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With glob­al peace and progress un­der siege, the Unit­ed Na­tions chief chal­lenged world lead­ers Tues­day to choose a fu­ture where the rule of law tri­umphs over raw pow­er and where na­tions come to­geth­er rather than scram­ble for self-in­ter­est.

Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res said the U.N.’s founders faced the same ques­tions 80 years ago, but he told to­day’s world lead­ers at the open­ing of their an­nu­al gath­er­ing at the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly that the choice of peace or war, law or law­less­ness, co­op­er­a­tion or con­flict, is “more ur­gent, more in­ter­twined, more un­for­giv­ing.”

“We have en­tered in an age of reck­less dis­rup­tion and re­lent­less hu­man suf­fer­ing,” he said in his an­nu­al “State of the World” speech. “The pil­lars of peace and progress are buck­ling un­der the weight of im­puni­ty, in­equal­i­ty and in­dif­fer­ence.”