EAST SIDE STORIES

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A pricing agreement for HIV medicine to be announced today in New York is being hailed as a breakthrough. UNAids and partners will unveil a new cost mechanism for expanding access to high-quality medicines for people living with HIV in many of the low and middle-income countries hardest hit by the disease. The announcement is expected to accelerate treatment to the 36.7 million people living with HIV.

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Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash met Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross on the sidelines of the General Assembly to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

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Iranian president Hassan Rouhani and foreign minister Mohammad Jawad Zarif boycotted Donald Trump’s speech to the UN on Tuesday.

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Diplomatic sources in New York told The National that UN envoy to Syria Stefan de Mistura said Syria was heading towards “soft partition”if the current battleground dynamic continued to hold.

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After years of sitting outside in a makeshift marquee, the UN media centre has moved inside the main building.

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Four minutes is all it took for Mr Trump’s motorcade to get from the UN building to the Lotte New York Palace Hotel on Monday. The 5.3-kilometre drive normally takes more than half an hour.