The transcripts are AI-generated from the UN's English audio and can contain mistakes. We are checking them against the statements the missions publish; some errors are still expected.
Own country · at 1 min · 2 mentions in this passage
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honor and a pleasure to address the 81st session of the UN General Assembly on behalf of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are a symbol of a nation that has survived severe trials, but has not lost its path towards a better future. In the period from 1992 to 1995, my country was subjected to aggression, joint criminal enterprises, genocide against Bosniaks, crimes against humanity and other war crimes. Following the end of the aggression in 1995, destructive forces have sought through blockades, obstruction and other means to halt the progress of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They are slowing down our path towards a modern European state, but they cannot stop it. Today, Bosnia and Herzegovina stands at the doorstep of the European Union and NATO. These are our strategic foreign policy objectives, unanimously defined by the state authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Unfortunately, there are still those seeking to realize greater state projects at the expense of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the aggression, they attacked our country by military means. Today they do so by political, diplomatic and other means. It is very important that the UN courts have established the nature of the war waged against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Final judgments, including those concerning joint criminal enterprises, have established that this was an international armed conflict. Judgments of the highest UN courts have established that genocide was committed against Bosniaks.
Own country · at 1 min · 2 mentions in this passage
And I'm here not to sell you a product or a policy, or yet another declaration. I am here to sell you an idea. An idea conceived and spearheaded by His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, an idea embraced by the people of Bhutan. An idea already being built. That idea is Gelephu Mindfulness City, GMC. And my sales pitch is simple. Come and build it with us. Now, the world has built new cities before financial centers, freeports, technology hubs, special economic zones. But GMC is different. You see, Gelephu Mindfulness City is a special administrative region, an SAR. Under its Royal Charter, GMC exercises full autonomy in governance, legislation and the judiciary. Think one country, two systems. Think of the agility of a microstate. But GMC was not inherited from history. It was not created to manage a transfer of sovereignty. It is being deliberately created by Bhutan within Bhutan on sovereign Bhutanese territory for the future. GMC covers more than 4000km². That is more than five times the size of Singapore. But its greatest opportunity is not its size. Its greatest opportunity is an institutional blank slate. GMC was given something extraordinarily rare the freedom to design an entire city and its operating systems from first principles. So we asked if you could begin again. How would you govern? What laws would you write? How would we regulate business? How would we guarantee an independent judiciary? How would we attract the best talent? How would we use technology and especially artificial intelligence? How would we create wealth while protecting nature? And ultimately, what would all that prosperity be for? These were not theoretical questions. We answered them. And we are making full use of that institutional blank slate. If Singapore has legal principles that work, we learn from Singapore. If Abu Dhabi has financial regulations that work we learn from Abu Dhabi. If leading jurists from the United Kingdom can help us build an independent judiciary, we learn from them. And if international experts can strengthen our institutions, we learn from them. The principle is simple. Search the world for what works. Take the best, adapt it, and make it work for GMC. The result is a core operating system that is now in place, designed to give investors clarity, familiarity, and predictability. But GMC's operating system was designed around a deeper conviction that prosperity and values should reinforce one another. That means rejecting the assumption that we must choose between enterprise and well-being, between technology and humanity between development and nature. At GMC, we believe a balanced approach can deliver substantial profits while protecting the values that make prosperity worthwhile. Balance is not the enemy of profit. It is the foundation of lasting profit. And at GMC, balance is not a slogan. It is built into the operating system. And this matters deeply to Bhutan. You see, Bhutan is peaceful and stable. Our forests are intact. Our culture is alive. Our people are educated. But our economy is small. It cannot yet create enough opportunities for our young people. So too many of them leave home to find opportunity elsewhere. For a country as small as ours, this is not only an economic challenge, it is an existential one. We cannot simply tell them to stay. We must give them a reason to stay and a reason to return. Jobs. Opportunities. Enterprise, a future. So Bhutan must transform. But we refuse to believe that transformation requires us to become somebody else. We want economic growth. We want investment. We want technology. We want successful companies. We want our people to become wealthier. But we also want to protect what makes Bhutan Bhutan. That is the driving force behind His Majesty's vision for GMC. And that is why His Majesty is personally spearheading its development. GMC is not a project on the margins of Bhutan. It is at the heart of our national transformation. Our people have embraced GMC as a people's project and investment in our children, our economy and our shared future. Bhutan is not waiting to see whether the world believes in GMC before committing to it.
