António Guterres

Force in Play

Warned of uncontrollable escalation; overseeing UN humanitarian response

In thirteen days of US-Israeli military strikes on Iran, up to 3.2 million people have fled their homes without leaving the country. The United Nations refugee agency reported on March 12 that between 600,000 and one million Iranian households abandoned Tehran and other major cities for northern provinces and rural areas, marking one of the fastest mass internal displacements in modern conflict.

Updated Mar 12

Rule Changes

Leading UN AI governance initiative

For the first time in history, the world has an independent scientific body dedicated to artificial intelligence. On February 13, 2026, the United Nations General Assembly appointed 40 experts to a three-year panel charged with assessing AI's economic and social impacts—a vote that passed 117-2, with only the United States and Paraguay opposed. The vote marks the clearest split yet between American AI policy and the rest of the world, including traditional US allies in Europe and Asia.

Updated Feb 13

Rule Changes

Issued statement calling expiration a 'grave moment'

For fifty-three years, binding agreements constrained the world's two largest nuclear arsenals. That era ended on February 5, 2026, when the New START treaty expired at midnight without a successor, as confirmed by President Trump who rejected a Russian extension offer and directed work on a new pact including China. The United States and Russia now face no legal limits on their combined stockpile of roughly 10,700 nuclear warheads.

Updated Feb 5

Money Moves

Managing UN-wide financial crisis and chronic humanitarian underfunding

In December 2025, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cut its 2026 humanitarian appeal to roughly $33 billion, down from $47 billion requested for 2025, after governments provided only about $15 billion in 2025 – the lowest level of support in a decade. Just three weeks later, however, the United States pledged a landmark $2 billion to OCHA-managed funds, providing roughly two-thirds of the funding needed to reach 87 million people in the most catastrophic need. The new plan concentrates resources on the worst emergencies, including over $4.1 billion for Palestinian areas, $2.9 billion for Sudan, and $2.8 billion for the regional Syria response. In early February 2026, the World Health Organization launched a separate $1 billion appeal for 36 health emergencies – down one-third from the prior year – after reaching only one-third of its 2025 targets due to collapsed funding.

Updated Feb 4

Force in Play

Condemned operation as 'dangerous precedent' violating international law

At 2 a.m. on January 3, Delta Force operators dragged Nicolás Maduro and his wife from their bedroom in Caracas. Seven explosions rocked Venezuela's capital as US special forces helicopters evacuated the captured president to the USS Iwo Jima, bound for New York to face narco-terrorism charges. By Saturday afternoon, Maduro arrived at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn—the first American military capture of a sitting head of state since Manuel Noriega in 1989. Venezuela's Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced on January 7 that 100 people were killed in the operation, including Venezuelan military personnel, 32 Cuban forces, and civilians. Two US personnel were injured and one helicopter was hit. On January 5, Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty before Judge Alvin Hellerstein, declaring 'I am innocent' and 'I am still the president of my country,' with their next court date set for March 17. On January 13, the Justice Department released a previously classified memo concluding the president possessed constitutional authority to order the military operation. By January 29, Venezuela's military and police formally pledged loyalty to interim President Delcy Rodríguez at a ceremony in Caracas.

Updated Jan 31

Force in Play

Condemned U.S. strikes as 'dangerous precedent'

Delta Force dragged Nicolás Maduro from his bedroom at 2 AM on January 3, threw him on a helicopter, and flew him to the USS Iwo Jima bound for Manhattan. The Venezuelan president now faces narco-terrorism charges in the same courthouse that convicted El Chapo. His wife Cilia Flores—indicted for the first time—sits in the cell next to him with fractured ribs and head injuries from the raid. On January 5, both pleaded not guilty. Maduro told the judge he remains Venezuela's president and declared himself a 'prisoner of war.'

Updated Jan 5

Force in Play

Condemning the raid and invoking UN treaty protections for the compound

Israeli police and municipal officials rolled into a quiet UN compound in East Jerusalem before dawn. Motorbikes, trucks and forklifts smashed through UNRWA’s former headquarters in Sheikh Jarrah, seizing equipment, cutting communications and hauling down the UN flag to raise Israel’s own. UN officials say it was an unauthorized raid on inviolable UN premises; Israeli authorities insist it was just a municipal debt-collection move.

Updated Dec 11, 2025