I have spent my life on an island. From the granite hills of Mahé, one can watch the sun rise over an ocean that has fed, protected and defined the Seychellois people for centuries.

James Alix Michel

The horizon no longer glows only with the soft light of dawn. Across Canada, Europe and the Americas, it has glimmered this year with the harsh, reddish hue of wildfire smoke. “The Earth is burning” is no longer a slogan. It is a description of an ordinary Tuesday in Ontario, or a July afternoon in Barcelona.

Consider what has actually happened these past months. Canada has watched more than three million hectares of forest burn this year — an area roughly the size of Belgium — prompting the government to declare its highest level of national fire preparedness and to deploy its armed forces alongside thousands of firefighters. In northwestern Ontario, a single blaze, the Thunder Bay 36 fire, has become the largest ever recorded in that province’s history. Researchers who studied the season found that nearly all of that destruction, some 94 percent of it, occurred in just five weeks, as heat and drought converged.

Across the Atlantic, the story repeats with a different accent. This past June was the hottest ever recorded in western Europe, and the world’s oceans registered their warmest June surface temperatures on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Spain’s Fabra Observatory in Barcelona logged 40.5°C on 8 July, its hottest reading in more than a century of measurements. Germany saw 252 weather stations break all-time records. France recorded its hottest day ever, with a national average temperature of 30°C, and declared a red heat alert across 58 of its departments — nearly the entire country.

I did not grow up believing a nation the size of France could be placed, almost in its entirety, under a single heat emergency. This year, it happened.

In the Middle East the temperature this year has exceeded 52 degrees.

None of this is accidental, and none of it is isolated. It is one planet, one atmosphere, one ocean, responding as any system does when energy keeps being added to it.

I am not a scientist. But I have spent decades in rooms with scientists, diplomats, fishermen and island elders, and I have learned to translate what they know into language anyone can use. Burning oil, coal and gas fills our atmosphere with gases that trap heat close to the Earth, much as a blanket traps warmth against the body. The thicker that blanket becomes, the more aggressively a hotter atmosphere pulls moisture from soil and vegetation — what scientists call rising vapor pressure deficit, and what the rest of us might simply call atmospheric thirst. A thirsty atmosphere turns living forests into dry tinder faster than rainfall can replace what has been lost. At the same time, this extra heat is disturbing the great rivers of wind that once reliably carried cooling weather across a region and moved on. Increasingly, they stall, and heat domes settle over a country for weeks rather than days. When millions of hectares then burn, they release carbon stored for decades, adding still more heat-trapping gas to the air. Fire feeds warming, and warming feeds fire.

It is a loop that does not correct itself. We must correct it.

Small island states are not spectators to this crisis; we are its early warning system. Seychelles does not burn as Ontario or Andalusia does, but our coral reefs bleach and die in ocean heat that barely registers as news elsewhere, and our fishing communities feel shifts in current and temperature years before those shifts appear in a headline.

This is why, a decade ago, my government joined nearly two hundred nations in Paris in agreeing to hold the rise in global temperature well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue every effort to limit it to 1.5°C. That agreement entered into force in November 2016. It remains, imperfect as it is, the clearest promise the nations of the world have ever made to one another about the only atmosphere we share.

We are not keeping that promise quickly enough. Scientific trackers that once projected we would not cross 1.5°C of warming until the middle of this century now estimate, per Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, that we could cross that threshold as early as 2029.

That is not a distant date. Children born this year will not yet be teenagers when it arrives.

I refuse fatalism, because fatalism has never protected a single reef, forest or coastline. What the science asks of us is not mysterious: cut greenhouse gas emissions sharply and immediately, retire dependence on coal, oil and gas far faster than current pledges allow, and invest seriously in the resilience of communities already living through fire seasons, heatwaves and rising seas.

It also asks something specific of leadership. Every government that signed the Paris Agreement carries a responsibility to honor it not as rhetoric for a summit stage, but as a commitment kept in national budgets, energy policy and disaster preparedness. And it asks something of every citizen: to demand of our leaders the urgency the data requires, not merely the urgency that is politically convenient.

The forests burning in Canada, the heat scorching Spain and France, and the reefs bleaching in the Indian Ocean are not separate stories. They are chapters of the same story, and we are the ones still writing its ending.

The Earth is burning. Whether it keeps burning, or whether we finally act as one species sharing one planet, remains, for now, our choice to make.

The author served as President of the Republic of Seychelles from 2004 to 2016 and is a longtime advocate for ocean conservation and the blue economy.

IPS UN Bureau

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UN Indonesia Solar power is widely used on the islands of Java, Madura, and Bali. Credit: UN News

By Delia Paul
MELBOURNE, Australia, Aug 10 2026 (IPS)

In much of the Asia-Pacific region, energy is a success story. Electricity access has greatly increased and the use of clean cooking fuels is now widespread. The region has kept pace with the rest of the world in adopting renewable energy. Many countries have made energy efficiency gains; the Republic of Korea is one of those in the lead worldwide. Progress has continued even in the face of recent energy crises sparked by the war in Ukraine and conflict over the Strait of Hormuz.

Yet, this year’s High Level Political Forum on sustainable development (IHLPF) in New York— a yearly event to review progress on the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) —sounded some warning bells.

With SDG 7 on energy, the international community agreed to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services. Clean cooking fuels are part of that transition. SDG 7 also set targets to increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, and double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency. On all these measures, Asia-Pacific countries have done well. This year’s HLPF, however, raised some important questions.

Firstly, success is a matter of definition. In 2010, Central and South Asian countries accounted for 36 per cent of the world’s electricity-access deficit; by 2024, that proportion had shrunk to just 3 per cent, a turnaround that the UN’s latest report of progress on SDG 7 attributes to rapid grid expansion, regional power market integration, and rising incomes. That achievement is nuanced, however, when we consider the livelihood dimension, where many countries still face challenges especially in rural areas.

Vijay Modi, a professor at Columbia University and director of its Laboratory for Sustainable Energy Solutions, addressing HLPF delegates on the first day of the talks, noted that access is not the same as affordability. Affordable energy is needed, for example, to run the water pumps for farm irrigation, and to light shops that may want to extend their opening hours — aspects of electricity access that are missed, if focusing only on household-level energy services.

Secondly, generalised statistics can mask the true scale of the challenge that still remains. The share of people using clean fuels and technologies for cooking has nearly doubled across most of Asia since 2010. Central, South, East and Southeast Asian countries have done especially well: India alone is responsible for about 40 percent of the worldwide reduction in the clean-cooking access deficit, China for roughly 30 percent, and Indonesia for about 10 percent.

In terms of percentage points, this all looks great. In terms of absolute numbers, though, India still has the largest numbers of people without access to electricity services and clean cooking fuels; China ranks third in the world; Indonesia ranks 16th. These are countries with large populations, where a percentage point gained in access represents many more people than a percentage point gained in a smaller country. While their progress should be applauded, the challenge is far from over.

Third is the question of financing. From 2023 to 2024, international financial flows for clean energy fell in Central, South, East and Southeast Asia. That is a troubling trend, given that much remains to be done. The role of public utilities remains crucial.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Cambodia’s state utility, Electricité du Cambodge, transformed the fragmented, war-torn nation’s power grid into a unified network, partnering with independent power producers, using foreign investment to build transmission lines and power stations, and prioritising electricity connections and financing for low-income households. Such success is not a given.

Damilola Ogunbiyi, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy, reminded the HLPF that in Africa, some utilities have not achieved viability and are facing bankruptcy. “It’s about finance, at the end of the day,” she said, while highlighting that renewable energy is the least-cost pathway to meeting energy needs worldwide.

The current geopolitical situation only strengthens the case for increasing uptake of renewables and decreasing reliance on traditional fossil fuels, said Francesco La Camera, Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). This process, he noted, could be accelerated through mini-grids, peak time management (strategies to reduce and shift electricity consumption away from peak demand times), and removal of trade barriers to renewable energy technologies. Some of this is already happening in Asia, but with just four years to go until the 2030 deadline for achieving the SDGs, UN monitoring shows that progress is insufficient.

Globally, four structural trends are holding back progress. They are explained in the 2026 UN report, “Tracking SDG 7: The Energy Progress Report.” Progress on reducing energy intensity has mainly been achieved in industry, and is now slowing. Energy efficiency standards don’t necessarily match the technology available in the marketplace. Demand for air conditioning has increased, pushing up electricity demand. Growth in electricity demand now outstrips the supply of renewable energy that is actually available. Tackling just one of these barriers — let’s say energy intensity, for example — would require tripling the rate of progress in the next four years.

For now, the UN has launched a new work programme to accelerate action leading up to the 2030 deadline for the SDGs. On the current rate of progress, the world will probably not meet all the SDG 7 targets. But, given the energy gains already made in this region, Asia-Pacific countries may do better than others.

Dr Delia Paul is an associate of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, and is affiliated with Monash University’s Global Peace and Security research hub in Australia.

IPS UN Bureau

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Peter George attaching the solar lights and panels on the plastic design bags. Credit: Madina Kula Sheriff/IPS

By Madina Kula Sheriff
FREETOWN, Aug 10 2026 (IPS)

Growing up, Peter George, a young innovator in Bo District in Southern Region, Sierra Leone, watched people dump electronic waste near the farmland where his grandmother cultivated crops.

He told IPS that people would dump electronic waste, such as discarded batteries and other damaged electronic components, near the area where she grew crops, and the chemicals from the waste affected the crops and reduced yields.

But that experience triggered his curiosity and fascination with how electronic devices worked and led him to use e-waste to create solar lamps for students.

“We started using some of the electronic waste to develop solar lamps. These lamps helped students study at night, and we also donated some to other children,” George said.

However, George’s innovation shifted from solar lamps to recycling plastics to make backpacks as plastic pollution worsened in Bo.

“Many people often think plastic pollution is only a problem in Freetown, but the issue is also very serious in provincial cities like Bo. During the rainy season, the roads become flooded because water cannot flow properly in drains due to blockage by plastic waste. This disrupted our school and displaced people,” George said.

George later founded Ideal Technologies in 2018, a youth-led enterprise operating in Bo District that transforms plastic and electronic waste into solar-powered backpacks and lighting systems for school children.

Through his initiative, George believes he is tackling the problem of e-waste and plastic pollution in Sierra Leone, which has become a serious challenge.

The World Bank estimates that Sierra Leone generates about 130,000 tonnes of plastic waste each year, much of it from single-use plastic bottles, water sachets and plastic bags that pollute the country’s coastline and harm marine life. Globally, electronic waste is also rising rapidly.

The Global E-waste Monitor 2024 says the world generated 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022, but less than 22.3 percent was formally collected and recycled.

Authorities say plastic pollution has become a growing threat to Sierra Leone’s coastal ecosystems and tourism industry.

Yet, despite the scale of the challenge, Sierra Leone’s plastic waste management policy is still under development.

“I looked at everything happening around me and started thinking about how to solve the challenge of poor access to electricity, e-waste pollution and plastic pollution. I started developing solar-powered backpacks made from recycled plastic and e-waste.

“During the day, the backpacks are carried like ordinary school bags. At night the attached solar-powered lighting allows children in communities with limited electricity to continue studying after sunset,” George told IPS.

For him, innovation represents more than recycling. He says it is about changing the way people think about waste.

“Things that people saw as waste, I saw as solutions,” said Peter.

Turning Discarded Plastic into Livelihoods

Like George, Manty Sulman Beckley in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, refuses to see plastic as the end of a product’s life. Instead, she recycles waste into everyday items that she sells for a living.

For the past five years, Beckley has transformed single-use plastics into shopping bags, handbags, baskets, chairs, tables and bricks.

The climate activist and founder of the Beckma Empowerment Initiative said her passion for recycling began during childhood, watching her aunt repair and make household furniture. Inspired, she started fixing broken chairs at home.

“As a teenager, I started thinking about how to repair broken chairs around me. Gradually my passion for creating things grew, and as an adult, the passion developed into a plastic recycling initiative after I witnessed how plastic waste was destroying communities across Freetown,” she said.

To source materials, Beckley works with households and young waste collectors in her community.

Despite these efforts, she said securing enough recyclable material remains difficult.

“In my house and surrounding communities, I advocate against throwing plastic waste carelessly. I provide bags for households to collect their plastic waste, which I later gather for recycling.

“Even fifty full rice bags of single-use plastic are not enough to create items like bricks, baskets, and other products, meaning we constantly need to collect more,” she said.

Setbacks

These innovators believe recycling offers an opportunity to give waste a second life, but they say limited financial support and a lack of equipment continue to hinder progress.

For George, the lack of equipment for large-scale production is the key challenge.

“One of our greatest challenges is having the right tools and equipment. If there is greater investment in recycling, especially for young people, it could significantly change the story of single-use plastics, providing income for waste collectors and recyclers,” he told IPS.

But beyond this, Beckley said being a woman in the recycling and innovation space also comes with unique challenges.

“There are people who call asking for products or services, but once they realise a woman is behind the work, they begin to doubt my ability. Some openly say they would rather work with a man,” she said. “I usually tell them that everything posted on my page is work that I have personally done.”

Impact

Over the past two years, George said Ideal Technologies has expanded its work, particularly among schoolchildren in underserved communities. In 2024, his innovation was recognised through the Youth-Led Innovation Challenge, organised by the UNDP and the Environment Protection Agency Sierra Leone, where he was the winner.

The recognition brought financial support that allowed the initiative to reach more communities.

“Through grants from this and other initiatives, we have supported more than 400 school children in rural communities. This does not include people we have supplied products to through partnerships or buyers overseas,” George said.

For Beckley, she measures the rewards of recycling differently and urges greater government support for youth-led recycling initiatives.

“This is my main source of income, and I have also created job opportunities for people who have learnt from me. Some of them now continue making bags and other recycled products on their own,” she said.

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CIVICUS discusses India’s Cockroach Janta Party movement with Harshit Singh, a young activist, poet and storyteller who took part in protests in Delhi.

Harshit Singh

What’s the Cockroach Janta Party, and how did it start?

On 15 May, the Chief Justice of India said that young people who couldn’t find a job and turned to media, social media and activism to attack the system were like cockroaches. He corrected himself the following day, saying he had meant only those entering the legal profession with fake degrees, but it was too late. Everybody felt hurt and frustrated.

Abhijeet Dipke, a young Indian, posted a tweet asking what would happen if all the cockroaches came together. Within 24 hours he had set up an Instagram page, a website and a manifesto that said that if you were lazy, unemployed and had time on your hands, you qualified as a cockroach. The name, Cockroach Janta Party, was a parody of the ruling party. The response was enormous. Artists and creators began promoting the platform, and within weeks over 20 million people were following it.

It grew that fast because the frustration was already there. Two weeks before Surya Kant spoke, the question paper for the national medical entrance exam leaked in advance, and the exam was cancelled for over two million students who had spent years preparing. At least 21 students died by suicide; every morning we woke up to news of another death. And this was not an isolated case. Every other day we hear about another exam paper leaking somewhere.

The Cockroach Janta Party gave young people somewhere to channel their frustration with the education system and unemployment. It gave us hope and a chance to demand a better education system, one that isn’t privatised and doesn’t cost so much that only privileged people get a good education.

But education is just the baseline. Beyond it, this is a movement that brings together everyone who has been neglected and not listened to for years, so they can express their frustration and ask for change. What started as satire became a national movement that nobody, not even the person who started it, expected.

Would you call this a Gen Z movement?

It was organised by Gen Z, and most of us in it are, but it’s not only that. I have seen every generation at the protest. People of different castes, gender identities and religions have come together under one umbrella to ask for their rights. At the end of the day, we are all Indians, and every issue this country is going through is our issue.

There is no criterion for joining and no enrolment process. If you think something is wrong, or that your basic rights are not being respected, that is the moment you support the movement, however you can. Come to the protest, talk about it online or in print, and be a voice where you are.

What struck me most is how many people came who didn’t support Abhijeet or disagreed with something a spokesperson had said. Some didn’t even like that we call ourselves cockroaches. They came anyway, because the movement is bigger than any person in it and because after a long time we have a platform where we can speak out loud, with other people standing next to us. That’s why it grew so fast.

What role has social media played?

Social media has played a central role. The movement started online and the vast majority of what it has achieved rests on that. Nobody expected it to come onto the ground and organise protests at this scale.

The reason it mattered this much is that the media here is compromised. If you say anything against the government, mainstream television and print media will not carry it. There was a protest in the heart of the capital for weeks and you wouldn’t find a single headline about it in the newspapers or magazines.

But when you are on the ground with your phone, taking photos and videos, you become your own media. And everyone was using their platforms. It didn’t matter whether someone had 10 followers or 5,000, each person was reaching the audience they had. In the end, mainstream media just reaches a limited number of people, but social media reaches everyone.

The turning point was when artists and creators started speaking. I hesitated at first. My livelihood is social media and ticket revenue, so I doubted what would happen to my future if I spoke against the government. I feared my accounts would be taken down. But I couldn’t deny what was happening, so I spoke out, and many other artists did too.

How has the government responded?

The government has responded very negatively. People who question the government, protest against it or ask for their rights get labelled as anti-national or terrorists. There’s no second thought about it. When I was a child, those were heavy words. Watching this government make them ordinary and using them against us was frightening.