And I call that overarching purpose the patria milagro, the miracle nation. The first step is a basic one restoring security. For far too long, Colombians have had to live alongside situations that no society should accept as normal. A rural farmer having to ask permission from a terrorist group to work on his land, a shopkeeper having to hand over part of the fruits of his labor to extortionists, a mother increasingly gripped by fear every time their child goes out to play in the park. That is not, and it cannot become the norm. Consequently, from the very beginning of my government I gave the security forces one clear instruction to regain territorial control, to fully restore the state's authority and to confront the structures using terrorism. My government is determined to do away with euphemisms. Organizations that murder, that kidnap, that use explosives, that recruit children, and that deliberately resort to terror to subjugate a society are terrorist groups. That is what we call them, and we are facing up to them with the full, legitimate force of the state, within the Constitution and within the law But there is another reality that is very often overlooked. The illicit drugs produced in Colombia don't end up in Colombia. Drugs trafficking is a transnational criminal enterprise. Its routes cross borders. Its money moves through international financial systems, and its networks operate across numerous countries. I will do everything necessary to combat that scourge, but a transnational threat requires the international community to play its part as well. Security, while essential, is not enough. A territory that provides no opportunities remains vulnerable.
These ambitions are underpinned by Georgia's strong economic performance. Over the past five years, our economy has grown by an average of 9.3% annually, and this momentum has continued in 2026, with growth reaching 7.9% in the first seven months of the year. As the International Monetary Fund projects, Georgia will deliver one of the fastest growth rates in the medium term among regional and European countries averaging 5.4%, with one of the fastest growing economies worldwide. We are actively building an innovation oriented business friendly environment that supports both local and foreign enterprises. Despite the global uncertainty, Georgia's FDI to GDP ratio is one of the highest among peer countries and averaged over 6% of GDP in 2021 2025, highlighting the confidence of investors in the country's growth potential. Georgia's FDI outlook is supported by a pipeline of large, multi-year investment projects across transport and logistics, energy infrastructure, tourism, and real estate. Yet, the true measure of success is how it improves people's lives. Strong economic performance must translate into tangible social outcomes higher output per person, rising real wages, declining poverty, better employment opportunities, and greater economic resilience.
We are educating our people to ensure that their skills are relevant. We are modernizing agriculture to ensure our food security. We are dealing with the scarcity of water due to climate change by exploring new sources of groundwater supply and encourage the harvesting of rainwater. We are reducing youth unemployment through the creation of the successful Youth Economy Agency. We are encouraging the spirit of entrepreneurship by supporting small and micro enterprises, especially women owned businesses. We are promoting healthy lifestyles and universal healthcare for the provision of equitable, accessible and affordable healthcare for our citizens. Mr. president, Saint Lucia continues to insist that governance must be about the improvement of the lives of the people. We have maintained fiscal discipline, reduced unemployment as we continue to create new opportunities and an enabling environment for investment in tourism and other productive sectors.
