United Nations’ new Ebola coordinator, and choosing a new U.N. secretary-general

0:00GLP-1s are best known as weight loss drugs, but they may also help people cut back on alcohol, cigarettes, and opioids. They seem to work for many types of addiction. Maybe these effects are much broader than we previously thought. Ideas about the brain, addiction, and empathy. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Today on State of the World, we go to the United Nations to speak to its new Ebola crisis coordinator and hear about the U.N.'s race for its next secretary general. You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories.

0:44Up close, when they're happening, I'm Christine Arismeth. The Ebola outbreak is accelerating across eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with infections and deaths rising at an alarming rate. Emmett Livingston spoke to the man the United Nations has brought in to coordinate the Ebola response in Congo as health workers race to contain the virus.

1:07Julien Harneis:In eastern Congo, the virus is outpacing efforts to contain it. In the last seven days, we've recorded 250 deaths, which is double the worst week of any previous epidemic within DRC. Julian Harness was recently appointed as the United Nations Senior Ebola Coordinator in Congo. A veteran humanitarian official who has worked in some of the world's most challenging crises, he says the outbreak is already approaching the scale of Congo's last major epidemic, but across a much wider area. We've already reached 60 % of all the deaths that occurred in the last big epidemic, which was 1990 to 2020. And we cover a far wider area within DRC.

1:51Julien Harneis:The response itself is a huge coordination challenge. Government departments, health agencies, international organisations and dozens of NGOs, all with different funders, rules and levels of expertise, must work together to stop the virus. And this is happening in an area where militia groups are fighting. Harness says one of the biggest challenges is getting people into treatment quickly. Some patients delay seeking care or avoid it altogether, which increases the risk of death. Treatment centres are also under severe pressure. There are about 900 beds for Ebola patients currently, but that capacity needs to be doubled or tripled and quickly.

2:30At the moment, we are not at the speed and the scale and the agility. that the virus requires from us. We definitely have a challenge there and we are working to address that.

2:42Julien Harneis:Ebola is now present in five provinces in eastern Congo, having spread rapidly from the epicentre in the province of Eturi. Meanwhile, there are fears Ebola will spill over Congo's borders. I think the far more challenging issue is towards South Sudan. Eturi shares a border with the fragile country of South Sudan, with the populated areas of the province tightly linked to settlements on the other side of the border. You have a really dense population with thousands and thousands of tiny little villages and some big towns. And what the modelling is showing is that the transmission is moving along with the population in those areas.

3:20And that is much more difficult to control.

3:24Julien Harneis:Harness, like every Ebola responder, says that speed is of the essence to stop the outbreak from spreading further. The next few weeks will be critical. It's really tough, but with good colleagues, with international support, which we do have, we have the possibility to address this. But we need to put more at it. We need to go to scale faster than we've done so far. For NPR News, I'm Emmett Livingstone in Kinshasa.

3:54The Ebola outbreak is just one of the many crises that the UN is trying to manage. There's also the conflicts in Iran, Lebanon, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan. The list goes on. The U.N. Security Council's been stalemated on many of these issues. Now the council's beginning another tough assignment, choosing a new secretary general. Antonio Guterres' term ends this year, and there are seven candidates in the running so far to replace him. The Security Council's beginning to whittle down that list, as NPR's Michelle Kellerman reports. The president of the U.N. General Assembly, Germany's Annalena Baerbock, has been hosting public interviews of the candidates, and most took part in a town hall last week.

4:38The person we choose will not only be the face of this House of Humanity, but also its custodian. A former assistant secretary of state who focused on U.N. affairs, Esther Brimmer, says she's been impressed by the open debates. This process is much more transparent and visible to the public, which is a good thing, that it helps more people, should they do so, and want to tune in, to understand more about what this incertation does. The U.N. charter does not spell out exactly how a secretary general is selected, but there's an informal regional rotation, and most see this as Latin America's turn.

5:17There's also a big push to have a woman at the helm for the first time, though the State Department tells NPR the U.S. will not prejudge a candidate based on, quote, immutable characteristics. It also says it wants a secretary general focused on peace and security, not on, quote, absurd politicized woke ideology. One frontrunner is Rafael Grossi of Argentina, who runs the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog. At the town hall, he touted his negotiations over the fate of a nuclear power plant caught in the middle of Russia's war against Ukraine. We have negotiated six ceasefires to be able to do indispensable repairs that would prevent a major accident.

6:02A former vice president of Costa Rica and a top U.N. trade official, Rebecca Greenspan, says she too helped negotiate a deal between Russia and Ukraine to open up a shipping route for grain in the Black Sea. For people around the world not to suffer the consequences of the regional conflict. And we can do the same in the Strait of Hormuz. The wars in Iran and Ukraine and the inability of the Security Council to resolve them were major topics at last week's town hall with the candidates. A former foreign minister of Guyana, Carolyn Rodriguez Burkett, says the world needs an active secretary general.

6:40I'm not oblivious to the geopolitical situation, but wanting the Secretary General does not have the luxury of doing, and that is not trying. There are two candidates from Africa, former Senegalese President Maki Sal, and a new entry from Uganda, a longtime U.N. diplomat, Alara Otunu. From Latin America, former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet is also in the running. So too is Maria Fernanda Espinosa, a former foreign minister of Ecuador. Our responsibility is to make the U.N. relevant again. More candidates could still enter the race, even as the Security Council begins a series of straw polls to whittle down the list.

7:23Esther Brimmer, who's now with the Council on Foreign Relations, is a bit worried that it might be hard for the permanent five members to agree on anyone. You do not want the five just to go for like the lowest common denominator, least offensive person. Eventually, the council will send its preferred candidate to the General Assembly for a final vote. The council's president says the goal is to make sure there's enough transition time before Antonio Guterres' term ends at the end of the year. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department.

8:00That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening. This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of Fresh Air. Don't miss my interview with writer Gia Tolentino. We talk about plastic surgery and how current beauty standards are changing our relationship to reality. It seems more explicitly anti-human right now than ever before. There seemed to be something that's dovetailing with the age of AI. Listen to Fresh Air on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. On this season of Planet Money Summer School, we follow the money and not just the dollars. We're following the yuan, the naira, the krona, and more.

8:37Every Wednesday this summer, we're taking you on a world tour to meet the people, try new solutions to old economic problems. Planet Money Summer School. Grab some friends, pack your bags, and don't forget the sunscreen. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.