For seven weeks we were at Jantar Mantar, the designated protest site in central Delhi. The Prime Minister’s Office, the President’s house and every ministry are within a five-kilometre radius. Still, not official came to meet us. What they did instead was try to dilute the protest by dividing us with anything they could find. They mocked queer people and spread hatred between Hindus and Muslims, but the unity held and we stood together.

On 20 July, we marched from Jantar Mantar to parliament. Delhi hadn’t seen a peaceful protest this massive in about 15 years. Thousands of people, including children, teenagers and grandparents, were on the streets asking for their basic rights. We were carrying flowers, banners and posters, and chanting slogans.

But the security forces met us with repression and violence. They used pellet guns, teargas and batons against anyone, even if they were just standing nearby. There’s a girl who’s still in intensive care on a ventilator.

The way the police handled the protests was illegal and unconstitutional. At that moment a lot of people in India realised something was badly wrong, and support for our movement grew massively across the country. Cities, districts and small towns started protests in solidarity. That is when the government understood it had to listen.

What has the movement achieved?

Our non-negotiable demand was the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan and action against everyone involved in the scam. Pradhan stepped down, and we are glad he did, but it shouldn’t have taken this long or this much violence. He even framed it as a way to stop the protests and prevent terrorist activity, not as an admission that anything had gone wrong. Accountability is still missing.

Our other two demands are still unmet. We asked for compensation of 10 million rupees (approx. US$115,000) for every family that lost a child to suicide. Those families haven’t received anything, not even an apology.

We also asked that nobody who took part in the protests face legal action. Instead, the police have spent the past days tracing protesters and opening cases against them. There’s a lot of rage about it, and Abhijeet and others have said we may have to protest again.

What support does the movement need now?

What we most need is for people to stop being afraid. Protesting here is almost a taboo, because people expect repercussions and stay away, which makes organising anything at all difficult.

That fear is not irrational. This government controls the security forces, the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate, and it can do whatever it wants with them, as we saw on the streets. The courts will not stop it either, because the judiciary is compromised in the same way the media is.

But if something is wrong, it is fine to ask the government why. They are here to serve us. All we are asking for is to be able to protest peacefully in what is supposed to be the world’s largest democracy.

We need young people in this country to keep showing up and artists to stop being silent, because if the mainstream media will not speak out, art must become the mode of resistance. Support from abroad matters too. When people elsewhere talk about our movement, it creates pressure on the government. And we must hold on to what we know – our rights and our intentions – because diluting the agenda is what the government will try next.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

India has recently been added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries where a severe deterioration in the quality of civic space is taking place.

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India added to human rights watchlist as repression intensifies in Modi’s third term CIVICUS Monitor 29.Jul.2026
Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | 2026 State of Civil Society Report
India: ‘When civil society is constrained, it cannot challenge power or amplify excluded voices’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Devanshi Vaid and Smarinita Shetty 11.Dec.2025

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By Jan Lundius
ROME, Aug 10 2026 (IPS)

World News are more or less currently fully occupied with the U.S. – Iran debacle and to a lesser degree the Gaza genocide, the on-going war in Ukraine, and to an even lesser degree the one in Sudan.

When Trump and Netanyahu recently met it is likely that the situation on the West Bank was not even on the agenda. This is the reality of international high-level politics and press reporting. Too much cannot remain in focus and certain essentials are simply forgotten, or remain under-reported. Nevertheless, this fact doesn’t hinder unrest and glaring injustice from smouldering in some places, being on the verge of exploding at any time, with devastating results. The West Bank is such a place and strangely enough do the majority of Israelis and U.S. decision makers not appear to realize the presence of an enormous powder keg of suppressed frustration that could detonate at any moment. An astonishing reality particularly considering Israel’s bloody war on Gaza, which still has not come to an end after the death of approximately 72,600 Palestinians (of which 21,280 have been children) and 2,040 Israelis.

Since 1967, the West Bank has been under Israeli occupation, a circumstance rendered illegal under international law. This unresolved situation has made 2,748,000 Palestinians prisoners in their own land, while a rising number of 670,000 Israeli settlers have illegally occupied their territory, claiming their right to drive away or marginalize the Palestinians while adhering to a belief that a land that “belonged to them” two thousand years ago now can be used as defence for ethnic cleansing.

Settler actions against resident Palestinians are generally unchallenged by the occupying Israeli administration and are creating what has been called a “coercive environment”, which compels Palestinians to leave, often followed by the establishment of new settler outposts.

A 2026 Le Monde investigation noted that since 2020 Israeli courts have not given jail sentences to any Israeli settler found responsible for killing Palestinian civilians and in 2026 The Times of Israel documented that in recent years 99 percent of complaints made against Israeli soldiers by Palestinian civilians were closed without indictment. As of 20 July, this year, 18 Palestinians have died on the West Bank during attacks involving settlers. In the last three years, from 2023 to 2025, 1,244 Palestinians – including 268 children – have been killed on the West Bank.

Many disputes between settlers and permanent Palestinian residents concern water inequality. On the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers consume on average about seven times more water than Palestinians, whose levels generally fall below the minimum of WHO recommendations for clean water access. This leads us to Omar Mwannes Yaghi, who together with two other scientists in 2025 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His life story reveals two aspects of Israeli treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. First, the prejudiced attacks on an entire ethnic group during which individuals are mistreated and killed irrespective if they belong to a hostile, fighting force or not. As member of a Palestinian refugee family, a person like Yaghi could easily have been killed if he had been born in Gaza, instead of in a refugee camp in Jordania. Secondly, Yaghi proves the worth of an individual irrespective of his/her ethnic origin. In the future, the achievements of Omar Mwannes Yaghi might prove to be inconceivably much more important for the survival of humankind than those of a Netanyahu, or a Trump.

Omar Mwannes Yaghi was in 1965 born in a refugee camp outside of Amman, within an impoverished crowded household with many children, all living in a single room that also housed the family’s cows and goats. What in particular tormented them was their limited access to clean water.

As a young boy, who recently had learned to read and write, Omar happened to visit a library where he became fascinated by the coloured plates illustrating chemical bonds, an experience that made him decide to become a chemist. He did very well in school and already as a fifteen-year-old he received a royal grant making it possible for him to travel to the U.S. and study at Hudson Valley Community College, from which he graduated in 1983 with an Associate of Science in Mathematics and Science. Eventually, he ended up in Berkeley as a professor at the University of California.

Omar Yaghi is best known for his work in the field of molecular “weaving”, part of what has become known as reticular chemistry, which assembles molecular building blocks to create crystalline, large, strong bonded, and porous, metal-organic frameworks called MOFs. Such MOFs can be used to create clean energy technologies, including hydrogen and methane storage, carbon dioxide capture (that might contribute to the mitigation of climate change), and the harvesting of water from desert air, thus reducing the world’s ever-increasing thirst for clean water.

In July 2026, Omar Yaghi left the U.S. to lead an artificial intelligence and material science research institute at Tsinghua University in Beijing. One important reason for this was the increasingly insecure federal funding to research in the U.S., combined with expanding international recruitment initiatives by China.

Omar Mwannes Yaghis’ life story proves the fact that every human life matters and that a poor refugee child can grow up to become a person whose research might contribute to save the entire world from disaster and improve the wellbeing of us all. Furthermore, it highlights the extreme importance of funding and providing unbiased, international, basic and advanced research. It also proves that Palestinians, particularly children, ought to be treated with dignity and respect, deserving a place to live in peace and prosperity, with access to education, which great value has been proven by the Nobel Laureate Omar Mwannes Yaghis.

Main sources: Mandraud, Isabelle (2026) “En Cisjordanie, l’impunité absolue des colons israéliens ayant commis des crimes,” Le Monde, 17 avril. Sharon, Jeremy (2026) “Less than 1% of complaints against soldiers in West Bank lead to charges, data shows,” Time of Israel, 27 January. Yaghi, Omar (2019) Harvesting Water from Desert Air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOOVBKWRLxk, and (2018) Reticular Chemistry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS_VI-8sMF0

This is part 1 of an analysis of the connection between youth movements and political change; part 2 will analyze how youth-led revolutions have changed political scenarios globally.

IPS UN Bureau

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Burkina Faso’s junta leader Captain Ibrahim Traoré attends a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 10 May 2025. Credit: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP

By Andrew Firmin
LONDON, Aug 7 2026 (IPS)

Burkina Faso’s charismatic young military leader, army captain Ibrahim Traoré, has stopped pretending. In April, he declared that people should ‘forget about the question of democracy’ because ‘democracy isn’t for us’. When Traoré seized power in September 2022, ousting a leader who’d staged a coup earlier that year, he promised elections by June 2024. The junta broke that pledge, pushing any transition back to 2029. Now Traoré has confirmed he has no intention of restoring democracy. Instead, Burkina Faso’s military junta is tightening its repression, while working with neighbouring states to internationalise its dangerously undemocratic model.

Crackdown intensifies

Repression has unfolded in a context of jihadist insurgency. Frustration with the democratically elected government’s security failures helped fuel the conditions that led to military rule, but the army hasn’t turned things around. The insurgency has grown, and civilians are paying the price. All sides are accused of crimes against humanity and war crimes, and since the coup, there’s evidence that Burkina Faso’s armed forces and allied militias have increasingly targeted civilians, particularly members of the Fulani ethnic group.

A military seen to be failing against the insurgency and killing civilians would lose any claims to legitimacy. That makes the junta determined to control the narrative, silence dissent and crush any perceived challenge to its power.

Traoré backs his anti-democratic rhetoric with actions. In January, the government dissolved all political parties, claiming they sowed division and weakened the social fabric. The junta is also targeting civil society organisations (CSOs). In recent months, authorities have suspended over a thousand organisations. In April, the government dissolved 118 CSOs, citing non-compliance with a July 2025 law that imposed strict and onerous registration, compliance and reporting requirements. The law supposedly gave CSOs a year to comply, but the government dissolved them before the deadline expired. It targeted human rights organisations such as the African Meeting for the Defence of Human Rights, the Burkinabè Coalition for Women’s Rights and Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture.

Religious associations and student groups have fared little better. Association As Salam and the Coordination of Young Muslims of Burkina have no explicit human rights focus, but authorities have suspended both for alleged public disorder and activities said to fall outside their stated purpose. In May, the government suspended the General Student Union of Burkina Faso, the country’s biggest student group, after it issued a statement criticising the government’s security record, which the government claimed glorified terrorism.

Authorities have suspended several media outlets, typically over their reporting on the security situation. In May, the state media regulator indefinitely suspended French TV channel TV5 Monde, accusing it of siding with terrorist groups.

Anybody who speaks out risks arrest, detention, enforced disappearance, forced conscription into the armed forces and torture. Burkina Faso’s LGBTQI+ people are particularly exposed, since in 2025 the junta criminalised same-sex relations, with jail sentences of up to five years. The government has also granted itself the power to strip citizenship from anyone deemed to be acting against the national interest. Last December, repression took an even more ominous turn when the junta announced its intention to reinstate the death penalty.

Due to these actions, Burkina Faso has recently been added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist, which identifies countries where a severe deterioration in the quality of civic space is taking place.

Repressive alliance

Burkina Faso isn’t working alone. Under Traoré, it has forged close relations with two neighbouring military regimes, Mali and Niger. Together, they’re promoting a model that rejects democracy and international scrutiny. In January 2025, they completed their joint withdrawal from the key regional organisation, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a year after forming their rival Alliance of Sahel States. The move was clearly a response to ECOWAS pressure to restore civilian rule.

The three states have now formally begun the process to leave the International Criminal Court (ICC). They’ve denounced the court as a ‘tool of neocolonial oppression’ and promised to set up an alternative, although any body they create is unlikely to retain the ICC’s power to issue arrest warrants against sitting heads of state and other senior figures. For survivors of human rights atrocities, withdrawal from the ICC and the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice removes vital potential routes to justice.

In February, Burkina Faso suspended the UN Human Rights Office, which had operated in the country since 2019, in retaliation for a statement by UN human rights chief Volker Türk urging the junta to reverse its ban on political parties and open up civic space. The UN has now concluded it has no choice but to close its office.

These moves shield military leaders and security forces from external accountability. They’re part of a wider realignment that has seen Burkina Faso and its allies turn away from former colonial power France and other democratic states and towards Russia, a partner with no interest in human rights. Burkina Faso’s relations with Russia have extended beyond military cooperation to stronger economic ties. Last year the two countries signed a gold-mining deal.

Even as he rejects international scrutiny, Traoré has cultivated a global following. Through adept use of social media and a steady stream of disinformation, he casts himself as a pan-African leader in the mould of liberation-era icons such as Thomas Sankara, Burkina Faso’s revolutionary former president. His message taps into real anger about colonialism and the power imbalances in relations with western states.

But the people whose rights he tramples aren’t westerners. The civilians being slaughtered by the army and the activists and journalists being silenced are Burkinabe people. There’s nothing un-African about democratic freedoms, and nothing pan-African about a leader who denies them. African democracies have the most to lose if Traoré’s model spreads, and are the most able to challenge it. They should refuse to normalise his narrative and press him to restore fundamental freedoms, rebuild a path to democratic rule and recognise the value of international accountability.

Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Action Against Hunger holds a commemoration event for the 17 staff members killed in Muttur, Sri Lanka on August 4th, 2006. Credit: Action Against Hunger

By Rotimy Djossaya
NAIROBI, Kenya, Aug 7 2026 (IPS)

This summer, an ambush on a marked humanitarian convoy in Duk County, South Sudan, left 17 dead and five injured. While the UN called for an immediate investigation, history suggests the victims’ families will wait indefinitely for answers.

We suspended field movements in the area pending a security review, which means communities already facing crisis levels of hunger lost access to life-saving assistance, at least temporarily.

The emblem on a vehicle or a vest once offered protection: a shared understanding, codified in international law, that those delivering food, water, medical care and other basic relief would not be targets of violence. That understanding is breaking down.

In the past three years, more than 1,000 humanitarian workers have been killed, most notably in Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Worryingly, 2024 was the worst year on record with 383 aid workers killed worldwide. That’s more than one each day.

This year, the recent ambush brought the toll to 29 in South Sudan alone — and it is only August. Roughly 90% of those attacked are local and national staff, the people furthest from headlines and closest to the danger.

Twenty years ago this month, seventeen of our colleagues were executed in our office in Muttur, Sri Lanka, wearing shirts that clearly identified them as humanitarian aid workers. It remains one of the deadliest attacks of its kind. Two decades later, despite evidence pointing to the likely responsibility of state security forces, no one has been held accountable. We are still calling for a new, independent investigation.

Rotimy Djossaya, Chief Impact Officer for Action Against Hunger

There is a framework for addressing this. In 2024, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2730, which calls on States to respect and protect United Nations and humanitarian personnel in accordance with their obligations under international law. Last year saw the introduction of the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel, a commitment to uphold international humanitarian law, prevent attacks, and pursue accountability. Over 110 countries have signed on, from every region and political tradition. While the issue still generates broad agreement, it is increasingly polarized, and the declaration’s enforcement is weak.

When a marked humanitarian vehicle is attacked with impunity, the international laws designed to protect humanity become nothing more than abstract targets.

The recent cuts to international aid budgets make a challenging situation even harder. Although it’s not clear that recent funding cuts led directly to any violence, it’s evident that NGOs have far less money to spend on security response management. The 2025 Aid Worker Security Report documented what the funding collapse means for safety: organizations are cutting security positions, communications, and risk analysis, with the danger falling overwhelmingly on local organizations.

In principle, localization is smart, and the humanitarian reset is a chance to build a system that is locally led, globally supported, and more efficient. But it only works if resources move with the risk. Local NGOs are routinely excluded from security funding, training, and data-sharing. They are expected to work in the world’s most dangerous places without the protections international agencies take for granted. They face a difficult choice: abandon some of the people and places they serve or accept greater risk to the safety of their staff.

The aid workers this summer were traveling in a marked humanitarian convoy. Five of them were staff of our local partner, the John Dau Foundation, an organization founded by one of the “lost boys” of South Sudan, who fled unimaginable violence as a child and answered it by building clinics and feeding children in the very county where this attack took place. That people who devoted their lives to healing were met with this violence shows how badly protections for humanitarian workers have eroded. The markings on their vehicle were supposed to shield them, but they did not.

As we mark World Humanitarian Day on August 19 and approach the UN General Assembly in September, the global community and member states must act. They must mandate and fund security allocations directly for local partners, insist on independent investigations for harmed personnel, and enforce UN Security Council Resolution 2730. Commitments on paper only protect lives when perpetrators face consequences. Those who step into the crossfire to feed the world’s forgotten children should not have to pay for that humanity with their lives.

Together, let’s honor those who have served, stand with those who continue to serve, and act for humanity.

Rotimy Djossaya is, Chief Impact Officer at Action Against Hunger.

IPS UN Bureau

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Credit: White House/Getty images

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 7 2026 (IPS)

The highly- unpredictable five-month-old US-Iran war has been plagued by on-again, off-again peace agreements — with such monotonous regularity– the conflict seems never ending. But according to several news reports, the US faces a new threat– it may soon run out of key weapons systems.

According to a CNN report, August 5, the US military has used up nearly 80% of its interceptors for a key missile defense system, leaving stockpiles “dangerously low” as mediators work to revive talks between Washington and Tehran.

