Monday, September 19, 2022

Your Tuesday Briefing

The funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
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By Natasha Frost

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We're covering Queen Elizabeth's funeral and the U.N. General Assembly.

Queen Elizabeth's funeral procession yesterday.James Hill for The New York Times

Britain bids farewell to its queen

Queen Elizabeth II was laid to rest yesterday after a majestic state funeral that drew millions of viewers across the country and was accessible to billions around the world. It was the culmination of 10 days of mourning since the queen's death on Sept. 8 in Scotland — a highly choreographed series of rituals that came amid a deepening economic crisis and a fraught political transition in Britain.

More than 100 world leaders, including President Biden and Emperor Naruhito of Japan, converged on London, the largest such gathering since the funeral of Nelson Mandela in 2013 in South Africa. Tens of thousands of people lined the cortege's route past the city's landmarks.

The service was designed to showcase Britain's imperial history, its constitutional democracy and its Commonwealth. The carriage that bore the queen's coffin was the same one used during Queen Victoria's funeral in 1901. Both Britain's new prime minister, Liz Truss, and the secretary general of the Commonwealth, Patricia Scotland, read from the Bible.

Context: Britain will now return to wrestling with the gravest economic crisis in a generation. Fears about the country's public finances have driven the pound to its lowest levels against the dollar since 1985. The survival of the monarchy's far-flung realm is in question, as Caribbean countries debate whether to cast off the king as their head of state.

Photos: See images from Elizabeth's life and a visual dictionary of the symbols of her reign.

Reflection: The queen's coronation and her funeral have become the bookends of a generation, Alan Cowell, a contributor based in London, writes in an essay.

The South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant in Yuzhnoukrainsk, Ukraine, about 70 miles north of the city of Mykolaiv, in 2015.Olga Yakimovich/Reuters

Nuclear fears in Ukraine

A Russian missile exploded less than 900 feet from the reactors of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, Ukrainian officials said. Unlike the Zaporizhzhia plant, which sits in an active battlefield, the South Ukraine site is far from the frontline fighting, illustrating Russia's long reach.

Security camera footage showed a huge fireball lighting up the night sky over the site, and the shock wave blew out more than 100 windows at the South Ukraine complex, Ukraine's second-biggest nuclear plant. There was no damage to essential safety equipment there, Ukraine's national nuclear energy company said.

The source of the explosion could not be independently confirmed, but the strike fit Russia's long-established pattern of attacking critical Ukrainian infrastructure, even when such assaults pose a serious threat to civilians. Russia has battered the energy systems that Ukrainian civilians rely on with artillery and occupied the Zaporizhzhia plant for months.

Other updates:

  • Senior officials from China and Russia announced joint military exercises and enhanced defense cooperation, signaling a strengthening partnership despite Beijing's apparent misgivings about the war in Ukraine.
  • Ukraine is facing a severe glass shortage that will make it hard to fix shattered windows before winter.
  • European manufacturers are furloughing workers and shutting down lines because of "crippling" energy bills.
Leaders from more than 150 countries are scheduled to attend the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York.Daniel Slim/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The U.N. General Assembly begins

The 77th session of the U.N. General Assembly, the largest annual gathering of world leaders, began yesterday in New York City. Here's what to expect this week.

The meeting is the first in-person session in three years, after more than two years of pandemic disruptions. But the mood is likely to be a somber one. Leaders will address the war in Ukraine, mounting food and energy crises and concerns over climate disruptions, such as the floods in Pakistan.

Tensions are expected to be high between Russia, the U.S. and European countries over the war in Ukraine — and between China and the U.S. over Taiwan and trade. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, the leaders of Russia and China, are not expected to attend. "The General Assembly is meeting at a time of great peril," António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, said last week.

Analysis: "This is the first General Assembly of a fundamentally divided world," said Richard Gowan, the U.N. director at International Crisis Group, a research group based in Brussels. "We have spent six months with everyone battering each other. The gloves are off."

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That's it for today's briefing. Thanks for joining me. — Natasha

P.S. The executive editor of The Times, Joseph Kahn, wrote about why The Times is focusing on the challenges facing democracy in the U.S. and around the world.

The latest episode of "The Daily" is on the future of the U.K. after Queen Elizabeth's death.

You can reach Natasha and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

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