UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations believes it has solved the mystery of why an escalator abruptly stopped shortly after US President Donald Trump stepped onto it on Tuesday – his videographUNer may have accidentally triggered a safety mechanism.

Trump jokingly complained about the incident during his speech to world leaders earlier on Tuesday after the teleprompter also didn’t work.

“These are the two things I got from the United Nations – a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” he told the 193-member assembly, to some laughter.

However, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wasn’t so lighthearted about it.

“If someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator as the President and First Lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately,” she posted on X after the incident.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said a readout of the escalator’s central processing unit indicated it “had stopped after a built-in safety mechanism on the comb step was triggered at the top of the escalator.”

He said Trump’s videographer had been traveling backwards up the escalator to capture his arrival with First Lady Melania Trump.

“The videographer may have inadvertently triggered the safety function,” Dujarric said in a statement. “The safety mechanism is designed to prevent people or objects accidentally being caught and stuck in or pulled into the gearing.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the UN findings.
On the teleprompter, Trump told the General Assembly on Tuesday: “I can only say that whoever’s operating this teleprompter is in big trouble.”

However, a UN official said the White House had operated its own teleprompter.

After Trump finished speaking, UN General Assembly President Annalena Baerbock said: “The UN teleprompters are working perfectly.” — Reuters

GENEVA – China announced on Tuesday it will forego asking for the benefits it gains from its developing country status at the World Trade Organization, state-run news agency Xinhua and the Director-General of the WTO stated.

Xinhua reported that China’s Premier Li Qiang announced his country will no longer seek access to Special and Differential Treatment in current and new WTO agreements during a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

“This is a culmination of many years of hard work and I want to applaud China’s leadership on this issue,” WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said in a statement posted on X.

Previously, Washington had argued there could be no meaningful WTO reform until China and other major economies relinquish the SDT granted to developing countries, which the U.S. says give them an unfair advantage.

Some major economies, including China and Saudi Arabia, self-identify as developing countries, granting them access to SDT benefits such as setting higher tariffs and using subsidies.

The U.S. opposes countries picking and choosing SDT benefits, and had wanted China to completely renounce them.

China’s announcement comes after months of trade tension between the world’s two largest economies over sweeping tariffs imposed by the U.S. and retaliatory measures by China.

China previously told Reuters its developing country status was non-negotiable, but that it was open to discussing SDT, subsidies and industrial policy as part of broader discussions on WTO reform, ahead of a 2026 ministerial meeting in Cameroon. — Reuters

President Donald Trump dismissed climate change as “the greatest con job” in the world during his address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, doubling down on his skepticism of global environmental initiatives and multilateral institutions.

Scientists say climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. They point to rising temperatures, stronger storms, and melting ice as clear signs. Groups like the UN have warned that waiting too long to act could cause serious damage to the planet and people.

Trump spoke for several minutes out of his near-hour speech on climate change during his address to the United Nations General Assembly, criticizing the European Union for reducing its carbon footprint, which he claimed has taken a toll on its economy, and warning countries that have invested heavily in renewable energy that their economies will suffer.

“It’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” Trump told the General Assembly. “All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong.”

He added: “They were made by stupid people that have cost their country’s fortunes and given those same countries no chance for success.”

SECOND US WITHDRAWAL FROM CLIMATE PACT
Once Trump took office in January, the US submitted its withdrawal for a second time from the Paris Agreement, a 2015 pact agreed by 195 countries to strive to keep global temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 C, leaving it in the company of only Yemen, Iran and Libya.

His administration is carrying out an “energy dominance” agenda that focuses on producing and exporting oil, gas and coal, as well as nuclear, while sidelining renewable energy, which has become cost-competitive.

“We have the most oil of any nation anywhere, oil and gas in the world, and if you add coal, we have the most of any nation in the world,” he said.

His remarks come a day before UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hosts a climate summit at the UN that will focus on countries’ new climate action plans.

Guterres has tried to keep the world focused on continuing a global transition away from fossil fuels towards clean energy.

“Just follow the money,” Guterres said in June, adding that $2 trillion flowed into clean energy last year, $800 billion more than fossil fuels and up almost 70% in a decade. — Reuters

OTTAWA – TikTok has agreed to improve its measures to keep children off its website and app after a Canadian investigation found its efforts to block children and protect personal information were inadequate, Canadian privacy officials said on Tuesday.

The joint investigation into TikTok by Canada’s privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne and privacy protection authorities in the provinces of Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta found that hundreds of thousands of Canadian children accessed TikTok each year despite the company stating its platform is not intended for people under the age of 13.

The investigation also found that TikTok had collected sensitive personal information from “a large number” of Canadian children and used it for online marketing and content targeting.

“TikTok collects vast amounts of personal information about its users, including children. This data is being used to target the content and ads that users see, which can have harmful impacts, particularly on youth,” Dufresne said at a press conference announcing the investigation’s results.