“Gulf allies are also worried that dwindling US air defense stockpiles could leave them more vulnerable if President Donald Trump escalates the ongoing conflict. Several of those countries rely on US air defense systems and acknowledge the shortage could hinder their ability to intercept Iranian missile and drone attacks.”

Meanwhile the New York Times of August 4 provided a more detailed breakdown, including the US deployment of 1,200 Patriot missiles (out of a military inventory of 2,330) and more than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles, out of 3,000. The US has also deployed more than 1,100 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles out of 4,400 and 190 to 290 Terminal High Altitude Defense or THAAD missiles out of 300, among others

At a Camp David summit last weekend, according to one report, President Trump demanded answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over “extreme munitions shortages”

But as reports of dwindling arms stockpiles continued to spread widely, President Trump publicly denied the possible shortfall. “We have massive amounts of arms”, he wrote on Truth Social. “Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. as needed. Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history.”

Professor Simon Adams, Academic Chair of Human Rights, School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Murdoch University, Australia told Inter Press Service (IPS):, “Trump’s war of choice against Iran has not only impacted weapons stockpiles, it has depleted the ability of some politicians in Washington DC to see people and places on a map as more than targets and annoyances that can impact petrol prices.

Iran is a country of 90 million people and not just the Strait of Hormuz. From the 120 schoolgirls who were killed in an airstrike in Minab to the latest civilian casualties, too many innocent people have died. No more blood should be spilled.

Ongoing threats by President Trump to bomb Iran into the Stone Age and annihilate Iranian civilization constitute an open threat to commit war crimes, he said.

Meanwhile Iran’s rulers continue to publicly hang protesters and deny Iranians their fundamental human rights, said Adams, former President and CEO of the Center for Victims of Torture – a leading international human rights and humanitarian NGO.

The only people who are ‘winning’ this senseless war are weapons manufacturers, oil companies and supporters of theocracy and authoritarianism in both Iran and the United States, declared Adams.

Meanwhile some of the agreements that fell by the wayside include:

• April 2026: An initial short-term, two-week ceasefire was brokered by Pakistan, which was later extended indefinitely before breaking down into intermittent fighting.
• June 15, 2026: President Trump and Iranian officials announced that a framework for an interim peace deal and memorandum of understanding (MOU) had been reached to end hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
• June 17, 2026: The two nations formally signed the agreement—often referred to as the Islamabad Memorandum—establishing an expanded ceasefire and kicking off a 60-day window to negotiate a final, comprehensive peace treaty.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Woman milks a cow in northern Mongolia. Credit by Katiekk, Shutterstock

By Solange Bandiaky-Badji
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 6 2026 (IPS)

This is supposed to be the year the world finally sees and recognizes pastoralists. The United Nations has designated 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, bringing long-overdue attention to communities who have sustained some of the world’s most fragile and important landscapes for generations.

Yet right now, the world is on fire… quite literally. All eyes are on the wildfires in France, Spain, and Canada. California is coming up on wildfire season. And scientists are predicting the strongest El Niño in history.

As climate-fueled disasters become more frequent and severe, now is an important moment to learn from pastoralists, whose traditional knowledge, adaptive land management practices, and deep understanding of living with climate variability have helped sustain people and landscapes through centuries of environmental change.

In August, governments will gather in Mongolia for COP17 of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17), where rangelands, land degradation and climate resilience will be central to the global agenda.

This will be the first UNCCD COP since the e.stablishment of the Caucus of Indigenous Peoples and the Caucus of Local Communities—hard-won victories at COP16—with “Land and People Day and tenure rights included formally on the COP17 agenda.

Dr. Solange Bandiaky-Badji is Coordinator and President of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)

Yet the scale of what is at stake is enormous. Rangelands cover more of the Earth’s surface than any other land use type, and up to 500 million people directly rely on pastoralism for their livelihoods. These lands are central to food security, biodiversity, climate resilience, and the survival of communities across Africa, Asia, Latin America and beyond. Yet pastoralists remain among the least protected and understood land stewards in the world.

This year of recognition must become more than a symbolic milestone. Unless governments and institutions use this moment to move from visibility to rights, pastoralists will continue to be praised in speeches while being pushed further to the margins in law, policy and investment.

Resilience Is Not Invulnerability

Pastoralists are incredibly resilient. Across drylands, savannahs, mountains and rangelands, they have adapted to shifting seasons, scarce water, and fragile ecosystems through sophisticated systems of mobility, customary governance, and ecological knowledge. Their way of life is one of the world’s most climate-adapted livelihood systems. But resilience should not be confused with invulnerability.

At a New York Climate Week event last year focused on Indigenous pastoralist knowledge and nature-based solutions, pastoralist leaders described the reality their communities face every day. One speaker from the Sahel spoke of droughts, severe flooding and wildfires that continue to destroy livelihoods and cost lives. She recalled stories from her grandmother about struggling to find even a grain to eat in order to survive and warned that extreme weather is threatening their lives.

While Climate change is intensifying the pressures on lands and livelihoods that were already under strain, it is only part of the story. Pastoralists are also being squeezed by policies and development models that misunderstand and overlook how their systems work and focus on a narrative that pastoralists are a threat to ecosystems. Their livelihoods depend on mobility, but many legal frameworks are built around fixed land ownership and permanent settlement. Their governance systems are collective and customary, but many governments recognize only formal administrative structures. Their territories include grazing corridors, water points and seasonal routes, but these are rarely treated as essential infrastructure. Even where policies exist focusing on pastoralism, they often do so from restrictive approaches that only center pastoralists as part of a chain of production or tourism exploitation.

The Gap Between Recognition and Rights

A recent analysis by the Rights and Resources Initiative across Kenya, Niger, Tanzania, Mongolia, Nepal, Bolivia and Peru found a persistent gap between recognition on paper and protection in practice. While governments may acknowledge pastoralist land access in some form, mobility—the foundation of pastoralist livelihoods—is rarely protected in law. Among the countries studied, Niger stands out as the lone exception explicitly recognizing mobility as a fundamental right. The legal gap among the rest of the countries has real consequences.

Across regions, rangelands are being fragmented by agricultural expansion, infrastructure projects, extractive industries, conservation restrictions, carbon initiatives and green energy projects. These pressures are often presented as development or climate solutions. But when they are imposed without pastoralists’ full participation and consent, they deepen inequality, fuel conflict and weaken the very systems that have protected rangelands for generations.

Invisible in Data, Invisible in Policy

That exclusion is also statistical. Pastoralists are too often missing from the data systems that shape national priorities, development financing and climate policy. When governments do not accurately count pastoralist communities, map their mobility routes, measure their economic contributions, or document the pressures they face, their needs and contributions remain invisible. When communities are invisible in the data, they are often invisible in budgets, laws and global commitments.

This is especially alarming given the scale of pastoralists’ contributions. In Africa, pastoralists produce much of the continent’s milk and a significant share of its meat. They sustain local markets, support rural economies, manage vast rangelands and carry knowledge that is essential to climate resilience and biodiversity protection. Yet their contributions are rarely matched by legal protection, public investment or meaningful political representation.

Women face even greater barriers. Pastoralist women are central to livestock economies, food systems, households and community resilience. But they are often excluded from land ownership, mobility rights, leadership and formal decision-making. Any serious effort to strengthen pastoralist systems must address women’s rights directly, not as an afterthought.

Tenure Redefined

At COP17, land tenure returns to the agenda as a standing policy item, carried forward from previous sessions alongside rangelands and pastoralists. That is progress. But tenure conceived as titles, boundaries and fixed parcels cannot secure people whose security depends on movement. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants (UNDROP) already names transhumant, nomadic and semi-nomadic communities as rights holders and requires states to protect their land rights, an obligation that cannot be met by extending sedentary tenure models to mobile peoples. Pastoralist tenure must be redefined: adaptive, embedding mobility, recognizing shared use, seasonal occupation and overlapping claims and anchored in customary governance. For pastoralists, secure tenure is flexible tenure.

The Solutions Are Clear

The good news is that pastoralists are not waiting for the world to act on their behalf. They are organizing. There is a growing movement across Africa, Asia and Latin America. They may be communities separated by continents and colonial borders, but they are connected by shared histories, livelihoods and struggles.

First, governments must recognize pastoral mobility as a legal right. Movement is not a weakness of pastoralist systems; it is what allows communities to manage climate variability, protect ecosystems and sustain livestock in changing conditions.

Second, states must protect the physical infrastructure of pastoralism, including grazing corridors, water points, dry season reserves and seasonal migration routes. These are as essential to pastoral economies as roads and ports are to national economies.

Third, customary governance systems must be legally recognized and supported. Pastoralist communities have long managed land, water and conflict through local institutions that are adapted to their realities. Replacing these systems with rigid, top-down frameworks weaken both rights and resilience.

Fourth, pastoralist women must have equal rights to land, mobility, resources and leadership. Climate resilience cannot be built while half the community is excluded from decisions that affect them and shape our collective future.

Finally, climate finance, conservation funding and development investments must reach pastoralist communities directly and respect their rights. Projects that restrict access to land without consent or compensation undermine both livelihoods and global environmental goals.

COP17 in Mongolia is an opportunity to turn this year of recognition into a year of action. Governments should arrive prepared not only to discuss rangelands, but to listen to the people who know them best. Pastoralists must be at the table as rightsholders, experts and partners.

The world cannot meet its goals on climate resilience, food security, biodiversity or land restoration while ignoring the communities already holding these systems together.

This is the year of pastoralists. Now it must become the year the world finally recognizes their rights.

Dr. Solange Bandiaky-Badji, is President and Coordinator, Rights and Resources Initiative

IPS UN Bureau

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A Rohingya refugee points to the landslide that killed two of Abdu Rozork’s daughters and two of their children in their bamboo shelter in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, last month. Credit: Mohammed Zonaid/IPS

By Mohammed Zonaid
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh, Aug 6 2026 (IPS)

Abdu Rozork awoke suddenly to the sound of children screaming. Heavy monsoon rains had sent a landslide barrelling into the section of their bamboo shelter where the women and children were sleeping.

Neighbours rushed to help dig through the mud with their bare hands, but it was too late. Two of Rozork’s daughters and two grandchildren were killed.

Having fled war in Myanmar only two years earlier, Rozork had believed his family would finally find safety among the over one million Rohingya refugees living in densely packed camps in Cox’s Bazar, southeast Bangladesh.

“I escaped conflict in Rakhine State to save my family,” he told IPS. “But I could not save them here.”

Early waves of Muslim minority Rohingya fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar were housed in the first large-scale camps set up in Cox’s Bazar in the early 1990s. In 2017 a devastating crackdown by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya community and militants in Rakhine State forced another mass exodus, this time of over 700,000 refugees, creating the world’s largest refugee settlement.

Since 2024 and the disintegration of Myanmar amidst civil war, these overcrowded camps have been joined by further waves of civilians fleeing a complex conflict between the junta and the Arakan Army (AA), an ethno-nationalist insurgent group that has seized control over much of Rakhine State, as well as the involvement of Rohingya militants. According to data released by UNHCR, by June those new arrivals in Cox’s Bazar numbered 153,640.

But no new land has been allocated to this recent wave of refugees for building shelters. Many families now have to share with relatives or build makeshift homes on steep hillsides vulnerable to landslides and flooding. Cutbacks in international funding have also led to cuts in classes for children and reduced food rations.

Days of heavy rain since early July triggered landslides and flooding in several of the camps, killing at least 17 people and displacing more than 3,000, according to Human Rights Watch.

Rozork said he had repeatedly asked humanitarian agencies for help with tarpaulins and to make a retaining wall. His bamboo shelter stood at the foot of a hill, and rainwater was coming in.

But organisations responsible for site management told him assistance was unavailable because his family had only recently arrived in Bangladesh. “No one warned us that the shelter was in a dangerous place,” he said. Days later the mud swept down.

His family’s tragedy is one of many among the newest Rohingya arrivals who escaped one crisis only to enter another.

Mohammed Kayes, now 13, was attending school in Buthidaung Township in northern Rakhine when fighting intensified between the Myanmar military and the AA, spreading towards his village. Schools closed, food became scarce, and medical services disappeared.

His family fled through forests and villages for seven days before reaching the Bangladesh border. During the journey, Kayes said Arakan Army members detained his family. After several days, they released them but later took his father away for what they described as questioning. He never returned.

After finally reaching Bangladesh, tragedy struck again. His mother, suffering from a stomach tumour, died after months of illness despite efforts to obtain treatment.

Kayes now helps care for his younger siblings while living with his grandmother. He receives food rations, but with the loss of his mother, they do not qualify for gas cylinders to cook.

His dream is to become a teacher. “I want to study,” he told IPS. “I want to build my future.”

Sawfowan’s dream is to work for the United Nations, but conflict also engulfed his village in Buthidaung, closing schools. “We heard gunfire almost every day,” the 17-year-old said. The men in the family had to flee over a year ago to avoid forced conscription by the AA.

His family struggled to obtain medicine for his diabetic mother, so in May they also decided to flee. According to Sawfowan, Bangladesh border authorities twice pushed the family back across the frontier, but they managed to enter on a third attempt and reunite with relatives inside the camps. Several families now share a single bamboo and tarpaulin shelter.

“I feel safer here,” he said. “But life is still very difficult.”

Community leaders say such experiences are increasingly common among the newest arrivals.

Mohammed Musa, a Rohingya youth leader, said families consistently report forced displacement, disappearances, movement restrictions and food shortages in Rakhine.

“Many arrive carrying deep trauma after losing relatives or surviving repeated displacement inside Myanmar,” he said. “But once they reach Bangladesh, they face another struggle.”

UNHCR says newly arrived refugees receive food assistance, cooking gas, core relief items and protection services under existing government approvals. However, the agency acknowledges that the absence of new land and severe funding shortages have limited humanitarian efforts to relocate families to safer areas or improve shelter conditions.

“The recent loss of lives due to the heavy monsoon rains is a tragic reminder of how vulnerable the camps remain,” Shari Nijman, UNHCR Bangladesh Communications Officer, said.

As conflict continues in Myanmar, Bangladeshi authorities say Rohingya are crossing the border every week despite tighter controls.

The Arakan Army now controls most of Rakhine State but the capital, Sittwe, and has driven Rohingya from their homes. Survivors and rights groups have documented allegations of forced recruitment and mass killings of Rohingya in the village of Hoyyar Siri by the Arakan Army in May 2024, as well as drone attacks on people gathering on the border, burning of villages, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses. The AA denies it carried out the Hoyyar Siri massacre.

Myanmar military airstrikes also continue to displace civilians across the state.

Rohingya fleeing the violence have also been pushed back at the Bangladesh border, while hundreds have died attempting dangerous sea crossings and falling victim to traffickers.

As in many conflicts worldwide, Bangladesh and the international community are faced with a complex crisis where divisions between refugees and combatants become blurred.

Despite the risks, the exodus has not stopped. “Our reports suggest that every week 50 to 60 new Rohingya are entering Bangladesh,” Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mizanur Rahman told The Daily Star in July.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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CIVICUS speaks about China’s recently implemented Ethnic Unity Law with Gulchehra Hoja, a correspondent for Reporters Without Borders and a Uyghur activist and journalist known for her reporting on human rights abuses against Uyghur people in China.

Gulchehra Hoja

What does the new Ethnic Unity Law state?

This new law means there is one acceptable way to be Chinese and requires every part of society, not just the state, to work towards it. Culture, faith and language become things to be managed rather than rights to be protected.

But none of this is new. The law formalises practices that are already in place and turns repression into official state policy. For years the Chinese government has closed Uyghur-language schools, demolished mosques, imprisoned intellectuals, separated children from their families and sent more than a million Uyghurs and other Turkic peoples into detention camps. Ordinary expressions of Uyghur identity can attract suspicion.

Every government wants security and stability. The question is how those goals are pursued and who ends up defined as a threat. Under this law the answer is anyone whose identity does not fit. The Ethnic Unity Law strengthens Communist Party authority, not minority rights. It tells minorities that loyalty to the Communist Party matters more than their identity and that even the most ordinary parts of life are subject to state control.

Doesn’t China’s constitution protect minority languages and autonomy?

On paper, Article 4 guarantees all ethnic groups the right to use their own languages and preserve their cultures. But there is an enormous gap between what the law says and what happens.

I come from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. For Beijing, it is a strategic asset that connects China to Central Asia, holds vast natural resources and plays a central role in the country’s long-term economic and security ambitions. But for Uyghurs, it’s our home. It is where generations of our people have lived and built their lives.

The region is officially described as autonomous, but autonomy must include genuine local political participation, real cultural protection and the right to use and teach our language freely. Where those are missing, autonomy exists in name only.

Which communities does the law reach, and how is it enforced?

Uyghurs are the first victims, but we are certainly not the only ones. The law reaches Hong Kong activists, religious communities, Southern Mongolians and Tibetans. It can even be applied to Chinese citizens whose beliefs or identities just don’t fit the Communist Party’s vision. And because it applies beyond China’s territory, it reaches all of them wherever they live.

Paramilitary institutions, police, security agencies and universities work together, so every part of society is drawn into monitoring and reshaping people’s identities. Students from China’s National Security College, for example, were sent to East Turkistan to study governance centres, neighbourhood grid management, police stations and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, the state-owned paramilitary body that runs its own cities, courts, police and prisons across the region. This was not an academic visit. It was training in how to put a population under surveillance.

