António Guterres

Rule Changes

Tasked with a strategic review of the mission by March 31, 2027

On June 6 and 7, Taliban morality police detained dozens of women and girls in Herat over how they were dressed. Protests followed. Taliban forces opened fire, killing a woman and a child.

Updated Jun 16

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. This is one of the fastest mass internal displacements in modern conflict.

Updated May 30

Rule Changes

Leading UN AI governance initiative

For the first time, the world has an independent scientific body dedicated to artificial intelligence. On February 13, 2026, the UN General Assembly voted 117-2 to create a three-year panel of 40 experts assessing AI's economic and social impacts. Only the United States and Paraguay opposed—splitting from traditional allies in Europe and Asia.

Updated May 29

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. The United States and Russia now face no legal limits on their roughly 10,700 nuclear warheads, after President Trump rejected a Russian extension offer and directed work on a new pact including China.

Updated May 27

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.

Updated May 19

Force in Play

Condemned operation as 'dangerous precedent' violating international law

Delta Force operators captured Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas at 2 a.m. on January 3 as explosions rocked the capital and helicopters evacuated them to the USS Iwo Jima, bound for New York. 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.

Updated May 19

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 May 10

Money Moves

Managing UN-wide financial crisis and chronic humanitarian underfunding

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cut its 2026 humanitarian appeal to roughly $33 billion in December 2025, down from the $47 billion requested for 2025. Governments had provided only about $15 billion in 2025 — the lowest level of support in a decade. Three weeks later, the United States pledged $2 billion to OCHA-managed funds, providing roughly two-thirds of the funding needed to reach 87 million people in the most catastrophic need.

Updated May 10