The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, has advocated that artificial intelligence, which he considers one of the great issues in the world, be “shaped by humanity, with humanity and for all humanity”, as well as a “responsible development” of the phenomenon so that no country is left behind. “Killer robots have no place in our future,” he warned in his last speech as leader of the United Nations.
He has also painted a gloomy portrait of the present, with “cracks” that “have become abysses,” “human rights trampled” and “international law ignored.” In his analysis, they are not “isolated crises,” but rather “chapters of the same story: the history of power.” "Who has it? Who is denied? Guterres has opened the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, in which Donald Trump, who will speak this afternoon, will be the main protagonist. The president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, will also speak.
Previously, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has shown himself willing to meet with Iranian envoys who come to the Assembly to address the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, a key corridor for global oil trafficking.
Artificial intelligence has been, as expected, one of the great themes of António Guterres's speech, who recalled that, in his first intervention, in 2017, he already spoke about this new and at the same time promising and threatening technology. “Killer robots have no place in our future,” he said in one of the most forceful phrases of his speech before the United Nations General Assembly.
Guterres proposes taking “the next steps”: “First, promote the conditions for the responsible development of AI and the additional safeguards necessary to address the risks. Second, work towards a multilateral AI risk management framework supported by credible and independent oversight. And in all our efforts, we must ensure that no country is left behind. Artificial intelligence must be shaped by humanity, with humanity and for all humanity,” he stated.
The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, has opted in his speech for a well-intentioned concept, but difficult to see with the realistic glasses of current geopolitics. It is about “networked multipolarity”: a “world built on interdependence and sustained by a dense network of economic, political, social and technological connections.”
"A world in which multiple centers of influence coexist with a common framework of international law and shared norms," which helps "avoid hegemonic tendencies and also what I have called the great fracture: the division of the world into two rival blocs that separate economic, technological and security systems." Guterres has warned: “We must avoid them,” because “no power can solve the current challenges alone.”
This week the United Nations receives 71 heads of state, 45 government leaders, 11 vice presidents and a prince at its General Assembly in New York. In addition to the general debate that focuses attention, there will be 166 related events and more than 1,500 requests have been submitted to hold bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the event.
António Guterres, Secretary General of the UN since 2017, begins his farewell to the organization with his speech to the General Assembly this Tuesday. The United Nations must have a new head as of January 1, but the race for succession has only just begun. Of the seven remaining candidates, the best placed are the Costa Rican Rebeca Grynspan and the Guyanese Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.
Guterres drew the first applause from the audience with a description of the “devastating situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.” “Years have passed since the abhorrent terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, but what followed was an offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza, with a magnitude of murder and destruction unprecedented in my years as Secretary General,” he said.
"All parties must comply with international law and the Court's orders. Meanwhile, violence, displacement and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are destroying the path to peace and raising the specter of ethnic cleansing. We cannot allow the two-state solution to disappear before our eyes," he said.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, verbally attacked the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, this Tuesday before traveling to the Big Apple to speak at the United Nations General Assembly. "You should be ashamed of supporting the Hamas terrorist monsters who massacred our people. You should be ashamed of inciting riots against the Jews of New York. I'm going to go to the UN. I'm going to tell the truth about our heroic soldiers. I'm going to tell the truth about you," Netanyahu says in a video posted on his X social media account.
Following Donald Trump's speech at the UN General Assembly, the president, prime minister of Denmark and the head of the Greenlandic government are scheduled to sign the pact announced last week that will allow for a greater US military presence in Greenland. With this agreement, the United States will be able to open two new military sites: what was once the Narsarsuaq air base and Mestersvig.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will not attend this Tuesday the reception offered every year by the US President, Donald Trump, to the heads of delegation of the countries on the occasion of the beginning of the 81st period of sessions of the UN Assembly in New York, "for agenda reasons."
Delcy Rodríguez is already in New York. Late on Sunday, the president in charge of Venezuela posted a photograph on her social networks in which she is seen smiling as soon as she got off the plane at the Teterboro airport, in New Jersey. “We arrived in New York with the firmness and hope of a people who believe in the encounter and union between nations,” he wrote.
Upon arrival in New York, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a new agreement on drones is “ready to be signed” in the midst of the prolonged war with Russia. The president did not offer more details.