What are the risks of speaking out?

I know them personally. In authoritarian systems, telling the truth can be treated as a crime. I was branded a terrorist not because I committed violence but because I practised journalism and dared to speak out. And it was not only me who paid for it. After I reported on what was happening in East Turkistan, 25 members of my family were detained.

I am not alone in this. The Chinese government fears independent reporting, and that is why it works so hard to control information. Foreign journalists have been expelled, local journalists imprisoned and many Uyghur journalists working for international media have seen relatives disappeared, imprisoned or sent to detention camps simply for continuing to report.

The new law gives Beijing further justification to present peaceful advocacy as a threat to national unity. It also sends a message to Uyghurs living in Canada, Europe, Latin America, Turkey and the USA: we are still watching you. That is what transnational repression means.

What should the international community do?

Governments should not judge this law by its title but by its consequences. They should continue documenting human rights abuses, expose China’s efforts to intimidate critics abroad, sanction the officials responsible for these policies and strengthen protections for Uyghur journalists and refugees. We’ll keep documenting these stories even when access is restricted, but we can’t do it alone.

This is not only about Uyghurs. It is about whether a government can erase a people’s culture, history, language and religion and call it unity. That question should concern everyone.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Transnational repression: ‘China feels emboldened to globalise its political red lines’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Barbora Bukovská 19.May.2026
China: ‘The state is using generative AI to engineer reality through informational gaslighting’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Fergus Ryan 12.Mar.2026
The long reach of authoritarianism CIVICUS Lens 20.Mar.2024

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Chickpea farmers in Malawi where the new variety is being piloted. Picture supplied.

By Ignatius Banda
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe , Aug 5 2026 (IPS)

New chickpea seed research and production have become the new frontier of climate resilience in southern Africa as farmers battle failing cereal production.

Farmers in Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique are benefiting from a new chickpea variety which researchers say requires lower nitrogen fertiliser at a time such agriculture inputs have become the latest victim of global trade disruptions that are driving production costs.

The variety, high in its nutritional value, is also boosting farmer incomes while also driving exports, researchers say.

For a long time African farmers have struggled with both poor yields and low-nutrition crops amid concerns of stunted growth, especially among children.

These agriculture science interventions come at a time of concerns about how best the Global South, affected by climate change, can navigate what has increasingly become the complex nature of food production.

The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), with support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) through the Benefit-Sharing Fund (BSF) of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), is driving the efforts to “reduce dependency on costly agricultural inputs”.

According to a recent ICRISAT briefing, “The initiative is particularly relevant at a time when geopolitical instability, fertiliser supply disruptions, and rising production costs are affecting vulnerable dryland farming systems across Southern Africa.”

As a result of the disruption of global food distribution networks, prices of basic commodities have soared in Africa as governments scramble to boost both production and farmer incomes, while international finance institutions continue to urge governments to do away with agriculture subsidies.

“With fertiliser prices and agricultural production costs continuing to rise globally, resilient legume crops such as chickpeas are becoming increasingly important in helping farmers across Malawi and Southern Africa maintain productivity, strengthen food security, and reduce dependence on costly agricultural inputs,” said Dr Himanshu Pathak, ICRISAT director general.

Several southern African countries have experienced a series of climate and economic pressures, highlighting the urgency of strengthening resilience, ICRISAT researchers say.

According to the Famine Early Warning System Network, countries such as Zimbabwe will also face cereal deficits in low-rainfall regions up to the beginning of 2027, further highlighting the urgency of new drought-resistant varieties.

While developed countries have for years pledged to support poorer countries in dealing with the impact of climate change on food production, researchers say little has emerged to address Africa’s historic food insecurity.

According to the latest ICRISAT research, “chickpea requires lower nitrogen fertiliser inputs, making it an attractive option for farmers facing rising production costs and climate pressures.”

“Notably adapted to the semi-arid tropics, chickpea exhibits remarkable resilience in harsh environmental conditions, including heat and drought,” notes an ICRISAT update.

“Its high nutritional content, long shelf life, and culinary versatility make it a favourite ingredient in various traditional and modern dishes, further cementing its role in global diets,” the agency adds in a briefing charting the benefits of the chickpea variety.

“Across many dryland regions, farmers are facing rising production costs, declining soil fertility, and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns,” said Dr James Mwololo, a scientist leading the ICRISAT legume breeding project.

“Chickpea is emerging as a strategic crop for dryland agriculture because it offers farmers a viable pathway to maintain productivity and incomes under increasingly difficult growing conditions,” said Mwololo, who is also the project’s principal investigator.

Chickpea yields remain low in Malawi, with farmers harvesting a little over 800 kilograms per hectare last year “despite improved varieties having the potential to produce up to 3 tonnes per hectare,” Mwololo added.

“With greater access to quality seed, national production is expected to increase more than threefold from the 2022 baseline of 2,570 metric tonnes, while the number of farming households reached could expand from 22,000 to more than 66,000 by 2027,” Mwololo said.

These science-based interventions have been welcomed by farmer representatives, who say they see market opportunities for the new chickpea variety that ICRISAT says will improve incomes at the household level.

“Our partnership with ICRISAT goes beyond traditional improved seed development,” said Gloria Pekani, chief executive officer of Milele Agro-processors in Malawi.

“It is also about creating both stronger market opportunities and supporting livelihoods for farmers, processors, and communities that increasingly depend on resilient crops such as chickpea,” Pekani said.

Malawi is considered one of the poorest countries in the world, where nutrition concerns persist, and is among several countries where agro-science is touted as a long-term panacea for food insecurity.

In countries such as Sudan, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says cereal production is at an all-time low because of the “ongoing conflict, rising agricultural inputs costs and disruptions to livelihoods and markets, further exacerbating food insecurity across the country”.

The new chickpea research is expected to address these concerns across the African continent, where countries such as Mozambique, where the research is being piloted, face the same civil conflict challenges as Sudan that have disrupted rural agricultural activities.

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Workers are patrolling in a wind power plant on Tan Thanh beach, Go Cong city of Viet Nam. Countries in Asia and the Pacific are moving towards green transitions in the wake of higher oil prices. Credit: Unsplash/Thompson Le

By Michał Podolski
BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 5 2026 (IPS)

Inaction and maintaining the status quo of fossil fuel dependence carry significant costs. The recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, for instance, caused enormous losses to the global economy, with many Asia-Pacific countries bearing disproportionately larger adverse impacts. Had these economies had a more diversified energy mix, they would have benefited from such resilience under current circumstances.

Green transition, however, comes at a significant cost – investment in environmental sustainability. This investment brings tangible returns and benefits, such as cleaner air, better health, a vibrant natural environment or reduced negative climate impacts. What is the overall balance of these costs and benefits, opportunities seized or lost, innovation, or status quo maintenance?

This overall balance amounts to decisions for a faster or slower shift towards environmental sustainability and green transition. Each carries fiscal, investment and financing consequences with differing socioeconomic outcomes. Overall, because of these countless dimensions, decision-making for green transition is inherently complex. In principle, humanity has never undertaken a green transition before and lacks established blueprints.

ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2026 sheds light on this challenge. The report identifies decarbonisation pathways that offer lower costs and higher benefits, highlights bottlenecks that inflate expenses, clarifies current priorities, and examines socioeconomic impacts. In short, the Survey 2026 identifies cheaper options with greater impacts.

For instance, in some Asia-Pacific countries, the choices on decarbonisation are relatively straightforward. With limited fossil fuel dependence, low risks of asset stranding and minimal vested interests in coal, oil and gas industries, these economies are advancing renewable energy expansion. They are leapfrogging decarbonisation hurdles and reaping steady benefits from carbon-free energy.

However, economies heavily reliant on fossil fuels are confronting tougher dilemmas. Faster carbon withdrawal brings higher immediate costs, offset only by longer-term benefits. Labour markets face greater pressure from anticipated reskilling and green sector development. These economies face elevated risks and must proceed cautiously. Ultimately, the green transition demands strong and prosperous economies capable of delivering goods and services to build a carbon-free world.

As for labour markets, net employment effects of green transition can be positive overall, yet uneven across countries and sectors. Fossil fuel job losses, potentially abrupt ones, are often concentrated in mineral-rich areas, with knock-on effects on related industries. Historical coal phase-outs without prompt government support reveal prolonged unemployment, youth out-migration, and community decline. Older workers are particularly at risk of exiting the labour force permanently. In contrast, green jobs emerge more gradually, often elsewhere, and require different skills. This mismatch highlights the need for proactive government planning – including funded reskilling and economic diversification – to redeploy skills from declining sectors.

Inflation provides another example of dilemmas faced by policymakers that are or want to pursue green transition. Higher inflation undermines economic activity and complicates transition-oriented policymaking. For instance, green transition policies, such as carbon pricing, can gradually increase prices, and thus inflation. This can raise interest rates, hinder capital-intensive green investments and pose financial stability challenges for central banks. Economies may tolerate modest and stable inflation, but high and volatile inflation will undermine the green transition efforts.

The Survey 2026 also highlights that government interventions like subsidies can be beneficial but can also lock-in suboptimal technologies. Too much of a good thing can be harmful. Government policies should guide objectives and priorities, for example, the need for better and cheaper energy storage, and enable people and enterprises to discover the most effective solutions. Market-friendly policy tools, such as technology-neutral emission limits, clear long-term plans and streamlined permitting, are all important policy adjustments.

“Take the right decisions, allow markets to work in a fair way” was a message on climate action by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres in 2025. The Survey 2026 builds on this, emphasising that market mechanisms can drive decarbonisation by identifying the best opportunities. The report also reinforces the call for “right decisions” to ensure a just and inclusive transition.

There are often easier and harder paths to the same goal. With due regard to diverse national circumstances, Asia-Pacific economies must progressively move to a low-carbon future, while safeguarding socioeconomic well-being of their people. There is no universal set of policies, but there is one clear direction. Although some costs may seem high today, inaction would prove far more expensive. At the end, optimal paths require pragmatic, evidence-based judgement: gradual where necessary, ambitious where feasible, and always mindful of who bears today’s costs versus tomorrow’s benefits.

Michal Podolski is Associate Economic Affairs Officer, ESCAP

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Credit IMF Photo/Nicholas Karlin

By Kristalina Georgieva
WASHINGTON DC, Aug 4 2026 (IPS)

My first meeting in Buenos Aires began with an unexpected gift. Economy Minister Luis Caputo presented me with an Argentine national team jersey bearing my name and the number 10—Lionel Messi’s iconic number.

It was a fitting start to my first official visit. When Messi finally lifted the World Cup in Qatar, he was 35 years old—an age when many footballers have already retired. His triumph was the culmination of years of perseverance, setbacks, and relentless dedication. It underscored how great achievements require persistence—and can take longer than expected.

Economic transformation follows a similar path. Restoring stability is difficult. Making it endure is even harder. The greatest rewards come only after years of persistence.

That stuck with me during my visit to Argentina this week. Everywhere I went, I encountered people looking beyond today’s challenges and asking what their country could become over the next decade.

For a country that has spent much of its recent history focused on the next crisis, shifting attention to a longer horizon was, I found, to be the most encouraging sign of all.

Impressive stabilization

Only two and a half years ago, Argentina faced one of the most difficult economic moments in its modern history. The government was running constant deficits. Inflation exceeded 200 percent. The economy was contracting. Poverty had climbed above 50 percent. Families watched the value of their wages and savings fall. Businesses found it difficult to plan beyond the next few weeks.

Today, the picture is markedly different.

Argentina has delivered two consecutive years of primary fiscal surpluses for the first time in 15 years. The economy is growing. Inflation has fallen to around 30 percent. Poverty has declined. The central bank is rebuilding international reserves. Sovereign borrowing costs have fallen.

All three major credit rating agencies have upgraded the country. In addition, more than $45 billion in investment projects have already been approved under Argentina’s large investment incentive framework. The pipeline under development is more than twice that size. These achievements reflect the commitment to stability and determined policy actions by Javier Milei’s administration and, above all, the perseverance of the Argentine people.

From stability to growth and opportunities

Stabilization gives a country back something that isn’t easily measured: time. When families believe prices will remain stable, they start to save instead of simply protecting themselves against inflation. When businesses believe policies will remain predictable, they invest for years rather than months. Banks extend longer-term credit. Governments can focus on improving institutions instead of responding to the next emergency.

In other words, stability extends a country’s time horizon. I know how transformative that can be because I experienced it in my own country.

When Bulgaria suffered hyperinflation and a banking crisis in the 1990s, my mother’s lifetime savings disappeared almost overnight. I kept my own modest savings in dollars, in a tin box hidden in the cupboard. Restoring stability required difficult reforms, stronger institutions, and persistence over many years.

The results did not appear immediately. But because Bulgaria stayed the course, confidence gradually returned. Investment increased. People found work. Living standards improved. Earlier this year, Bulgaria adopted the euro—a milestone that would once have seemed impossible.

The lesson was not simply that stabilization can succeed. It was that its greatest rewards emerge only with time.

That challenge is even greater today. The global economy is becoming more uncertain. Trade patterns are shifting. Geopolitical tensions remain elevated. Artificial intelligence is reshaping industries and labor markets at remarkable speed. Capital is increasingly selective, flowing to countries that combine sound policies with predictable institutions.

In this environment, macroeconomic stability is not merely desirable—it is a prerequisite for attracting investment, creating jobs, and remaining competitive.

Unleashing potential

I saw that opportunity very clearly at the fast-developing Vaca Muerta oil and gas fields, in Neuquén province. That Argentina enjoys world-class natural resources has long been known. Yet Vaca Muerta shows that it also has talented engineers, entrepreneurs, and public and private leaders committed to developing them. And it is doing so at a moment when the world is looking for secure and reliable energy supplies.

Vaca Muerta is only one example of a broader opportunity. Mining investment is accelerating, knowledge-based services export nearly $10 billion annually, and agriculture remains among the world’s most competitive sectors. Beyond its natural resources, Argentina boasts world-class entrepreneurs, strong universities, and exceptional human talent.

The next phase is to ensure that these opportunities spread across the broader economy.

That message came through clearly in my discussions with business leaders. They welcomed the country’s renewed stability and growing investor confidence, while emphasizing the importance of reducing barriers to investment and broadening the recovery across more sectors.

It also came through in two very different conversations.

On my first morning in Buenos Aires, I met Marina, a makeup artist who kindly helped me get ready for the day ahead. She told me she works three jobs and that life remains difficult. Yet she also told me she hopes the country stays the course. Her circumstances have not changed overnight. What’s changing is her confidence that progress can last.

I later met renowned tango dancer Mora Godoy. Beyond her celebrated career, she has built a dance school and offers scholarships to young people who otherwise might never have the chance to learn.

Different stories, different professions—but both reflected the same belief that investing today can create opportunities tomorrow.

I heard that same longer-term perspective from students. Their questions were not about the next six months. They were about artificial intelligence, innovation, leadership, and Argentina’s place in the global economy. They wanted to know how their country could compete—not just next year, but over the coming decades.

Across these conversations with business leaders, workers, and students, I heard a common, encouraging message: Argentina is beginning to look beyond the next crisis to the opportunities ahead.

In the end, success will not be measured only by lower inflation, stronger reserves, or healthier public finances. It will be gauged by whether more businesses invest, small and medium-sized enterprises expand, workers find better jobs and higher wages, and more Argentines see the benefits of economic growth in their daily lives.

The next steps

That same long-term perspective guides the IMF partnership with Argentina.

Our role is to support the policies and institutions that make lasting stability possible. The government’s proposal for a stronger and more independent central bank can help ensure that progress on inflation endures. A durable fiscal responsibility framework, with clear rules and strong institutions, can help future governments preserve today’s hard-won gains. These reforms allow families to plan, businesses to borrow and invest, and governments to look beyond the next crisis.

Argentina’s economic transformation will also take time. The country has laid the foundations for a more stable future. The challenge now is to stay the course—to keep building the institutions, confidence, and opportunities that will allow today’s progress to become lasting prosperity.

Kristalina Georgieva is Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Washington DC.

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President Trump has blamed trade liberalisation advocated by globalists for US deindustrialisation. Instead, his own weaponisation of economic policies, instruments and institutions purport to ‘make America great again’ (MAGA).

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

While rejecting globalists’ claim that trade liberalisation enhances growth, employment and incomes for all, his own ‘America First’ policies are slowing the world economy, including the US.

Post-war trade policy
The US has dominated international relations and institutions, including multilateral economic governance, since World War Two (WW2). The US Congress rejected the 1948 Havana Charter proposing the International Trade Organisation (ITO).

Selective trade liberalisation was key to the ‘neoliberal’ Washington Consensus, which has been recommended, if not required, by multilateral economic institutions from the 1980s.

Meanwhile, the neoliberal era has been associated with slower, more volatile growth than the post-war Keynesian ‘Golden Age’ of the first quarter-century after WW2.

The West pushed for the World Trade Organization (WTO) to consolidate the international economic order on a neoliberal basis. The 1994 Marrakech Agreement establishing the WTO left little room for development policy initiatives.

For many in the West, neoliberal trade liberalisation ended with the first Trump presidency from 2017. However, the reversal had begun earlier in the 21st century, especially after the 2008-09 global (actually Western) financial crisis.

However, Trump should be acknowledged for brazenly weaponizing international trade and investment instruments against the rest of the world, including US allies.

