Live updates: UN General Assembly

The Latest on the UN General Assembly: European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell is promising new sanctions against Russia after an escalation of its war in Ukraine.

Following an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers on Wednesday night, Borrell said he is certain there would be “unanimous agreement” for additional sanctions targeting sectors of Russia's economy and individual Russians.

He gave no timeline for the sanctions beyond saying they would come “as soon as possible”.

Borrell said Russia's announcement of a partial military mobilisation, combined with President Vladimir Putin's veiled nuclear threats and plans for referendums in occupied areas of Ukraine, showed it was losing the war.

“It's clear that Putin is trying to destroy Ukraine. He's trying to destroy the country by different means since he's failing militarily,” he said. Borrell spoke on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

Earlier on Wednesday, Borrell called Putin's threat to use nuclear weapons a danger to the world and an attempt to intimidate Ukraine and its supporters.

He said the EU would not directly engage in the nearly seven-month-old war, but will continue “more of the same” — military support and economic and individual sanctions.

___ US President Joe Biden encouraged the world to step up the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria on Wednesday as he highlighted a USD 6 billion US commitment to the Global Fund.

Hosting the public health partnership's Seventh Replenishment Conference, Biden joined leaders from Japan, German, France, Canada and the EU to announce new commitments to tackle the diseases.

“Now is the moment to accelerate our efforts to reduce health inequities, and to address barriers to access including gender and human rights barriers to build a more inclusive healthcare systems, to leave no one behind, to end AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria for good,” Biden said.

The Global Fund is aiming to raise USD 18 billion in the latest fundraising round.

Since The Global Fund was created in 2002, it has saved 50 million lives and reduced the combined death rate from HIV, tuberculosis and malaria by more than half in the countries where the fund invests.

___ Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara says African countries must get top priority for the wheat being exported from Ukraine after officials said only 17 per cent of it has been reserved for the continent over the past two months.

Of that, 10 per cent went to Egypt alone, and smaller amounts have gone to Sudan, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti, according to the Joint Coordination Centre, run by the UN, Turkey, Russia and Ukraine.

Ouattara told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that his West African nation “once again requests that priority be given to Africa in the application of the Istanbul Agreement”, which was signed in late July.

African nations were at the centre of Western efforts to reopen Ukraine's ports as the United States and allies accused Russia of starving the world by denying exports from Ukraine, one of the world's largest grain exporters.

African leaders also visited Russia to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the issue.

But now, Russia is trying to turn the food security issue question against the West, with Putin accusing the West of sending most of the grain from Ukraine's reopened ports to Europe instead of poorer and hungrier parts of the world.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)