It must make our societies better. We must not allow further slippage in our pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals. We must renew our commitment to them, not as an inventory of promises but as a covenant with our peoples and practical blueprint for ensuring the development reaches every citizen. Protects generations yet unborn and creates lasting, inclusive prosperity. One way to arrest the slippage is, as Guyana is doing, to mainstream the goals into our national development strategies, public policies and budgets so that they become embedded in the priorities we set and the resources we commit rather than remaining aspirations. The SDGs must not only guide our ambitions, they must shape our choices and our national priorities in Guyana. We have made significant advances, including universal health care, free education, modern infrastructure, accelerated access to affordable housing, opportunities for full employment, acceleration of financing for small and medium sized enterprises, and digitising service delivery. Mr. president, two years ago, at this very podium, I committed Guyana to provide global leadership on biodiversity. In July 2025, under Guyana's leadership, the Global Biodiversity Alliance was established as an inclusive platform. In just one year, the alliance expanded from 17 to 138 members, bringing together governments. Institutional organisations including the UN development banks, indigenous peoples, local communities, scientists, universities and the private sector. The second conference of the of the Alliance, to be held in October 2026, will begin to mobilise the resources and partnerships to deliver its ambitions. At the same time, we continue to advance our low carbon development strategy, focus on turning forest stewardship and climate action into a new model for sustainable development. Mr. president, as we commence this 81st session, we have the opportunity to build a United Nations that is truly fit for purpose. The crisis confronting multilateralism can become the catalyst for its renewal. The United Nations must not be a monument to the past.
Argentina's position is clear. Today I have come to tell you that Argentina is not going to sit around waiting for the UN and the international community to live up to their own mandate. We're going to take matters into our own hands. For far too long, Argentina managed its own decline. We managed poverty. We managed isolation. We managed irrelevance. We grew accustomed to debating how to divide up what remained, rather than asking ourselves how we could grow again, how we could rebuild what we had lost. That's over. We've already lost too much. We do not want to lose it again. That's why we've embraced free enterprise capitalism. We're opening our economy up to trade and investment. We're advancing in the development of our strategic resources. We've embraced the technological revolution, and we are rebuilding our military capabilities after decades of neglect. We've also made a geopolitical choice. We have unequivocally aligned ourselves with the West, with the United States, and with Israel, countries with which we share a deep affinity of values and strategic complementarity. That is why we condemn the attacks by the Iranian regime against the State of Israel. We have designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization and continue to seek justice for the two terrorist attacks perpetrated on Argentine soil in 1992 and 1994. We have decided to cooperate with the world, but to do so standing tall, in the understanding that only a nation that is politically relevant, economically influential, and militarily respected can truly be a master of its own destiny.
The governance of strategic resources ought to be an issue of peace, development, and global security from now on. The energy transition, the electrification of transport, energy storage, as well as the expansion of digital and AI infrastructure are accelerating demand for copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel, and other critical minerals. As the largest global producer of cobalt and a major copper-producing power, the DRC is at the heart of this transformation. Congolese cobalt is already being used in batteries, power grids, digital equipment, and technologies that are crucial for the decarbonization of the global economy. It would be both unjust and dangerous for added value, jobs, know-how, and technologies to remain concentrated far away from the communities that are making these changes possible. We cannot build a decarbonized economy through blood-stained minerals. And we will not bring about a just transition by reproducing a greenwashed version of our past dependencies. The DRC, therefore, rejects the old model that limits producer countries to crude extraction while processing, research, technology, and the bulk of the profits are concentrated elsewhere. Our ambition is clear. We no longer wish to be simply the basement of the world's economy. We plan to become a workshop, a laboratory, and a sovereign partner. Nous voulons transformer. We'd like to further transform cobalt and copper, process more cobalt and copper on our territory, develop precursors for batteries and industrial components, train our engineers, support our researchers, and include our enterprises in global value chains. We'd like to build, together with our African and international partners, competitive regional businesses that create jobs, skills, and shared prosperity. This ambition, first and foremost, entails taking up our own responsibilities. The DRC is pursuing the modernization of mining governance through the transparency of