Hegemony
Free trade advocate Jagdish Bhagwati showed that anything less than trade multilateralism, including plurilateral and bilateral free trade agreements, is sub-optimal and unfair.

Compromises, including those promoted by international financial institutions and the OECD, have, instead, strengthened US and Western hegemony.

Postwar decolonisation of Asia and Africa has seen discontent grow in multilateral institutions, prompting selective Western undermining of multilateralism after the Cold War.

Unable to ensure the WTO’s dispute settlement system consistently protects and advances its interests, the US has paralysed it by blocking key appointments since the Obama presidency.

Collective assertiveness by developing countries in multilateral fora has mitigated some adverse consequences of international economic integration under Western auspices.

Partial and uneven trade liberalisation has constrained Global South industrialisation. Recent deindustrialisation has reduced manufacturing’s share of national output in many developing countries.

Little new manufacturing capacity has developed in Africa beyond some minimal import-substituting and resource-processing activities protected by high transport costs.

Divide and rule
Economic concessions, such as trade preferences, to developing countries have been used to divide the Global South, including the ‘least developed countries’ and ‘small island developing states’, effectively weakening their collective negotiating strength.

Trade liberalisation has also reduced tariff revenue, especially important for the poorest developing countries, where it often accounted for up to half of total tax collected.

Additional taxes, typically from consumption or income, have never compensated for tariff revenue losses due to trade liberalisation. This has undermined their already weak fiscal capacities, often requiring them to borrow even more.

Promoting food agriculture in supposedly ‘land-abundant’ African countries was supposed to make them more food-secure and even export-competitive but there is no evidence this has happened.

Developing nations have long unsuccessfully asked the Global North to eliminate agricultural subsidies, tariffs, and non-tariff import barriers that protect their output.

This would make food production in developing countries more competitive. But rich countries have long insisted that developing countries must first ‘reciprocate’, e.g., by eliminating their manufacturing tariffs.

Structural adjustment has also undermined agricultural infrastructure and smallholder productivity in many developing countries. Meanwhile, lower farm subsidies in Europe have raised many food import prices in the South.

Gains from trade?
Purported gains from trade liberalisation are often either merely theoretical or one-time gains from static understandings of comparative advantage, with no cumulative potential.

Claims of gains from trade liberalisation presume internationally competitive productive and export capacities capable of generating a strong positive supply response.

Such preconditions are unlikely in most developing countries, especially the poorest, and need to be developed, typically by protecting against external market pressures.

Most studies of realistically achievable outcomes of WTO Doha Round negotiations from 2001, including those for the World Bank, projected net losses for most developing economies, except for a few Asian economies.

There is also no robust evidence of trade liberalisation significantly reducing poverty and hunger. Developing countries, especially the poorest ones and those in sub-Saharan Africa, would be worse off.

One may well ask why developing countries have to be bribed with ‘aid for trade’ if it is in their own best interests to commit to trade liberalisation, multilateral or otherwise.

Worse, trade liberalisation has made sustainable development nearly impossible by significantly reducing policy options for aspiring developmental states, especially for trade, industrial, investment and technology policies.

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IInternational experts have reported a uptick of human rights violations committed in Iran, notably arbitrary executions of protestors since January 2026. Credit: Amir Sarabadani/Wikimedia Commons

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

Over the past several weeks, the humanitarian landscape in the Middle East has deteriorated significantly, exacerbated by escalating security concerns and serious human rights violations. In late July, the United Nations (UN) highlighted a sharp uptick in hostilities between the United States and Iran, alongside growing concerns over wider regional instability.

On July 30, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that the “humanitarian consequences of the Middle East escalation are worsening by the day.” The conflict between the United States and Iran has grown increasingly volatile over recent months, with both parties intermittently resuming bombardment following the breakdown of the April ceasefire.

On July 28, Iranian forces attempted a series of ballistic missile attacks targeting U.S. bases in Jordan and vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. This prompted an immediate military response from the U.S. military, with defense officials confirming that it had completed a “heavy wave” of airstrikes targeting numerous bases affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

This recent wave of airstrikes in Iran affected numerous provinces—including Hormozgan, Bushehr, Fars, and Khuzestan—notably impacting the country’s primary oil-producing region. According to the Iranian Ministry of Health, at least 60 civilian deaths and 670 injuries have been recorded over the past month alone. On July 30, a strike in Qeshm in Hormozgan province hit a residential building, killing three civilians, including a two-year-old child.

This conflict has severely disrupted global shipping and oil production, driving a considerable increase in domestic gasoline prices in the U.S. and compounding Iran’s economic collapse. On July 29, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres expressed concern about the risk of a broader regional conflict if effective diplomacy is not established soon.

Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Farhan Haq, told reporters that current developments are “not positive”, noting that Guterres is hoping for an immediate cessation of hostilities. “The Secretary-General has been worried for some time that if the parties do not return to negotiations, you could have a widening of the conflict, and that seems to be what has been happening in recent hours,” said Haq at a press briefing at the UN Headquarters.

“These are not positive developments, and he wants to make sure that the parties can cease fighting and again return to the diplomatic efforts, including the mediation efforts being pressed forward by Pakistan, Qatar and others…Having more parties involved in the fighting, having the fighting spread to a larger number of countries, all of these are adverse developments and could get us into a much worse situation even than before.”

Following discussions with regional allies, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters on August 1 that he had halted planned military strikes against Iran as negotiations toward a de-escalation of hostilities are scheduled to pick up on August 3. Contingent on both sides “rapidly” securing a deal, Trump told reporters that these plans include frameworks for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which would allow for the immediate decongestion of stalled global cargo traffic and the resumption of commercial oil shipments.

In response, Iranian officials confirmed that Tehran did not ask the U.S. to halt these strikes, stating that Iran remains “on high alert and ready for any eventuality.” As of August 3, no new negotiations were held between the U.S. and Iran. Esmail Baghaie, the spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, has said that there are no plans to send an Iranian delegation, nor to receive any delegations, however diplomatic engagement is ongoing.

Although the Strait of Hormuz is currently closed, Jordan and Egypt remain critical lifelines for humanitarian aid deliveries and medical evacuations for struggling Iranian communities.

Furthermore, Iran continues to grapple with a sharp rise in human rights violations recorded over the course of 2026. Since March 19, the Center for Human Rights in Iran recorded the executions of at least 46 civilians on politically motivated charges. Reflecting a considerable surge in the use of the death penalty to repress civilian dissent, at least 23 of those convicted were protestors arrested during the protests in January.

On July 23, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran urged Iranian authorities to halt all executions and establish frameworks on the use of the death penalty in accordance with international humanitarian law. The Mission condemned the arbitrary executions of two young protestors, 18-year-old Erfan Esfandiari and 23-year-old Mohammad Mohammadi on July 19.

In the wake of these executions, Iranian authorities proceeded to publicly execute protestors Amir Hossein Safari and Abolfazl Sepahi following what Amnesty International described as a “grossly unfair mass trail involving dozens of defendants.” Ten additional Iranian men now face an imminent threat of arbitrary execution over their involvement in the January demonstrations, with the Mission calling for an immediate halt to these executions.

“The Iranian authorities are unleashing a horrifying wave of executions and death sentences to punish and suppress dissent and project an image of strength and absolute control in the wake of the January popular uprising and amid ongoing attacks by US and Israeli forces,” said Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“The muted response from the international community emboldens the Iranian authorities to continue their deadly rampage. UN member states must take urgent coordinated diplomatic action to press the Iranian authorities to halt further executions. They must place Iran’s human rights and impunity crisis high on their agenda, support the creation of an independent international justice mechanism for Iran and urge the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Iran to the International Criminal Court.”

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Credit: Joseph Barrientos on Unsplash

By James Alix Michel
VICTORIA, Seychelles, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

Earlier this year, I called publicly for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining, arguing that it is not a rejection of progress, but a commitment to sound science.

I made that appeal because I believed governments meeting this year at the International Seabed Authority (ISA) would finally choose caution over haste. Watching the results emerge from Kingston, Jamaica, over these past weeks, I must admit to real disappointment.

But I want to be equally clear: disappointment is not defeat, and there is still every reason for hope.

The 31st session of the ISA concluded its work in Kingston with the Council ending two weeks of negotiations on 24 July without adopting the long-debated Mining Code. Unresolved issues, ranging from environmental safeguards and liability to inspection, compliance and benefit-sharing, remain exactly that: unresolved.

Governments including France, Costa Rica, South Africa, Mexico, Germany, Palau and Brazil rightly insisted these gaps must be closed before any commercial mining is contemplated. That the Authority could not bridge them after fifteen years of negotiation tells its own story about how far science and governance still lag behind commercial ambition.

James Alix Michel

That pressure has an external source too. The United States, which is not a party to the Law of the Sea Convention and sits outside the ISA altogether, has continued to advance its own unilateral licensing process for the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, the vast Pacific seabed that holds the largest concentration of exploration contracts on Earth. Five applications are already on record, with reports suggesting more may follow. When a single state can simply step outside a multilateral framework and issue permits for a shared global commons, it does not just threaten the ocean floor; it threatens the very idea that humanity can govern anything collectively. That, to me, is Kingston’s deeper failure: not that a code went unfinished, but that the multilateral system protecting our common heritage was tested, and did not hold as firmly as it should.

And yet.

I have spent much of my life in rooms where the odds seemed stacked against the ocean, and I have learned that setbacks in these negotiations are rarely the last word. There is real cause for hope in what else happened in Kingston.

When four deep-sea mining companies sought observer status at the Assembly, dozens of governments pushed back, and the decision was postponed rather than rushed through. Vanuatu brought forward an agenda item on “Ensuring Adequate Scientific Understanding to Support Informed Decision-Making,” precisely the argument I have been making since earlier this year: that we cannot regulate what we do not yet understand. And crucially, the Council did not simply walk away. It agreed a roadmap for further work, inviting states and observers to submit written proposals on the outstanding issues by 1 October 2026. The door to a properly safeguarded process remains open. It has not been slammed shut.

Most encouraging of all is the growing number of nations refusing to be rushed. When I first raised this call earlier this year, more than 40 countries had already backed a moratorium or precautionary pause. Today that number stands at 45, including seven Pacific nations, alongside outright bans by France and by Palau and New Caledonia within their own waters. They are joined by more than 70 companies, 82 financial institutions representing some €24 trillion in assets, and over 900 scientists from more than 70 countries, all saying the same thing: we do not yet know enough to proceed safely.

This is not an anti-mining movement. It is a pro-science movement. Nobody serious is arguing that the world will never need these minerals, or that the seabed must remain untouched forever. What I am arguing, and what the evidence increasingly supports, is that decisions with potentially irreversible consequences for ecosystems we have barely begun to map should not be made under commercial or geopolitical pressure. Scientists directly observed less than a tenth of the size of Belgium’s worth of deep seafloor before these negotiations began. This year’s IUCN Red List found that 62 percent of molluscs known only from hydrothermal vents are now at risk of extinction, many of them identified within the last decade. We are still discovering what we might destroy, and we are only beginning to understand the deep seabed’s role in storing carbon and regulating ocean chemistry.

I say this as someone who has governed a small island nation whose entire future is tied to the health of its ocean. Seychelles did not treat marine protection and economic progress as opposing forces. Through marine spatial planning protecting thirty percent of our waters, and the world’s first sovereign blue bond, we showed precaution can be financed and delivered without halting development. That experience is precisely why I believe a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining is a down payment on progress, not a brake on it.

Small island developing states cannot afford to gamble with the ocean systems that feed us and anchor our economies. I say this with humility: Seychelles has banned deep-sea mining in its own waters under our Marine Spatial Plan, yet is not among the 45 nations formally backing the international moratorium. That gap between what we protect at home and what we champion abroad is one I hope Seychelles, and others like it, will now close.

So my message to fellow leaders, particularly across Africa and the small island states that depend most on healthy oceans, is this:

Kingston’s disappointment is real, but it is not the end of the story. Forty-five nations have already shown that caution and ambition can coexist. I urge every government that has not yet done so, especially those still weighing their position ahead of the October deadline for written proposals, to add its voice to that growing coalition. This is not about obstructing progress; it is about demanding the evidence that ensures whatever progress we make does no lasting harm to the seabed we all share. I also urge regional bodies, from the African Union to Pacific and Caribbean groupings, to adopt common positions, so no single small state stands alone against powerful commercial interests.

The common heritage of humankind deserves patience as much as ambition. Kingston reminded us how much work remains. It also reminded us how many are still willing to do it.

James Alix Michel is the former President of Seychelles (2004-2016), Founder of the James Michel Foundation and the University of Seychelles, and a global advocate for the blue economy, ocean conservation and climate resilience.

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Galala city, Egypt, the southern exit to the Suez Canal. Credit: Unsplash/M abnodey

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

As the United States and Iran continue to escalate with military strikes across both fronts, the conflict took a new turn with Saudi Arabia becoming militarily involved on July 29, following coordinated airstrikes with U.S. Central Command according to the Saudi Ministry of Defence.

These strikes were carried out under what the Kingdom says was its right to self-defense, recognized under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, with the Saudi armed forces coordinating with U.S. Central Command to target Iranian-backed proxies operating from Iraqi territory, after interception of several UAVs which were attempting to target oil facilities in Eastern and Riyadh regions. The Kingdom reiterated that it does not seek escalation but will respond decisively to any aggression directed against it, according to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

On Saturday, August 1, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on his platform, Truth Social, that Iran and other Middle Eastern Countries have asked the U.S. to “hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.” Trump added that “This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.” Following this, the U.S. has canceled a planned attack on Iran, but Tehran still has not claimed that these talks are ongoing, let alone any measure of mediation. The cancellation of the planned attack, however, does not mean U.S. military operations have ceased.

On Sunday, August 2, The Saudi Press Agency reported that HRH Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman spoke by phone with U.S. President Trump and “stressed the need to prioritize dialogue to reduce escalation and the importance of making every possible effort to achieve calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions” in order to preserve both regional and international security. Prior to these latest updates, Washington has maintained that the U.S. and Iran were already engaged in what was described as “very friendly negotiations” following a pause in military strikes. However, Tehran had publicly denied holding direct talks with Washington. According to Axios, Oman is leading the mediation effort, with Qatar, Pakistan and Egypt involved alongside Washington envoys.

Last week on July 30, Saudi Arabia announced a multinational Red Sea maritime defense alliance, seeking the support of over 50 countries and organizations. Thirteen countries other than Saudi Arabia have already signed on, including Türkiye, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Nigeria, Jordan, Bangladesh, Yemen, Djibouti and Somalia. Other participating countries have also expressed support and are in the process of completing their internal procedures and approvals to join the declaration.

The declaration remains open to other interested parties. The Gulf states of the United Arab Emirates and Oman have not yet signed, despite having similar security objectives. Representatives from 43 of the 51 countries and organizations invited to join the alliance attended a meeting on Thursday in Riyadh, the headquarters of the operation.

The initiative effectively places Saudi Arabia at the center of multinational maritime security in the Red Sea at a time when U.S. naval resources are increasingly divided between deterring Iran in the Gulf and protecting commercial shipping.

The Saudi Defence Ministry noted that the EU already has a naval protection mission in the Red Sea, with a delegation from the European Union being present at the meeting. Saudi Defence Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman also held a meeting with President Trump and Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday, however he reportedly told Washington that the Kingdom was opposed to further escalation of the wider U.S.-Israel war, and its objective is to “defend itself”.

The Kingdom reportedly told Washington that it can manage the situation with the Houthis in Yemen itself, and does not need the U.S. to get involved.

Why is the Red Sea so crucial?

The Red Sea forms part of the maritime corridor leading to the Suez Canal, through which around 15 percent of global maritime trade moves. When security in the Strait cannot be guaranteed, shipping carriers are rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid sailing through an active military zone, where cargo is at risk and war-risk insurance premiums can increase significantly.

Beginning in 2023, Houthi attacks on commercial vessels similarly targeted carriers in the Red Sea, which reduced container tonnage moving through the Suez Canal by 82 percent, and increased booking a voyage on short notice from Shanghai to Europe by 256 percent.

The Houthis demonstrated in that conflict that they did not need to strike every ship in order to create an incentive to avoid the Strait. However, when carriers chose to avoid the Strait, major consequences arose, significantly increasing the cost of every ton of cargo.

Rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope can add roughly 3,000 to 3,500 nautical miles, approximately seven to 10 days in additional sailing time, for a Europe to Singapore voyage. For some routes, consequences are substantially greater. A tanker carrying Saudi crude from Yanbu to Taiwan that avoids the Bab el-Mandeb Strait could extend the voyage from 19 to 48 days, adding roughly USD 2.5 million in cost, according to a Reuters analysis based on Kpler and LSEG data.

All of this is compounded by the severe disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, where on Aug 2, only 19 ships transited in 24 hours, representing only 31 percent of pre-conflict traffic, which has limited deadweight tonnage throughput (DWT) to 3.2 million of the 10.3 million pre-conflict average. However, this is an increase from Friday, August 1, where only 10 transits were recorded in 24 hours, marking only 11.4 percent of transits and 1.2 million DWT compared to pre-conflict levels.