In response to the investigation, TikTok agreed to enhance age-assurance methods to keep underage users off the platform and to improve its communications so that users, particularly younger ones, understand how their data could be used, Dufresne said.

The company also agreed to changes throughout the course of the investigation, according to the privacy commissioners. They include preventing advertisers from targeting users under 18, except based on general categories such as language and approximate location, and expanding the privacy information available to Canadian users.

A TikTok spokesperson said the company is pleased the commissioners agreed to a number of its proposals “to further strengthen” its platform for Canadians.

“While we disagree with some of the findings, we remain committed to maintaining strong transparency and privacy practices,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson did not specify which findings TikTok disagreed with.

Canada joins governments and regulators around the world that have been scrutinizing TikTok because of concerns China could use the app to harvest users’ data or advance its interests. TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd, although U.S. President Donald Trump is working with China on a deal requiring TikTok’s American assets to be transferred to U.S. owners.

The European Union’s two biggest policy-making institutions have banned TikTok from staff phones, while the U.S. Senate in December passed a bill to bar federal employees from using the app on government-owned devices.

Ottawa began investigating TikTok’s plan to invest and expand its business in Canada in 2023. The review led to a government order that required the firm to end its Canadian operations because of national security concerns, which TikTok is challenging. — Reuters

UNITED NATIONS – US President Donald Trump argued for lower levels of global migration and urged a turn away from climate change policies on Tuesday in a combative, wide-ranging speech to the UN General Assembly that leveled scathing criticism of world leaders.

The 56-minute speech was a rebuke to the world body and a return to form for Trump, who routinely bashed the UN during his first term as president. Leaders gave him polite applause when he exited the chamber.

He rejected moves by allies to endorse a Palestinian state amid Israel’s latest Gaza offensive and urged European nations to adopt the same set of economic measures he is proposing against Russia to force an end to the war in Ukraine.

Much of his speech was dominated by two of his biggest grievances: immigration and climate change.

Trump offered his US immigration crackdown as a case study for what other world leaders should do to curb mass migration that he says is altering the fabric of nations. Human rights advocates argue the migrants are seeking better lives.

“I’m really good at this stuff,” Trump said. “Your countries are going to hell.”

Trump, who met last week with Britain’s environmentally conscious King Charles at Windsor Castle, called climate change a “con job” and urged a return to a greater reliance on fossil fuels. Scientists say climate change caused by humans is real.
“Immigration and their suicidal energy ideas will be the death of Western Europe,” Trump said.

Trump’s administration plans to call for sharply narrowing the right to asylum at the United Nations later this month, Reuters reported last week, as it seeks to undo the post-World War Two framework around humanitarian protection.

Trump sprinkled into his speech a litany of false and misleading statements, such as that London Mayor Sadiq Khan wants to impose “sharia law” on London and that “inflation has been defeated” in the United States six days after the Federal Reserve said inflation has gone up.

CRITICISM FOR ALLIES, POSSIBLE TARIFFS ON RUSSIA
European powers have spent months trying to stabilize their relationship with the US leader with a focus on winning US support to end the war in Ukraine. At a NATO summit in June, Trump and European leaders lavished each other with praise.

But in Tuesday’s speech, Trump mocked NATO allies for not shutting down purchases of Russian oil and said he would impose strong economic measures against Moscow.

“They’re funding the war against themselves. Who the hell ever heard of that one? In the event that Russia is not ready to make a deal to end the war, then the United States is fully prepared to impose a very strong round of powerful tariffs,” he said.

“But for those tariffs to be effective, European nations, all of you are gathered here right now, would have to join us in adopting the exact same measures.”

He did not detail the measures, but he has been considering a package that includes sanctions against countries that do business with Russia, like India and China. The main buyers of Russian oil in Europe are Hungary, Slovakia and Turkey.

Trump later held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who pressed for more US support to resist Russian advances. Trump, asked by reporters if NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace, said, “Yes, I do.”

On the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Trump rejected efforts by world leaders to embrace a Palestinian state, a move that faces fierce resistance from Israel.

“The rewards would be too great for Hamas terrorists, for their atrocities,” he said, repeating his call for the return of hostages taken by the Palestinian militant group.

Trump said the United States wants a ceasefire-for-hostages deal that would see the return of all remaining hostages, alive and dead.

“We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately. We have to immediately negotiate peace,” he said.

He was to discuss the future of Gaza during afternoon talks with several Gulf leaders.

Trump, who has cast himself as a peacemaker in a bid to win the Nobel Peace Prize, complained that the United Nations did not support his efforts to end conflicts around the world.

He added to his complaints with personal grievances about the UN infrastructure, saying he and first lady Melania Trump were briefly marooned on a malfunctioning UN escalator and that his teleprompter was not initially working.

“These are the two things I got from the United Nations – a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump said, noting that Melania Trump nearly fell when the escalator stopped abruptly. — Reuters