AMN/ WEB DESK
Brazil’s Health Minister Marcelo Queiroga tested positive for Covid-19 hours after accompanying President Jair Bolsonaro to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He had also met British prime minister Boris Johnson at the UN before testing positive.
Queiroga will remain in New York in quarantine, the government’s communications office said in a statement. “The minister is doing well,” the statement said. It added that the rest of the delegation tested negative for the virus.
Meanwhile, France Wednesday flatly denied a report published in Britain’s Daily Telegraph saying President Emmanuel Macron was willing to give up France’s permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council in exchange for the formation of a European Union army.
On the first day of the meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country will no longer fund coal-fired power plants abroad, surprising the world on climate for the second straight year at the UN General Assembly. That came hours after US President Joe Biden announced a plan to double financial aid to poorer nations to $11.4 billion by 2024 so those countries could switch to cleaner energy and cope with global warming’s worsening impacts.