Before the conflict, 25 percent of global seaborne oil trade moved through the Strait, alongside 29 percent of global liquefied natural gas trade, 38 percent of liquefied petroleum gas trade, 19 percent of crude oil trade, 19 percent of refined petroleum products trade, and 13 percent of chemical trade. Together, severe disruption of the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb would simultaneously constrain Gulf energy exports and render the shortest maritime route connecting Asia and Europe increasingly untenable for commercial shipping.

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Anti-FGM activists protests outside the National Assembly in Banjul, The Gambia, on 18 March 2024, as lawmakers discuss a bill seeking to lift the ban on FGM. Credit: by Muhamadou Bittaye/AFP

By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

Last August, a one-month-old girl in The Gambia bled to death after being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that had been illegal in the country since 2015. FGM is a human rights violation, whatever the appeals to faith or tradition made in its defence, but now the Gambian Supreme Court is being asked to strike the country’s ban down. This is the second attempt in two years to make FGM legal again.

Civil society stopped it the first time. When a repeal bill reached the National Assembly in 2024, the Network Against Gender-Based Violence brought survivors to testify, lobbied legislators, ran radio programmes and obtained a ruling from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University saying that FGM is not required under Islam. The bill fell in July 2024.

The ongoing fight in The Gambia is a measure of how fragile advances in the recognition of rights are. FGM is in retreat across most of the countries where it is practised, the result of decades of campaigning by survivors and community organisations. But holding that ground is becoming harder, as the money supporting those campaigns dries up and a resurgent anti-rights movement works to recast FGM as a traditional practice under foreign attack.

A practice in retreat

Over 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM, with an additional four million cut every year. But the direction of travel has changed. A 2024 UNICEF report found that half of the decline in prevalence over the past 30 years has come in the last decade, with rates among adolescent girls halved or cut by 30-plus percentage points in countries including Ethiopia, Kenya and Sierra Leone. Attitudes have shifted too. Around 400 million people in practising countries, two-thirds of the population, now say they want FGM to end.

That change has a clear source. The Joint Programme run by UNICEF and the UN Population Fund found that the sharpest reductions come where communities are supported to deliberate and then commit, publicly and collectively, to abandoning the practice. The UN channels funding and provides coordination, but the dialogues, declarations and door-to-door persuasion are the work of community activists, national organisations and survivor networks. Thanks to these civil society efforts, in 2025 alone, over 7.5 million people took part in community dialogues and over 190,000 religious leaders and community influencers publicly denounced FGM.

The tools that work

Where campaigners have targeted the religious justifications that sustain FGM, results have followed. In 2025, Islamic scholars in Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia issued a joint ruling saying that nothing in the faith requires FGM. Litigation has proved another powerful tool. In July 2025, the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States found Sierra Leone in breach of its international obligations for failing to criminalise FGM, and said that, when intentionally inflicted, the practice meets the threshold of torture. In India, the Supreme Court has begun hearing whether cutting among the Dawoodi Bohra community should lose constitutional protection as an essential religious practice. And this June, Colombia became the first country in Latin America to ban FGM, driven by Emberá Indigenous women campaigning against a practice carried out in their own community.

Prohibition is now the norm rather than the exception, with Djibouti and Guinea writing bans into their constitutions in 2025. But laws alone don’t necessarily change what happens on the ground, and enforcement remains thin. Arrests and prosecutions rose sharply in 2025, yet there were still only 711 FGM court cases all year. In The Gambia, the fine imposed on the country’s first convicted cutters was paid by a prominent imam, an act that helped galvanise the campaign seeking to repeal the ban.

The movement’s defunding

The tactics that drove three decades of progress are now being starved of funding, with budget cuts falling hardest on the survivor-led and grassroots groups that are most effective but always face the toughest struggles for support. Funding for the Joint Programme fell from US$29.6 million in 2024 to US$16.3 million in 2025. The dismantling of USAID removed the largest single source of civil society funding worldwide, and total US foreign aid halved in a year. The UK, once the biggest funder of FGM prevention, is winding down its flagship programme with no replacement, so it can spend more on weapons.

The economics make no sense, because every dollar invested in prevention brings a tenfold return. The Joint Programme estimates that treating the health consequences of FGM currently costs US$1.4 billion a year. Politics, though, is playing a big part. In global north countries, political shifts are driving the withdrawal of aid, and far-right parties invoke FGM to stigmatise migrant communities while also opposing the gender justice policies that would make a difference. In practising countries, prohibition is increasingly recast as a foreign imposition on culture and faith. What unites these arguments is a shared sleight of hand that treats FGM as a question of cultural identity rather than a violation of fundamental human rights.

Elimination by 2030, the target that states set when they agreed the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, is already out of reach. But the evidence on what works is not in dispute, and it points towards communities and grassroots movements. The question is whether governments that claim to value human rights will keep supporting those delivering progress, or let a generation of girls pay the price of retreat.

Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.

For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org

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Dominica's geothermal power plant. As Caribbean countries seek to reduce their dependence on imported fossil fuels, renewable energy remains a key pillar of the regional resilience agenda advanced by CARICOM leaders. Credit: Alison Kentish/IPS

By Alison Kentish
GROS ISLET, Saint Lucia , Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

From wars that drive up fuel prices to supply chain disruptions, inflation and increasingly frequent climate disasters, Caribbean leaders say many of the forces shaping the region’s future lie beyond their control.

Their response, however, is not resignation.

Instead, leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the region’s largest economic grouping, are pursuing a strategy built on strengthening the systems they believe they can influence, hoping to make one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions more resilient to external shocks. These include food and energy security, transportation, healthcare, artificial intelligence and regional trade.

At their recent summit in Saint Lucia, the leaders argued that CARICOM must be judged less by declarations than by whether regional cooperation improves people’s daily lives.

“Our discussions have been guided by one central objective, ensuring that CARICOM delivers results that people can see and feel in their everyday lives,” CARICOM Chairman and Saint Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre said as he outlined the meeting’s outcomes.

“Heads of government focused on the issues that matter most to the people of the region.”

Those priorities included the rising cost of living, food security, affordable transportation, disaster resilience and the challenge of building stronger economies in an uncertain global environment.

Leaders acknowledged that inflation in food, fuel, freight and electricity has largely been driven by global conflicts, supply chain disruptions and commodity price shocks, which small island economies have little ability to influence. While several governments have introduced temporary measures to cushion households, they argued that lasting relief will require deeper regional cooperation on transportation, consumer protection and trade.

“We will work together,” said Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, who leads CARICOM’s work on the Caribbean Single Market and Economy. “None of us is omniscient, none of us has all the answers, and none of us are omnipotent as well.”

One of the summit’s most tangible initiatives was renewed work toward an affordable intra-regional ferry service, long viewed as critical to reducing freight costs, improving travel and strengthening food security. Leaders said the proposal would begin with a proof of concept using existing ferry capacity while governments harmonise regulations governing licensing, insurance and vehicle movement across borders.

The initiative complements CARICOM’s “25 by 2025 Plus Five” programme, which aims to reduce the region’s food import bill by expanding agricultural production and strengthening regional supply chains. Leaders argued that producing and transporting more food within the Caribbean would make the region less vulnerable to global disruptions.

Energy security emerged as another defining theme.

Prime Minister Terrance Drew of St Kitts and Nevis said that the Caribbean’s greatest vulnerability is not a lack of energy resources but its continued dependence on imported fossil fuels.

“We don’t have an energy issue,” Drew said. “We have an energy-harnessing issue.”

Pointing to the region’s abundant solar, geothermal, wind and wave resources, Drew said renewable energy offers perhaps the greatest long-term opportunity to stabilise Caribbean economies, reduce electricity costs and improve living standards.

“There’s nothing that can really stabilise our economy, or transform our economy, or deal with this constant up and down, like stabilising our energy sources,” he said.

Recognising that technological change will also reshape the region’s future, CARICOM agreed to establish a regional Blue Ribbon Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Leaders said the commission will develop regional guidance on AI, helping member states capitalise on its benefits while managing risks around jobs, privacy and ethics.

Climate resilience also remained central to the discussions.

Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius while continuing to advocate internationally for the special circumstances of Small Island Developing States. They also advanced work on a regional insurance and reinsurance strategy aimed at improving financial protection for governments, businesses and households, as climate-related disasters become more frequent and more costly.

Historical justice remained firmly on the regional agenda. Leaders endorsed renewed efforts to advance CARICOM’s Ten-Point Plan for Reparatory Justice through closer engagement with the African Union, upcoming Commonwealth meetings and other international forums.

The agenda set in Gros Islet, Saint Lucia, has effectively set CARICOM’s agenda for the months ahead. From advancing ferry connectivity and renewable energy to strengthening food security, disaster resilience and artificial intelligence governance, the challenge now is implementation.

For Caribbean citizens, the measure of success will not be the number of declarations adopted but whether regional cooperation delivers tangible improvements in everyday life.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Excerpt:

For the last few years, Artificial intelligence has been making increasingly intrusive demands for our attention.

It burst onto the scene like a child prodigy, enthralling us with feats of brilliance. With consummate ease, it removed drudgery from our tasks and began helping us achieve our personal and workplace objectives.

Daud Khan

As is the case with adolescents, there have been calls to set rules and regulations on AI, applying appropriate limits on what AI can and cannot do. The aim being to allow us time to deal with its immediate impacts on, for example, the jobs market, on media and communication, and on its military use.

But would government imposed regulations solve the problem? The answer is no for several reasons.

Firstly, there is the siren call of easier access to vast stores of knowledge, top quality writing skills and polished images and infographics. It is hard to resist the temptation to delegate boring tasks to AI, such as drafting emails that respond to routine messages. From there it is a slippery slope towards AI writing our university or job applications, office memos, or manuals and instructional content. However, these are tasks that define who we are and how others perceive us. And this reliance on AI kills creativity, individuality and human relations – there is no longer a turn of phrase or a spelling mistake that makes the message special.

Thomas McMahon

Secondly, AI Psychosis is becoming a pervasive disruptor of social relations. AI models are purposely designed for “engagement farming” – a fancy term for hooking people into an ever-increasing reliance on these services. It achieves this through sycophantic responses that feed one’s ego or anxieties, releasing endorphins and creating a craving for more.

We can now access gratifying, yet wholly synthetic, social interactions at our fingertips via chatbots. Consequently, we risk crafting individualised reality bubbles that are unchecked by the social norms we experience in the real world. Will it become easier and more pleasurable to interact with an intelligent machine to fulfill our need to talk, to discuss books, or for emotional engagement without fear of rejection – at any time of day or night?

Thirdly, if we allow machines to shape our thoughts and emotions, we risk destroying diversity of opinion, crushing creativity and resulting in a unified, monolithic narrative that is controlled by the megacorporations providing these AI services.

Pope Leo XIV expressed this concern in his recent encyclical where he warned of “the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance”.

Lastly, it is essential to consider how the mismanagement of AI has the potential to drive a further wedge between rich and poor populations. The Pope cautions us of being misled by “a technology that promises to free us from all weakness, and models of wellbeing that leave behind entire populations”.

Increased focus is being placed on the impact of data centers within local communities, given their inordinate usage of electricity and water and the constant noise pollution these facilities generate. At full capacity, processing a daily 10 billion Gigabytes of data, a 100 MW data center consumes up to 2.4 million KWh of electricity and 2 million litres of water per day – more than a small city.

The human brain can process 74 Gigabytes of data while sipping a tiny 0.3 KWh of electricity (260 calories or 12% of total daily energy intake). Our bodies require a daily ration of 2.5 litres of water to function normally. Contrast this with preparing a 100-word email using ChatGPT, where each prompt-and-response interaction consumes the water in a standard 500 ml bottle. Even from a strictly environmentally-conscious viewpoint, surely it would be better to use our brains for this instead?

However, whatever our concerns, the genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back – we must learn to use AI properly. We need to better understand its limitations and where it delivers greatest impact, given the resources required.

AI should not be seen as a substitute for human expertise but instead complementary to it. Indeed, the more expertise one has in any given field, the more valuable a contribution AI makes. Experts can better formulate more pertinent questions and redirect the conversation should the AI meander off course. Experts also detect errors more easily in what may appear to be perfectly valid responses.

It is essential that we encourage people, particularly our young people, to continue learning and perfecting their chosen crafts, ignoring the wild marketing claims that various professions have been largely solved by AI already. The more knowledge and expertise the younger generation can build, the more judiciously and selectively they can deploy AI in their work and for society’s future benefit.

Daud Khan is a retired UN staff based in Rome. He has degrees in economics from LSE and Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a degree in Environmental Management from Imperial College London.

Thomas McMahon is a Data Engineer who specialises in developing bespoke AI systems for UN agencies.

IPS UN Bureau

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Rohingya refugees cross the Naf River on a makeshift raft while fleeing violence in Myanmar, on their way to Bangladesh. Credit: UNICEF/Mackenzie Knowles-Coursin

By Mohammad Zaman
VANCOUVER B.C., Canada, Aug 3 2026 (IPS)

The Rohingya crisis remains one of the most enduring humanitarian and political failures in South and Southeast Asia. Since the 2017 mass expulsion from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, Bangladesh has hosted more than one million refugees in Cox’s Bazar and Bhasan Char, while Myanmar has failed to create conditions for safe return. What began as an emergency response has hardened into protracted displacement marked by statelessness, insecurity, aid dependency, and diplomatic fatigue. Repatriation is repeatedly presented as the preferred durable solution, yet every major attempt has failed because the core political question remains unresolved: the Rohingya cannot safely return to a state that denies them citizenship, protection, and equal belonging.

In 2017, only months after the largest influx, Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a bilateral Memorandum of Arrangement. It promised a time-bound repatriation process, but it was non-binding, weakly enforced, and silent on the guarantees most essential to return: citizenship, freedom of movement, property restitution, and independent monitoring inside Rakhine. Bangladesh, facing demographic, environmental, and political pressure, needed a pathway to reduce the burden of hosting refugees. Myanmar, by contrast, had incentives to delay, control, and symbolically manage the process without addressing the legal and security conditions that caused the exodus.

Three major repatriation efforts since 2017 reveal the same pattern. Attempts in 2018 and 2019 collapsed because refugees refused to return without credible guarantees of safety, citizenship, and dignity. A China-facilitated initiative in 2023 proposed a pilot return of several thousand people and arranged verification visits by Rohingya representatives to Rakhine. It also stalled. Cyclone damage, renewed fighting, and widening armed conflict made even limited returns impractical. More importantly, refugees remained unconvinced. Their reluctance was not resistance to return; it was a rational response to risk. Returning to fenced villages, transit camps, or controlled areas without rights would merely convert exile in Bangladesh into containment in Myanmar.

Dr Mohammad Zaman

The political problem is both domestic and regional. Domestically, Myanmar’s state-building project has excluded the Rohingya by portraying them as outsiders rather than citizens. Without recognition of Rohingya identity and legal status, administrative repatriation will remain cosmetic. Regionally, the crisis is shaped by strategic interests. China has mediated because stability in Myanmar affects its investments and influence, but its diplomacy has emphasized state-to-state negotiation more than rights-based accountability. India has balanced humanitarian concern with security and geopolitical interests, while ASEAN has struggled to move beyond cautious consensus and non-interference. Western governments have condemned atrocities and supported accountability efforts, but sanctions and legal cases have not changed conditions on the ground. The result is a fragmented diplomatic landscape in which no actor has combined sufficient leverage, consistency, and political will to compel Myanmar toward a rights-based solution.

Bangladesh’s position is increasingly difficult. Its initial humanitarian generosity has become a long-term national burden. The camps place pressure on land, forests, water, public services, and local labour markets. Security concerns have grown as trafficking, armed activity, and criminal networks exploit a population with limited mobility, education, and livelihood opportunities. Declining humanitarian funding has deepened frustration: reduced food rations, health services, and education increase despair and encourage dangerous onward movement by sea to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, where conditions are often insecure. Yet Bangladesh’s legitimate burden cannot justify premature repatriation. Any return must be voluntary, safe, rights-based, and dignified.

A critical analysis must also recognize the limits of humanitarianism. Aid keeps people alive, but it cannot resolve statelessness or political exclusion. The international response has often separated relief, justice, and diplomacy into disconnected tracks: humanitarian agencies sustain survival in Bangladesh; lawyers pursue accountability; diplomats negotiate repatriation frameworks; and development actors support host communities. Each track is necessary, but together they have not formed a coherent strategy. The Rohingya have too often been treated as beneficiaries rather than political stakeholders. A durable solution requires their participation in defining return conditions, monitoring mechanisms, citizenship pathways, education policy, and community security arrangements. The newly formed Rohingya Repatriation Committee has to address all of the above in finding a sustainable solution.

The road ahead must be realistic rather than rhetorical. Repatriation should remain the long-term objective, but only when it is safe, voluntary, dignified, and sustainable. This requires verifiable changes inside Rakhine: citizenship or a credible pathway to citizenship, freedom of movement, access to services, restoration or compensation for property, and protection from military, police, and armed-group abuse. Any future framework must include independent international monitoring with meaningful access to return areas. Diplomacy must also adapt to Myanmar’s altered conflict map by engaging relevant actors without legitimizing abuses or abandoning principles. Bangladesh will need pragmatic but principled engagement with the junta, the Arakan Army, regional powers, and international organizations.

