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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei addressed the Security Council in person and by video link respectively, with Altman warning that advanced AI systems risk concentrating power 'into too few hands' and moving faster than governments can respond. Amodei told the council he believes AI could represent 'a risk to humanity as a whole' if managed poorly, and pledged that Anthropic would slow its release of new models where safety demands it. Both executives called on governments — including rivals — to collaborate on regulatory frameworks, with Altman arguing that decisions shaping AI's future 'cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone' and must instead emerge from democratic processes accountable to the public. The session was convened by France and informed by a new UN science report warning of a 'slight but real' potential for catastrophic and irreversible harm from the technology.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the General Assembly on Wednesday, pressing member states for stronger support and warning that Russia shows no genuine interest in peace negotiations. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also took the floor Wednesday, striking a notably different tone from the confrontational posture of his predecessors, and signalling openness to diplomacy — remarks that took on added weight given the confirmed sideline meeting between Iranian and American officials earlier in the week. Sudan's foreign minister used his allotted time to appeal for international intervention as the country's civil war enters its third year, with humanitarian conditions described by UN agencies as among the worst on earth.
19d
The UN Security Council convened Wednesday to address how to place controls on artificial intelligence, featuring some of the field's most prominent figures in what amounted to the assembly week's most high-profile institutional engagement on the issue. The session underscored a growing divide between member states pushing for binding international safeguards and the United States, where Trump has staked out firm opposition to regulation while arguing that the term 'artificial intelligence' undersells the technology — a position that has so far found little traction among other delegations.
19d
President Trump used his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday to announce he is renaming artificial intelligence 'super intelligence' in all U.S. government documents, dismissing widespread safety concerns about the technology by comparing AI alarmists to those who warned about climate change. In a separate and unexpected diplomatic development, Trump confirmed that his envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met on the sidelines of the assembly with Iranian officials — describing it as 'a very good meeting' — even as he threatened in his speech to 'annihilate' Iran if a deal to end the nearly seven-month war is not reached. The meeting marks the most concrete U.S.-Iran engagement since a short-lived ceasefire brokered in June collapsed, though Trump noted the Iranian representatives were 'not the highest level.'
19d
Macron, in what he described as his final address to the General Assembly as president, urged nations to resist the 'law of the jungle' and recommit to the UN system and international law. He specifically called for a bilateral moratorium on strikes targeting civilian and energy infrastructure in the Russia-Ukraine war, warning that the destruction of such sites represents 'a new era of barbaric acts.' He also raised the humanitarian situation in Gaza, adding to remarks he had made in a Monday meeting with Trump in which he pressed the Ukrainian cause.
19d
Guterres, who steps down at the end of the year, framed his address as a farewell appeal, warning that 'the fault lines in our world are widening' and urging member states to choose interdependence over fragmentation, transactionalism, and mistrust. He called on superpowers to recognise that 'their power isn't so super,' pushing back against the logic that military force alone can resolve the world's defining crises. French President Emmanuel Macron, also speaking Tuesday, declared there can be 'no peace without justice' in remarks to the assembly.
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UN Secretary-General António Guterres used the assembly as a platform to call for an outright ban on autonomous 'killer robots,' warning that artificial intelligence must never be permitted to make life-or-death decisions. Colombia's former president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate also weighed in on the sidelines, highlighting what he described as the growing dangers posed by autonomous weapons systems. The statements added momentum to calls for binding international regulation of AI in military applications, an issue that has emerged as one of the session's most pressing points of consensus-building.
World leaders convened in New York this week for the United Nations General Assembly's annual high-level debate, confronting a crowded and sobering agenda: active wars on multiple continents, the unregulated rise of artificial intelligence, accelerating climate change, and deep questions about the UN's own future relevance and financial stability. Around 130 heads of state and government are expected to address the assembly, with speeches from US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, followed by Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and Iran's Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.
The wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Myanmar, and Iran dominated the diplomatic backdrop. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was denied a US visa for the second consecutive year, and will address the assembly by video instead — an arrangement that drew criticism from those who see it as undermining inclusive multilateralism. Netanyahu's presence, despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes, highlighted the tensions between international legal norms and political realities. Iran's delegation arrived partially reduced, with several members denied entry to the United States. Meanwhile, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — seven months into an American military campaign against Iran — remained unresolved, with oil prices briefly dipping below $100 a barrel on hopes that the week's diplomacy might yield progress. Macron, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council this month, met Trump privately at Trump Tower and said discussions on unblocking shipping routes were
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