contracts, extractive revenue, and effective beneficiaries, improving mining registries, the deployment of traceability mechanisms, and the fight against fraud. We're also accelerating the formalization of small-scale mining, the regulation of traders, organization of cooperatives, and by securing exploitation zones. The battle against child labor in mines, in this regard, is a moral and national obligation. Together with the International Labor Organization, UNICEF, and our other partners, we are strengthening our identification, monitoring, and remediation mechanisms, as well as the training of our inspectors, school attendance of children, and economic solutions for their families. Our goal is unambiguous. We need to achieve zero children in the mines. This responsibility is one that lies with the Congolese state, but it also involves businesses, traders, refiners, manufacturers, financial institutions, and destination markets. The real proof of a responsible supply chain is not the electric vehicle sold downstream. It is the child who no longer descends into the mines upstream. That is why the DRC proposes creating, under UN auspices and together with the African Union, as well as producer, processor, and consumer countries, a global framework for just, traceable, and resilient critical mineral value chains. Based upon the sovereignty of producer states, it ought to guarantee traceability of minerals, responsibility of economic actors, protection of workers and communities, as well as a more equitable sharing of added value thanks to local processing and technology transfer. The corridor of Lobito ought to become one of the tools to further this ambition. We commend the commitment of Angola, Zambia, the USA, the European Union, the African Development Bank, financial institutions, and the private sector to promote its implementation. The rehabilitation of railway links, the modernization of infrastructure, the facilitation of exchange and energy investments can connect our territories, reduce logistical costs, and stimulate regional trade. But our vision goes far beyond accelerating the export of our raw materials. A corridor that only shortens the path from the mine to the port only reproduces the past. The corridor of Lobito ought to become a real backbone for regional industrialization, with the support of investors, with the help of whom we hope to build transparent, sustainable, and mutually beneficial partnerships for the well-being of future generations.
But the real motivation of which lies elsewhere: in a covetousness for the significant resources that God has placed in our land. Niger's uranium, Mali and Burkina Faso's gold, lithium, gas, oil and so many other riches still make the former colonial powers salivate. They want to make us believe that we are incapable of governing, of governing ourselves, incapable of producing, of thinking, and of defending ourselves. They want to make us believe and convince us that we do not have the science, the intelligence, or the sovereignty needed to build something precious by and for ourselves, and that as a consequence, therefore, we should accept the tutelage of Emmanuel Macron's France and his allies. A France which very often acts through its local proxies, networks and complicity. For centuries they have instilled self-deprecation, fear and resignation. They continue to want to introduce permanent conflict in communities which since time immemorial, have been living in harmony in the same space and which have created peaceful mechanisms for settling disputes, such as joking kinship. For example, this perfidious attempt to destabilize the central Sahel conducted by France with the active complicity of Ukraine, is now documented, widely documented. This criminal enterprise has been dismissed, has been unmasked now that the military, political and media elites that justify it in the name of their own country's interests have themselves removed their veils and remove their masks. I say solemnly from this rostrum: the Sahel sees, the Sahel hears, the Sahel remembers, and the Sahel understands things very well. Our Sahel is determined to defend its liberty, its resources and its dignity at any cost. A people that has decided to be free cannot be recolonised through fear, through deceit, nor even through savage violence. Ladies and gentlemen, as I speak to you, on our northeastern border there are proxies led by that France, supported by Ukraine and two other countries. And you know which countries I'm alluding to. Those proxies are armed, managed and led, and they are about to attack our military positions and our oil installations. But inshallah, they will find what they deserve if they do so. The AES, the result of a long and historic struggle of our peoples against colonization and neocolonialism, is now an irreversible process towards our country's sovereignty. Make no mistake, the century that we are living in marks the end of old Hegemonies and the awakening of thus far suppressed forces. The AES is to Africa and its historic and contemporary diasporas as light is to darkness. It is for this human community that is present around the world, a source of hope and of dignity. And I say this before the world so that the world can understand: the AES is the result of a movement that dates from the dawn of time. It is a profound, lasting, irrepressible and irreversible change. Inshallah. A change which, by trimming the sharp claws of imperialism, abolishing the trade in black persons and slavery, overthrowing colonialism and neocolonialism, is bringing the peoples of Africa towards independence, sovereignty and liberty. I affirm that our Refoundation in Niger