Meanwhile, the camps in Bangladesh cannot remain waiting rooms for an indefinitely delayed return. Refugees need education, skills training, legal protection, and limited livelihood opportunities to prevent social deterioration and prepare for eventual reconstruction in Rakhine. These measures should not be framed as local integration against Bangladesh’s wishes, but as human-capital preservation and crisis management. International burden-sharing must become concrete: donors should sustain aid, expand resettlement for vulnerable cases, support host communities, and coordinate pressure on Myanmar. Accountability mechanisms should continue because impunity is one reason repatriation remains unsafe.

Ultimately, the Rohingya repatriation crisis is not a logistical failure but a political one. Buses, refugee lists, reception centres, and pilot projects cannot substitute for rights, security, and recognition. Bangladesh seeks relief, Myanmar seeks control, regional powers seek stability, and donors seek a manageable humanitarian file. The Rohingya seek what repatriation is supposed to mean: return to their homeland as citizens with dignity. Until diplomacy is anchored in that principle, repatriation attempts will continue to produce announcements without arrivals, agreements without trust, and roadmaps without roads. The way forward requires pressure, patience, and a shift from counting potential returnees to building the conditions under which return becomes a restoration of justice rather than an act of desperation.

Dr. Mohammad Zaman is an internationally recognized expert in resettlement and development. He has contributed many op-eds on the Rohingya crisis. Dr. Zaman’s recent edited book (co-editors Robert Anderson and Kawser Ahmed) is titled Rohingya Stories: History and Geopolitics in a Multipolar World (Springer, 2025).

IPS UN Bureau

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A container port in Bukit Merah, Singapore. Credit: Unsplash/CHUTTERSNAP

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2026 (IPS)

East Asia and the Pacific’s (EAP) maritime system has powered the region’s rise as the world’s largest trading and manufacturing center, but the infrastructure supporting that system has become increasingly vulnerable.

According to a new World Bank report, EAP will require nearly USD 900 billion in maritime investment through 2040, as aging vessels, growing trade volumes, and the transition towards alternative fuels place pressure on vital shipping networks propping up the region’s rapid economic growth.

Container trade across the region is projected to grow by 3.5 percent to 4 percent annually over the next decade, meaning ports have to build the additional capacity to accommodate approximately 300 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by 2040. The World Bank estimates that modernizing ports will require USD 180 billion through 2040, while more than USD 280 billion will be needed to replace and upgrade regional and domestic fleets.

Such investment comes as maritime transport remains a major contributor to economic activity across the region. Maritime trade in the region supports up to USD 3.7 trillion in economic activity, moving over 6 billion tons of cargo, approximately half of the entire seaborne cargo trade. For every ton of cargo moved through the region’s ports, approximately USD 155 in overall economic output is generated, alongside USD 75 in direct GDP. A ton of imported steel, for example, can become an input for manufacturers producing automobiles, machinery or construction materials, generating additional economic activity well beyond the initial movement of the cargo through the port.

EAP’s role in global maritime trade is particularly significant when looking at the countries that border the Strait of Malacca, where an estimated 38 percent of global maritime trade passed through in 2023, according to the OECD. More than 100,000 vessels transit the Strait of Malacca annually, making it the busiest maritime chokepoint globally, with more than twice the traffic of the Strait of Hormuz under normal conditions.

In Singapore, merchandise trade–the combined value of goods imported and exported– reached USD 964 billion in 2024, equivalent to approximately 179 percent of the country’s USD 540 billion GDP. Singapore’s ports simultaneously handled approximately 41 million TEUs of container traffic, and processed 295 million tons of seaborne trade, making it the second busiest container port in the world. In neighboring Malaysia, merchandise trade reached approximately USD 631 billion, equivalent to nearly 150 percent of its USD 422 billion GDP, while its ports handled another 28 million TEUs, processing 447 million tons of seaborne trade, with Port Klang, Malaysia’s main port, being the 10th-busiest port in the world. Indonesia processed the greatest volume of the three nations, at 900 million tons.

China demonstrates the scale at which the region’s largest ports are already operating, and how investment in automation and digital infrastructure can increase their capacity. The Port of Shanghai became the first in the world to handle more than 50 million TEUs in 2024, while its newest automated terminals require approximately 70 percent less labor while achieving 30 percent higher productivity. Container vessels spend an average of only 1 to 1.2 days at Chinese ports, compared with the Port of Los Angeles where container vessels spend an average of two days. For reference, six of the top 10 busiest ports in the world are located in China, demonstrating its role in global maritime connectivity.

Beyond the direct costs of port operations, ships can spend up to 9 percent of their time waiting at anchorage. These delays can leave vessels with less time to complete subsequent legs of a voyage, encouraging higher sailing speeds and increasing fuel consumption and operating costs. An IMO-backed study found that optimizing container-ship speeds around expected port arrival times could reduce average fuel consumption by approximately 14 percent per voyage. Greater predictability and faster turnaround can therefore allow ports and vessels to move cargo more efficiently while reducing fuel costs and emissions—an increasingly important advantage as EAP prepares to accommodate an additional 300 million TEUs by 2040.

While premier global ports require significant investments in automation and new technology to increase efficiency and expand potential TEU throughput, smaller ports can achieve substantial results through simpler, less capital-intensive infrastructure improvements.

At the Port of Funafuti in Tuvalu, improvements as basic as paving cargo-handling areas and improving drainage reduced cargo-handling breakdowns by 80 percent and cut average vessel turnaround from seven days to between two and three days. These gains show that the approach to modernizing ports in the region is not uniform. Some ports will require more advanced technology and higher investment while others simply need to revitalize their existing systems, in accordance with the volume of cargo their ports already receive.

Modernizing ports, however, addresses only one side of the region’s maritime infrastructure challenge. The vessels docking at ports are themselves aging. Replacing and upgrading vessels operating within and between economies across EAP will require more than USD 280 billion through 2040. Of that total, approximately USD 150 billion will be needed to renew domestic fleets and another USD 97 billion to replace regional vessels, with dual-fuel capability adding USD 36.5 billion in additional costs.

The investment is not solely about expanding capacity. Significant portions of the region’s fleets are already more than 25 years old, making vessels more expensive to maintain, less fuel efficient and more susceptible to breakdowns and accidents. The World Bank estimates that replacing just 30 percent of domestic vessels by 2035 with ships meeting international standards could cut accident rates in half.

The reliability of these vessels also carries consequences beyond the shipping industry, particularly for the region’s archipelagic economies. In the Philippines, 98 percent of inter-island trade in food, fuel, and other goods depends on domestic shipping. Across Southeast Asia in general, maritime networks are critical to regional food trade, with rice shipments alone supplying more than 60 million people across EAP.

Disruptions caused by aging or unreliable vessels can therefore extend beyond higher costs for shipping companies, affecting the movement and price of essential goods in communities dependent on maritime transport.

Yet the largest individual component of the region’s maritime investment requirement lies not in ports or vessels, but in the fuels that will power them.

Developing supply chains for alternative marine fuels could require approximately USD 433 billion through 2040. Green ammonia alone could require approximately USD 310 billion, followed by USD 81 billion for green methanol and USD 42 billion for renewable liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The scale of the required investment reflects how early the transition remains. More than 99 percent of marine fuel consumed in 2025 was still conventional fuel, while fuel accounts for approximately 40 to 60 percent of vessel operating costs, according to the report.

Transitioning away from those fuels requires more than replacing engines. New fuels must be produced, transported, stored, and ultimately supplied to vessels through new bunkering infrastructure at ports, effectively requiring the development of new maritime energy supply chains alongside the existing system.

The transition also presents a coordination challenge. Shipowners have limited incentive to pay premiums for dual-fuel vessels without confidence that alternative fuels will be widely available, while ports and fuel producers face similar uncertainty about investing in bunkering and production infrastructure without sufficient demand. The World Bank argues that predictable regulation and coordinated investment will be necessary to develop vessels, fuel production and port infrastructure simultaneously.

The nearly USD 900 billion investment requirement ultimately extends across every link of the maritime system. Ports will have to accommodate hundreds of millions of additional containers through a combination of new capacity, automation and basic infrastructure improvements, while aging domestic and regional fleets will require replacement on a massive scale. At the same time, the transition toward alternative fuels will require not only new vessels, but the development of entirely new production, storage, transport and bunkering networks.

Financing this maritime venture through 2040 is not the only challenge. The investment must be coordinated across ports, vessels, and fuel supply chains so that each leg of the network can develop alongside others, matching the volume of cargo that moves through rapidly growing region.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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CIVICUS discusses disinformation campaigns targeting the LGBTQI+ community in Armenia with Hripsime Kizogyan, Executive Director of Pink Armenia, a community-based organisation that defends the human rights of LGBTQI+ people and advocates for policy change.

Hripsime Kizogyan

What was the fake Pride campaign about?

In late January, online stories started appearing that claimed that Armenia’s first LGBTQI+ Pride march would take place in the capital, Yerevan, on 7 April, supported by our organisation and personally led by Nikol Pashinyan. The date was no accident, because 7 April is a religious holiday and Mother’s Day in Armenia.

None of it was true. The stories first appeared on a brand-new website that had been created only 11 days earlier. It used an AI-generated image of Pashinyan and disappeared shortly after. But the damage was done. Georgian and Turkish media outlets and dozens of Facebook and Twitter/X accounts had already picked up the story.

The same false campaign came back in April, this time amplified by pro-Kremlin Telegram channels and Russian outlets. It came with two new claims, both equally false: that Pink Armenia helped write same-sex marriage into a supposedly leaked new draft of the Armenian constitution, and that we’re funded by the US Agency for International Development. We denied this publicly, but by then the story had travelled.

The fake Pride story was just one piece of a much bigger campaign against our organisation and, more broadly, against LGBTQI+ people. A fake account impersonating Pink Armenia on Twitter/X managed to buy a verification checkmark before being suspended. Someone also set up a lookalike domain and sent emails in the name of our former president, telling schools that an LGBTQI+ curriculum would be introduced in 2027.

We also know that foreign bloggers were approached and offered paid trips to Yerevan to publicly urge Pashinyan to ‘support Pride’ as a show of solidarity with Europe. Someone pasted images of same-sex couples on walls in Yerevan, then photographed them as ‘evidence’ of activism that wasn’t happening.

What was the campaign trying to achieve?

Whoever was behind the fake Pride campaign wanted two things: to provoke fear and hostility towards LGBTQI+ people and to damage the government and its pro-European course by association. The false claims reinforced a familiar storyline in which European integration will bring the imposition of ‘foreign values’ and LGBTQI+ rights are the leading edge of that imposition.

This rhetoric didn’t come out of nowhere. Across the region, anti-LGBTQI+ discourse is increasingly tied to anti-democratic narratives, attacks on civil society and conspiracy theories that portray human rights organisations as foreign agents and threats to national identity. The same thing happened in Moldova and elsewhere in the region, with LGBTQI+ rights used to split the electorate ahead of a vote.

Although Armenia isn’t like neighbouring countries where anti-LGBTQI+ campaigns are written into state policy, the election showed our community being used when politically convenient. That kind of rhetoric makes the public environment hostile, legitimises discrimination and creates conditions in which hate speech and violence become more socially acceptable.

What has changed, and what hasn’t, for LGBTQI+ rights in Armenia?

Some things have improved. Earlier this year, Pink Armenia was formally included in public advisory councils at the health, internal affairs, justice, and labour and social affairs ministries. This means we can now raise issues directly with them.

But the law hasn’t changed. Armenia still hasn’t recognised same-sex partnerships. There’s no anti-discrimination protection covering sexual orientation and gender identity in most areas of life. When someone is the victim of a hate crime just for being LGBTQI+, that still doesn’t count as an aggravating factor.

Social attitudes are the other barrier. LGBTQI+ people still face discrimination in education, employment, family settings and healthcare. Being open about who you are still carries a risk, so many people hide it or leave Armenia in search of safety.

How is Pink Armenia countering disinformation?

We monitor media and social media systematically, documenting disinformation and hate speech targeting LGBTQI+ people and tracking the politicians and outlets pushing it. This gives us the evidence to respond publicly, take issues to policymakers and, when needed, go to court.

When false claims about us circulate, we answer them directly. We issue public clarifications and work with independent fact-checkers such as the Fact Investigation Platform and Media.am.

On digital security, we report impersonating accounts and fraudulent lookalike domains so they get taken down, and we warn partner institutions such as schools when fake messages go out in our name.

What support does Armenian civil society need?

We need stronger international cooperation to deal with disinformation networks that operate across borders to spread anti-gender narratives. Sharing of advocacy strategies, best practices, digital security expertise and research would strengthen civil society across the region.

We also need long-term support, not just project funding that responds to one crisis at a time. We need funds that are sustainable and flexible enough to keep our services running while we react quickly to disinformation campaigns and security threats.

International partners can do something else too: keep raising discrimination, hate speech and attacks on civil society in their diplomatic conversations with Armenian authorities. Public attention and international scrutiny make it harder to treat these issues as optional.

Ultimately, supporting LGBTQI+ rights in Armenia isn’t only about one community. It’s about defending democratic values, protecting civic space and making sure no group is excluded from human rights because it has become a politically convenient target.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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Images of the Pentagon, Washington DC. Credit: Kevin Doyle / Unsplash

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 31 2026 (IPS)

An age-old axiom in Statistics reads : Figures Cannot Lie, But Liars Can Figure.

And more so, in military conflicts, including the five-month-old US-Iran war, where casualty figures are difficult to track down because of lack of transparency and false accounting.

According to CNN, the Pentagon updated its war casualty database last week, recording more than 140 additionally wounded, and restoring the four soldiers killed due to Iranian strikes amid questions about a lack of transparency over the war’s toll.

The Pentagon drew scrutiny from media outlets and lawmakers last week when the number of US troops killed and wounded decreased in the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS, as Iranian attacks continued. CNN observed fluctuating casualty totals when monitoring the site on a minute-by-minute basis last week.

Pentagon updates Iran war casualty count to 624, restoring 4 deaths to tally, CNN’s Davis Winkie reports on why casualty numbers decreased & were later revised.

The Iranian government, not surprisingly, hasn’t provided any casualty figures at all.

In a bygone era, the United States reportedly suffered 58,281 military deaths in the Vietnam War and 2,459 military deaths during the war in Afghanistan.

The exact breakdown of total casualties—including deaths and those wounded in action (WIA)—differs significantly between the two conflicts:

Stephen Zunes, a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco specializing in Middle Eastern politics, told Inter Press Service (IPS) many thousands of Iranians, Lebanese, and others have been killed as a result of the U.S. war on Iran but Americans–as in previous wars–tend to focus on U.S. casualties. Though they have thankfully been limited, the eighteen fatalities and more than 600 wounded–some of them seriously–have become a major focus of war opponents.

Trump has tried to downplay and manipulate these figures by comparing the casualties with other U.S. wars which included significant ground operations, claiming without evidence that the dead soldiers strongly supported the war, and undercounting those wounded by initially only listing those with severe injuries, said Zunes.

More recently, he pointed out, the administration was caught placing those killed and wounded, subsequent to the collapse of the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, in a separate category than those killed and wounded during the first phase of the war, thereby lessening the overall total.

“Such efforts are only strengthening antiwar sentiment in Washington and elsewhere, adding to the upset by veterans and others over Trump’s draft dodging during the Vietnam War and his insults of those who fought in unpopular conflicts, including war heroes”.

During his 2016 campaign against Hillary Clinton, and to a somewhat lesser extent in his 2024 campaign against Kamala Harris, he portrayed himself as the antiwar candidate who opposed Democrats’ “forever wars” and who as a president would “bring our troops home.” As U.S. casualties in the Middle East mount, his credibility will only be eroded further, declared Zunes.

Meanwhile, a group of Democratic Senators sent a letter last week to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth requesting a “comprehensive accounting” about the number of service members wounded or killed.”

The Senators wrote: “First, we wish to honor the service members who have lost their lives in Operation Epic Fury and extend our deepest condolences to their families. We thank all those who continue to serve in harm’s way. Their sacrifice is why we write to express our concern regarding the Department of Defense’s (DoD or the Department) public reporting and statements on U.S. military casualties associated with Operation Epic Fury.

We formally request a comprehensive accounting of the number of service members who have been killed, wounded, or injured in support of the operation. The American people, Congress, service members, and their families are entitled to a full and accurate accounting of the human costs of war. The information currently available to the public suggests that the Department has not consistently provided timely and comprehensive public casualty reporting throughout the conflict.

The Pentagon’s Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS), which the Department has described as being “regularly updated,” has reported inconsistent casualty figures, raising additional questions about the transparency and reliability of the Department’s public reporting and statement.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 30 2026 (IPS)

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is battling the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record, with United Nations officials warning that hunger is actively undermining efforts to contain the spread.

“Ebola feeds on delay, fear and hunger,” said Carl Skau, acting director of the World Food Programme (WFP) on Wednesday, July 29.

The current outbreak, declared on May 15th and caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, is the third largest outbreak ever recorded, said Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, Executive Director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme. The outbreak in the DRC is reaching unprecedented levels, Dr. Ihekweazu noted. “Over the last few days, we’ve seen some of the highest numbers of new infections in a single day.”

As of July 29th, the DRC outbreak has reached over 3,200 cases, with the virus spreading to 48 health zones across five provinces in eastern DRC. Unfortunately, WHO’s modeling has indicated that the true scale of the outbreak could be two to four times higher than the reported cases. Furthermore, 80 percent of new cases are coming from unknown chains of transmission, and many newly reported deaths are from people who never reached a health care facility or received care.

