Hurricane Sandy forces UN to cancel meetings

A road sign warns drivers of weather conditions in downtown Washington, DC October 28, 2012 ahead of Hurricane Sandy’s landfall. US emergency officials braced for the potentially massive impact of a so-called “Frankenstorm” Sunday as Hurricane Sandy lumbered north in the Atlantic Ocean, poised to hit the Eastern Seaboard with torrential rains and gale-force winds. The superstorm was expected to make landfall somewhere between Virginia and Massachusetts early Tuesday, possibly causing chaos during the frenzied last days of campaigning before the November 6 US presidential vote. AFP / Eva HAMBACH

UNITED NATIONS—The United Nations canceled meetings which Latin American presidents were to attend on Monday as Hurricane Sandy bore down on New York.

“The UN headquarters will be closed at least on Monday because of the threat of the storm,” said deputy UN spokesman Eduardo del Buey.

Guatemala’s President Otto Perez had been due to chair a UN Security Council meeting on women in conflict, which ministers including France’s Women’s Affairs Minister Nadjat Vallaud-Belkacem was to attend.

Bolivia’s President Evo Morales was to have been at the UN headquarters on Monday to launch a campaign to promote quinoa, the high nutrient plant, as a way of helping to solve the global food crisis. Ministers from other South American nations were in New York for the meeting.