened.

Mr. Parilla called for a new international order that guarantees "the right to development, sovereign equality, participation and representation of developing countries in global policy decision."

He referred to the Secretary-General's UN80 reform initiatives which, he said, needs to strengthen the United Nations' intergovernmental nature, and improve its capacity to better confront the urgent challenges of today.

Reject 'peace through strength'

The international community, he argued, must reject the doctrine of "peace through strength" which is "equivalent to imposing the arbitrary will of US imperialism on everyone," and would come at the cost of the values upon which the UN was founded.

The foreign minister also demanded an end to the economic blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States for more than six decades, which he described as "an economic war" aimed at depriving Cubans of their livelihoods and sustainability.

"Cuba faces a grave scenario of prolonged and daily blackouts, difficulties in affording food, insufficient availability of medicines, reduced public transport, limited community services and pronounced inflation, which is eroding real incomes."

Mr. Parilla also warned of a looming threat of war in the Caribbean and said that the deployment of US military forces in the region to fight crime and drug trafficking was a pretext and "a dangerous situation that violates international law."

Regarding climate change, the minister said that, from the podium of the General Assembly, science and "decades of collective work" to protect the planet are being questioned.

"If the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption of capitalism are not fundamentally changed, we will exceed the fateful threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius before 2030," he declared.

Referring to new technologies, Mr. Parilla said that, with a small number of transnational corporations imposing their operation systems and controlling what content is seen, read and heard, "we suffer from the dictatorship of the algorithm."

He called on the UN to create common standards, in order to ensure that technology, especially artificial intelligence, benefit all.