Global South Demonstrates How Countries Can Deal with an Aggressive United States

The United States’ attack on Venezuela marks a key watershed in the world order. We still cannot predict how this violation of another state’s sovereignty will ultimately play out.

Binalakshmi Nepram: Engineering Peace, Creating History

It was Christmas eve: some two decades ago. Binalakshmi Nepram was a witness to the killing of a 27-year-old. In utter disbelief, she saw a group of three men dragging the victim from his workshop. Within minutes, he was shot dead.

As Korea Ages, Fiscal Reforms Can Help Safeguard Government Finances

Korea’s population is aging faster than almost any other country. That’s because people live longer than in most other countries, while the birth rate is one of the lowest in the world.

Another of Trump’s Quixotic Imperial Designs

At a press conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, Trump unveiled his newly formed Board of Peace to end the Israel-Hamas war. During a press conference in the White House, he explained that he created the board because “The UN should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them. I never even thought to go to them.”

Is the US Board of Peace Aimed at Undermining the UN?

Judging by the mixed signals coming out of the White House, is the Board of Peace, a creation of President Donald Trump, eventually aimed at replacing the UN Security Council or the United Nations itself? At a ceremony in Davos, Switzerland last week, Trump formally ratified the Charter of the Board — establishing it as “an official international organization”.

The World’s Ongoing Conflicts Underline Nuclear and Non-Nuclear States

The two current ongoing conflicts, which have claimed the lives of hundreds and thousands of people, are between nuclear and non-nuclear states: Russia vs Ukraine and Israel vs Palestine, while some of the potential nuclear vs non-nuclear conflicts include China vs Taiwan, North Korea vs South Korea and the United States vs Iran (Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, Cuba and Denmark).

Big Nature-Based Finance Turnaround Needed to Restore, Protect Ecosystems

The world is pouring trillions of dollars each year into activities that destroy nature while investing only a fraction of that amount in protecting and restoring the ecosystems on which economies depend, according to a new United Nations report released on January 22.

World’s Oceans Hit Record Heat in 2025, at Great Economic and Social Costs

In 2025, global ocean temperatures rose to some of the highest levels ever recorded, signaling a continued accumulation of heat within the Earth’s climate system and raising deep concern among climate scientists. The economic toll of ocean-related impacts—including collapsing fisheries, widespread coral reef degradation, and mounting damage to coastal infrastructure—is now estimated to be nearly double the global cost of carbon emissions, placing immense strain on economies and endangering millions of lives.

Steering Nepal’s Economy Amid Global Challenges

Nepal has a unique opportunity for transformation. The recent youth-led protests underscored aspirations for greater transparency, governance and a more equal distribution of economic opportunities and resources. This yearning resonated in Nepal and beyond.

World Enters ‘Era of Global Water Bankruptcy’

The world is already in the state of “water bankruptcy”. In many basins and aquifers, long-term overuse and degradation mean that past hydrological and ecological baselines cannot realistically be restored.

World Living Beyond Its Means: Warns UN’s Global Water Bankruptcy Report

The world has entered what United Nations researchers now describe as an era of Global Water Bankruptcy, a condition where humanity has irreversibly overspent the planet’s water resources, leaving ecosystems, economies, and communities unable to recover to previous levels.

Global Survey Finds Citizens back a World Parliament as Trust in International System Erodes

As democracy faces pressure around the world and confidence in international law drops, a new global survey reveals that citizens in a vast majority of countries support the idea of creating a citizen-elected world parliament to deal with global issues.

The UN’s Withering Vine: A US Retreat from Global Governance

 
The Trump administration’s recent announcement of its withdrawal from 66 international organisations has been met with a mixture of alarm and applause. While the headline number suggests a dramatic retreat from the world stage, a closer look reveals a more nuanced, and perhaps more insidious, strategy. The move is less a wholesale abandonment of the United Nations system and more a targeted pruning of the multilateral vine, aimed at withering specific branches of global cooperation that the administration deems contrary to its interests. While the immediate financial impact may be less than feared, the long-term consequences for the UN and the rules-based international order are profound.

Economic Dogma Blocks Pragmatic Policies

After condemning pragmatic responses to the 1997-98 Asian financial crises, the West pursued similar policies in response to the 2008 global financial crisis without acknowledging its own mistakes.

Children and Armed Conflict Must be at the Forefront of the Global Agenda

Thirty years ago, the groundbreaking report by Graça Machel, renowned and widely respected global advocate for women's and children's rights, to the United Nations General Assembly laid bare the devastating impact of armed conflict on children and shook the conscience of the world. It led to the historic decision of the General Assembly to create the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG-CAAC).

Ageing and Shrinking Populations

Ageing and shrinking populations are becoming more prevalent in many countries around the world.

Davos: Meaningful Dialogue Requires a Collective Stand Against Military, Economic and Diplomatic Bullying

“The ‘spirit of dialogue’, the theme for this year’s meeting in Davos, which begins January 19, has been painfully and increasingly absent from international affairs of late. President Trump’s first year back in office has seen the United States withdraw from multilateral bodies, bully other states and relentlessly attack the principles and institutions that underpin the international justice system.

What Next? United States Exits Key Entities, Vital Climate Treaties in Major Retreat from Global Cooperation

President Donald Trump has escalated efforts to further distance the United States from international organizations and entities focused on climate, the environment, and energy. This strategy is in step with his administration’s established approach to undermine and redirect funds and international cooperation away from climate and clean energy programs.

Richest 1% have Blown Through their Fair Share of Carbon Emissions for 2026 –in just 10 Days

The richest 1% have exhausted their annual carbon budget – the amount of CO2 that can be emitted while staying within 1.5 degrees of warming - only ten days into the year, according to new analysis from Oxfam. The richest 0.1% already used up their carbon limit on the 3rd January.

Is the US Moving Towards the UN’s Exit Door?

Judging by the mass US withdrawal from 66 UN entities, including UN conventions and international treaties, is it remotely possible that the unpredictable Trump administration may one day decide to pull out of the UN, and force the Secretariat out of New York-- despite the 1947 UN-US headquarters agreement?

Our New Colonial Era

We’re living in an age where the world is loudly proclaiming the death of empire, yet reproducing its structures. This is not nostalgia for colonial postcards — it’s a reinvention of foreign policy, international governance and global economic power that resembles colonial logic far more than it does meaningful cooperation.