It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the tension, violence and uncertainty in the world in recent years. The number of wars is growing, more and more money is being spent on weapons, and the rhetoric of major powers is becoming increasingly decisive.
In public discourse today, Muslims often appear as subjects of debate rather than authors of their own histories. Discussions about Muslim societies tend to revolve around geopolitics, security or conflict, leaving little space for the cultural, artistic and intellectual traditions that have shaped Muslim communities across centuries.
As the world continues to be weighed down in political and military turmoil, drones are being increasingly used as weapons of war in a rash of ongoing conflicts—including Ukraine vs Russia, Israel vs Palestine, US vs Iran and Israel vs Lebanon, plus in civil wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan and Haiti.
A massive expansion of AI-enabled surveillance of public spaces across Africa is violating citizens’ freedoms and the fundamental human right to privacy, warns a new report by the Institute of Development Studies.
The 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) has brought together global leaders, gender equity advocates, and youth representatives at the United Nations (UN) Headquarters to advance efforts to strengthen mechanisms for justice, equality, and representation for women and girls worldwide. With challenges particularly pronounced in conflict zones, this year’s priority theme —“
ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls — focuses on repealing discriminatory laws and addressing persistent structural barriers that prevent women and girls from being fully heard, represented, and treated equally.
Once again, global oil prices are spiking, driven by the Israeli-US war against Iran. With Iran retaliating by attacking infrastructure and transport hubs and blocking the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, oil supplies from the region are being choked, pushing up prices. The cost of a barrel of Brent crude – the international benchmark for oil prices – stood at US$73 before the conflict but has surged beyond US$100 since. It could go higher still as war continues.
The Aba Women’s Riots of 1929 remain one of the most powerful demonstrations of Nigerian women’s collective resistance. Thousands of market women, farmers, traders, and mothers mobilized across districts in the then Eastern Nigeria to challenge colonial taxation and the extension of warrant chiefs’ authority over their lives. They organized without formal structures and without institutional support.
Professor Jude Osakwe—a Nigerian scholar at the Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST) and Continental Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation Africa (NIDOAF)—has reiterated the absolute truth over Reparations for Africa, noting that African governments have consistently expressed only 'emotional solidarity' over Reparations instead of tackling and addressing, with seriousness, this pertinent issue within the context of diplomacy.
Across the world, women remain vastly under-represented in political leadership, with the most powerful decisions still overwhelmingly made by men. In 2026, only 28 countries are led by a woman Head of State or Government, while 101 countries have never had a woman leader, according to the
latest data released by Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and UN Women.
Global wildlife is facing a deepening crisis as the latest United Nations assessment warns that nearly half of the world’s migratory species are in decline due to human activity, habitat destruction, and climate change.
The US/Israeli war on Iran might be like messing with a hornets’ nest, spreading fear and chaos all around. The Israeli government claimed that the war was a “preventive” measure to address an immediate threat of Iran constructing a nuclear bomb. However, this war has obviously been meticulously planned over a long period of time and it now seemed to be the right time to put this plan into action. The Iranian air defences had been weakened through earlier attacks, while recent Israeli strikes decapitated Hezbollah’s Lebanese leadership, Iran’s allies north of Israel. With Gaza destroyed and Syria’s unreliable Assad gone, Netanyahu had succeeded in securing his party’s coalition with the far-right and could continue to count upon the support of the Trump Administration, providing Israel with a free hand vis-à-vis the Palestinians and turning a blind eye to the massacre of civilians. The U.S. is continuously supporting Isreal with missile-defence systems, coordination, cooperation, and intelligence sharing.
As birthrates continue to decline in many industrialized countries, anxious governments are running out of schemes to keep women procreating.
I have often been asked a simple but important question:
How can we make it sustainable if we are not being compensated for it?
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Munich
speech last month seemed to seduce the European elite behind President Trump, against the ‘Rest’, especially the resource-rich Global South.
We have heard it all:
• When a woman raises her voice, she’s too emotional.
• When she stands her ground, she’s too difficult. • When she leads, she’s too ambitious.
• If she wears dark suits they whisper ‘why does she always look like a man’
• But oh my gosh! if she shows up in a colorful dresses and high heels….
The ongoing military conflict between Ukraine and Russia—which began February 2022, with no visible signs of ending—has triggered major arms transfers to Europe.
On International Women’s Day (March 8), global leaders and advocates gather around the rallying cry to strengthen justice systems for all women and girls in a time of increasing pushbacks on gender equality.
Consider what International Women’s Day looked like a few years ago, and what it looks like now: the same date, the same global moment of reflection, but a vastly changed global landscape. Gender rights are facing the most coordinated and wide-ranging attack in decades. Anti-rights forces are dismantling protections secured after generations of struggle, destroying infrastructure built to address gender-based violence and realise reproductive rights and rewriting legal frameworks to roll back rights, with a specific focus on excluding transgender people. This is the result of a deliberate, carefully crafted, handsomely funded and globally coordinated strategy.
As we observe International Women’s Day (IWD) this year, the global community does so in a time of continuing turbulence, conflicts and uncertainty about the future of our planet.
International Women’s Day 2026 (
IWD 2026), which was commemorated March 8, under the theme,
"Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls", calls for action to dismantle all barriers to equal justice: discriminatory laws, weak legal protections, and harmful practices and social norms that erode the rights of women and girls. It demands an end to systemic violence and misogyny, including
calls for justice for Epstein survivors.
Earlier this week World Meteorological Organization (
WMO) announced that the weakening conditions of La Niña conditions are beginning to fade, with climate conditions transitioning toward ENSO-neutral —a phase in which neither El Niño nor La Niña is present and oceanic and atmospheric conditions in the tropical Pacific remain near average. The agency noted that this shift could lead to the development of El Niño later in the year, a pattern typically associated with rising global temperatures and an increased risk of extreme weather events worldwide.