NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 23: United Nations (UN) Secretary-General António Guterres speaks during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) at the United Nations headquarters on September 23, 2025 in New York City. World leaders convened for the 80th Session of UNGA, with this years theme for the annual global meeting being Better together: 80 years and more for peace, development and human rights. Gaza and Ukraine are just two of the global emergencies that world leaders will look to address. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Michael M. Santiago / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)
September 23, 2025
United Nations, United States (AFP)-United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Tuesday that cuts to aid budgets were “wreaking havoc” as he opened the organisation’s annual meeting of world leaders, painting a dark picture of the world order.
“But development aid cuts are wreaking havoc. They are a death sentence for many. A stolen future for many more,” he said without mentioning the United States, responsible for many of the cuts, whose president will speak shortly after Guterres.
“This is the paradox of our time: we know what we need — yet we are pulling away the very lifeline that makes it possible.”
In a doom-laden speech, Guterres pointed to worsening crises in a growing number of countries and warned of the risk of nuclear proliferation.
“Far too many crises continue unchecked. Impunity prevails. Lawlessness is a contagion. It invites mayhem, accelerates terror, and risks a nuclear free-for-all,” he said.
He did hold out a glimmer of hope, pointing to the ceasefire brokered between Cambodia and Thailand, and the agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, “brokered by the United States.”
But the UN chief warned that the “pillars of peace” were “buckling under the weight of impunity, inequality, and indifference.”
“Sovereign nations, invaded. Hunger, weaponized. Truth, silenced. Rising smoke from bombed-out cities. Rising anger in fractured societies. Rising seas swallowing coastlines,” he said.
The UN’s leader said that “around the world, we see countries acting as if the rules don’t apply to them. We see humans treated as less than human.”
He pointed to Sudan where he said “civilians are being slaughtered, starved, and silenced” and Gaza where “the horrors are approaching a third monstrous year.”