Julien Harneis, the UN’s Senior Ebola Coordinator, discussed how a critical driver for Ebola transmission is the fact that people are dying in their communities rather than in the care of a hospital or treatment center.

“Roughly 60 percent of deaths are occurring in the community, at the point when viral load — and risk to caregivers — is highest,” said Mr. Harneis.

WHO officials have mirrored this concern, calling deaths that occur outside of health facilities “the most alarming finding.” While there is no approved treatment for the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, the chances of survival are significantly higher with early supportive care.

On top of the outbreak is a severe hunger crisis that is exacerbating the impact and spread of Ebola. Across eastern DRC, nearly 10 million people are facing crisis- or emergency-level hunger. Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak, is also the DRC’s most severe hunger hotspot, with 1.9 million people at crisis levels of food insecurity or worse. Mr. Skau emphasized how “food assistance is frontline Ebola containment. It helps families stay home, supports safe isolation, builds trust with communities and keeps health teams moving.”

The WFP has already delivered more than 160,000 hot meals to patients and frontline workers across 17 treatment and isolation centers. Dry food rations have been provided to 23,000 people, including 14,000 under quarantine, and an additional 36,000 people in Ebola-affected zones have been provided general food assistance. While discussing WFP’s work, Mr. Skau stressed how food logistics support is central to containing the outbreak. “You cannot force people to choose between hunger and health,” he said.

However, funding to tackle the interconnected hunger and Ebola crisis remains critically underfunded. WFP needs USD 293.6 million over the next six months to sustain all operations in DRC, including $76 million for the regional Ebola responses and $50 million for food and nutrition assistance.

“$76 million is the ask and that’s frankly just peanuts, if you look at the bigger scheme of things,” said Mr. Skau. Furthermore, while WFP’s logistics have been somewhat funded, the food element has received no funding. Mr. Skau emphasized, “if you want to be effective, you need to have an all rounded response. It’s not only the health response that is needed to be able to contain that.” Mr. Harneis added that in addition to the food assistance needed, the broader $1 billion Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is only 45 percent funded.

WHO and WFP officials are urging the international community not to lose focus, as Dr. Ihekweazu warned: “now is not the time to drop the ball.” Mr. Harneis and Mr. Skau called for further action and to “scale up the Ebola response, three, four, five times of what we are doing now.”

Mr. Skau linked the urgent funding need to a broader appeal for political attention, describing the DRC as “exhausted from years of conflict, from repeated displacement, from crisis after crisis after crisis.” He argued that ending the outbreak will require more than just medical and food assistance: “We need peace, we need security…for all of this, we need funding…the funding that is coming here is far from enough and we need political attention.” In the weeks ahead, a rapid increase in funding and political will is needed to change the outbreak’s trajectory.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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Josephine Sembeyo (in blue) competes during Kenya's World Athletics Under-20 trials in May, where she qualified for the World Athletics Under-20 Championships in Oregon. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

By Robert Kibet
OLOITOKTOK, Kenya, Jul 30 2026 (IPS)

Before sunrise each morning, 19-year-old Josephine Sembeyo joins dozens of teenage runners leaving Magnolia Athletics Camp for training beneath the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The quiet morning air is broken only by the rhythm of footsteps along the dusty roads that have shaped generations of Kenyan distance runners.

But for Sembeyo, every kilometre represents far more than preparation for the 2026 World Athletics Under-20 Championships, where she will represent Kenya in the 1,500 metres.

Running has given her a chance she once feared might never come: to complete her education, support her family and make choices about her own future.

“Life hasn’t been easy for us. My father married a second wife and left my mother to raise us on her own. Seeing everything my mother has gone through motivates me every day. I want to succeed in athletics and education so that one day I can support her and my siblings and give them a better life,” Sembeyo says.

Girls from Magnolia Athletics Camp during a daily road training session in Oloitokitok, Kenya. Credit: Robert Kibet/IPS

A Camp Creating New Possibilities

Sembeyo is among 45 girls from pastoralist communities living and training at Magnolia Athletics Camp in Oloitokitok, near Kenya’s border with Tanzania.

The camp provides full scholarships covering education, accommodation, meals, athletics training and safeguarding support.

For many of the girls, athletics is not only about competition. It has become a pathway to education, confidence and opportunities that might otherwise remain out of reach.

The girls’ journey comes as they mark the International Day for Women and Girls of African Descent on July 25, a day that recognises the contributions, resilience and experiences of women and girls of African descent while highlighting the need to address discrimination and inequality.

For girls growing up in marginalised communities, access to education, safe spaces and opportunities can be a powerful tool for breaking cycles of poverty and exclusion.

Coach Andrew Lesuuda says Magnolia was created not only to identify talented runners but also to give girls a safe environment where they can develop academically and personally.

“When we started Magnolia Athletics Camp, our vision was not only to identify talented runners. We wanted to create an environment where girls could discover their potential, stay in school and believe that they can achieve more in life,” Lesuuda says.

“Athletics gives them an opportunity to dream, but education gives them the foundation to build a future beyond sport.”

Sports Against Early Marriage and FGM

Many of the girls joining Magnolia come from communities where opportunities for girls remain limited and where some continue to face risks linked to female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage.

According to UNICEF, more than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM. The United Nations says progress towards ending the practice remains too slow to meet the Sustainable Development Goal target of eliminating FGM and child marriage by 2030.

Kenya outlawed FGM in 2011 and has made progress through legislation and awareness campaigns, but the practice continues in some communities, particularly among sections of pastoralist populations.

The struggles facing girls in vulnerable communities are part of a wider global challenge.

Sarah Hendriks, a UN Women spokesperson, in a recent press conference said no country in the world has achieved full legal equality between women and men, leaving millions of girls exposed to harmful practices and unequal opportunities.

“No country in the world has achieved full legal equality between women and men. More than half of the world’s countries do not actually define rape by law on the basis of consent. Nearly three-quarters — 74% of the world’s countries — still allow child marriage by law, allowing girls to be married as children,” Hendriks said.

At Magnolia, athletics has become a tool for changing that reality by keeping girls in school and giving them opportunities beyond traditional expectations.

A Second Chance Through Running

Before joining Magnolia, Sembeyo feared her education could end early and that she might face an early marriage.

Today, she believes the camp has transformed her future.

“Had it not been for Magnolia Athletics Camp, I believe my life would have been very different. I was at risk of an early and forced marriage, but coming here gave me the chance to stay in school, train and dream about a better future. Today, I’m happy because I know my life has a direction,” she says.

Her daily routine starts before sunrise with training, followed by school and another athletics session in the afternoon before homework in the evening.

“Every morning when I train, I remind myself why I’m doing it. I know every session brings me closer to my dream and gives me another opportunity to change my family’s life,” she says.

When Climate Change Threatens Dreams

Sembeyo is joined at Magnolia by Jeska Lenawatop, a 1,500-metre runner from Lkuroto village in Samburu County, a pastoralist region in northern Kenya.

Before joining the camp, Jeska’s life revolved around helping her family care for goats and sheep, the main source of livelihood for many pastoral households.

But recurring droughts have devastated livestock and deepened economic hardship for communities that depend on animals for survival.

“Before Magnolia, my life was mainly about grazing goats and sheep. With droughts destroying livestock, our family’s main source of income, I had little hope for the future. This camp gave me a chance to stay in school and pursue my dreams,” Jeska says.

Through athletics and education, Jeska now sees a future beyond the challenges facing her community.

Building Confidence Through Education

Another athlete benefiting from Magnolia is Felister Naimutie, a 400 m and 800 m runner from Lolgorian village in Kilgoris.

She says drought and limited opportunities affected many girls growing up in her community.

“Growing up, I saw how drought affected our families and made life difficult. Many girls had few choices beyond pastoral duties and early marriage. Magnolia gave me hope through education and athletics,” Felister says.

For her, the camp represents more than a training facility. It is a place where she can continue learning while pursuing her sporting ambitions.

Beyond the Finish Line

Barnaba Korir, Athletics Kenya’s Youth Development Director, says community-based programmes, such as Magnolia, complement national efforts to identify young talent while ensuring athletes remain in school.

He says sport can build confidence, leadership and opportunities for young people.

At Magnolia, parents, teachers, community leaders and anti-FGM advocates also engage with families to promote girls’ education and challenge harmful practices.

As another training session ends beneath Mount Kilimanjaro, the girls jog back to camp laughing and encouraging one another.

For Sembeyo, the finish line is no longer defined only by medals.

Her selection to represent Kenya at the World Athletics Under-20 Championships has strengthened her belief that athletics can transform not only her life but also those of her family.

“Being selected to represent Kenya at the World Under-20 Championships means everything to me. It’s proof that hard work pays off, and I believe it is opening opportunities that can change my life. I want to make my family proud and show other girls that they should never give up on their dreams,” she says.

One day, she hopes to stand on an international podium wearing Kenya’s colours.

But her greatest ambition goes beyond medals.

“I want girls from communities like mine to know that education and sport can change their lives. If someone believes in you and gives you an opportunity, you can achieve your dreams. My dream is not only to win medals for Kenya but also to make sure my mother and my siblings have a better life,” Sembeyo says.

Perhaps Magnolia’s greatest achievement will not be measured by medals but by the number of girls who leave the camp with education, confidence and the freedom to choose the futures they want.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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An expert panel segment during the Fifty-eighth session of the Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, held from 28 March to 3 April 2026 in Tangier, Morocco. Credit: UNECA

By United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Jul 30 2026 (IPS)

Africa’s digital revolution is gathering pace, but the financing needed to sustain it remains uneven, fragmented, and often out of reach.

To bridge this gap, African multilateral financial institutions, policymakers, development partners, and private sector leaders are calling for a more coordinated, innovative, and better-structured financing approach to support Africa’s digital and technological transformation.

That was the central message from policymakers, financiers and development partners who convened on the sidelines of the 58th session of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development, held in Morocco in April 2026.

Their conclusion was clear: Africa does not lack capital—it lacks the right kind of capital, deployed in the right way.

From artificial intelligence to digital infrastructure, the continent’s innovation sectors are expanding rapidly. Yet, access to affordable, long-term financing remains a major bottleneck, constraining growth and limiting impact.

Hanan Morsy, UN ECA’s Deputy Executive Secretary and Chief Economist

That gap, experts say, is holding back productivity gains, job creation and broader economic transformation.

Capital vs opportunity

Africa’s financial landscape is not devoid of resources. In fact, speakers at the event repeatedly emphasized a paradox: capital exists, but it is not flowing into innovation-driven sectors at the required scale.

According to Haytham Elmaayergi of the African Export-Import Bank, one of the continent’s leading multilateral lenders, the issue lies in the pipeline of viable investments.

“One of Africa’s key challenges is not a lack of capital, but a shortage of bankable projects and stronger institutional collaboration to scale investment,” he said, pointing to weak project preparation and limited institutional coordination as key constraints.

This disconnect is further compounded by high borrowing costs, currency volatility, and insufficient mechanisms to share risk—factors that deter both public and private investment.

For early-stage innovators, the challenge is even more acute. Venture financing remains thin, and traditional lenders are often reluctant to support projects perceived as high-risk.

“In the technology space, risk is harder to structure,” said Adeniran Aderogba, head of the Regional Maritime Development Bank, “we need more creative financing models and dedicated funds to support early-stage innovation.”

Africa’s innovation challenge is not a shortage of ideas. It is a shortage of long-term, affordable, and well-structured financing.

Rethinking how Africa finances innovation

Participants agreed that solving these challenges will require a shift away from traditional financing approaches toward more flexible, blended models.

Blended finance—combining public and private capital, guarantees and technical support—was highlighted as a critical tool to reduce risk and attract investment into emerging sectors. Co-financing arrangements and tailored instruments that reflect the unique risk-return profile of digital investments are also gaining traction.

But financing alone is not enough.

“Technology and innovation go beyond digital,” noted Robert Lisinge of UNECA. “We are talking about a broader ecosystem—including infrastructure, energy, and emerging technologies.”

This broader lens underscores the need for complementary investments in enabling systems: reliable electricity, robust connectivity, and supportive regulatory frameworks. Without these, even well-financed projects struggle to scale.

The role of African institutions

At the center of the conversation was the growing importance of African-led financial institutions in shaping the continent’s development trajectory.

The Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions—also known as the Africa Club—has emerged as a key platform for coordination. Established in 2024, the alliance brings together major African financial institutions with a combined balance sheet exceeding $70 billion.

Its members—including Afreximbank, the Africa Finance Corporation, and the Trade and Development Bank—are increasingly seen as critical players in mobilizing capital for large-scale development projects.

By strengthening collaboration among these institutions, participants said, Africa can better align financing with its strategic priorities and reduce reliance on external funding models that may not fully reflect local realities.

From dialogue to delivery

The Tangier discussions ended with a strong call for action: move beyond diagnosis and toward implementation.

Key priorities include reducing the cost of capital, expanding risk-sharing mechanisms, improving project preparation, and mobilizing long-term funding at scale. Equally important is strengthening collaboration among governments, financial institutions and development partners.

For Africa’s digital transformation to deliver on its promise, participants agreed, financing must become more coordinated, more innovative—and more responsive to the continent’s realities.

The stakes are high. With one of the world’s youngest populations and a rapidly expanding digital economy, Africa has a unique opportunity to leapfrog traditional development pathways.

But as the Tangier meeting made clear, realizing that potential will depend not just on how much money is available—but on how effectively it is used.

IPS UN Bureau

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 29 2026 (IPS)

Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (Republican of Kansas) rose to public attention in the 1950s with his allegations that hundreds of “Communists” had infiltrated the State Department and other federal agencies.

Fast forward to 1971.

Addressing a class of post-graduate students at the Columbia University’s School of Journalism in 1971, one of the Professors was explaining the red-baiting that took place during the late 1950’s when Senator McCarthy, in his crusade against Communism, led a series of investigations and Congressional hearings to reveal—imaginary or real—of Communist infiltration into the US government.

There was hysterical paranoia about “reds” and “Communists” in the deep state. The slogan was “Reds under the Beds”.

The extent of McCarthyism was evident, he said recounting an anecdote, when there were two groups of demonstrators – the pro Communists and anti- Communists—staging protests and counter protests in Times Square in the heart of New York city

The word “Communism” was dreaded—but perhaps only anti-Communists were tolerated during the witch hunt under McCarthyism.

When the demonstrations got unruly, the cops dragged some of the protestors from the streets and bodily threw them into Police vans (called paddy wagons) when one of them pleaded: “I am anti-Communist. I am anti-Communist”.

And the cop shouted back: “I don’t care what goddam brand of Communist you are”.

Meanwhile, when Zohran Mamdani was elected the 112th mayor of New York City last November, he was the city’s first Muslim and South Asian American mayor, and at 34, its youngest leader in over a century.

But Mamdani, who describes himself as a “democratic socialist” has been repeatedly accused of being a “communist” by political opponents, most notably President Donald Trump and conservative media commentators.

The mayor has been dismissed by Trump and various Republicans as a “100% Communist lunatic” during and after the mayoral race, to criticize his left-wing platform.

But with more democratic socialists being elected at two House primaries and a fistful of legislative races, the communist label has been viciously used against all “socialists”—and may be used by Republicans against Democrats ahead of the mid-term elections.

Which triggers the question: is this the beginning of a new McCarthyism era, which was rooted in the 1950s?

James E. Jennings, President of Conscience International, told Inter Press Service (IPS): Donald Trump has taken advantage of the ignorance of his MAGA followers to gain and hold power for a corrupt class of Billionaires.

He has succeeded by altering the meaning of words to suit his purposes and using them as weapons, a political skill as old as time. Now, he is throwing the word “Communist” at his Social Democrat and Democratic Socialist opponents who are not at all Communists. All these niceties are lost on his supporters.

“Communism insists on state ownership of property. Social Democrats advocate government regulation of the marketplace and property rights for the benefit of all, while Democratic Socialism takes this a step further, urging the abolition of capitalism.”

Trump and his cadre of Republican sycophants must stop confusing people with hateful epithets that are no way accurate. Everybody should read Orwell’s 1984 and reject Trumpism, because semantics do in fact rule political discourse. Confucius was right: The rectification of things is the naming of things, said Jennings

Trump’s obfuscation, he pointed out, is about concentrating power and wealth. But as early as 1776 Virginia established itself as a Commonwealth, the idea of shared prosperity for the benefit of all. Property was not to be concentrated in the hands of rulers.

“No man,” they said, is entitled to “exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges.” Pennsylvania’s Constitution also forbids the “Advantage of any single man, family, or set of men.” Massachusetts and Kentucky followed suit. Those ideas are not Communist. They simply advocate equality and opportunity for all, declared Jennings.

Speaking at Mount Rushmore July 4, while commemorating the country’s 250th birthday, Trump described his political opponents as “godless”, “evil” Communists.

The New York Times said he used the word “communism” so many times, “you might have thought the Cold War was still on”. It was a bigger threat than Pearl Harbor and 9/11, Trump was quoted as saying.

According to a report in the Times July 27, the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has added over 7,000 new members.

The political philosophy of DSA includes rising taxes on the rich, guaranteed free medical care for the poor, a freeze on rising rents on public housing, raising the minimum wage and shortening the work week. The mayor also plans to open 5 New York city-owned grocery stores with 30 percent discount on produce, meat, bread and milk. And on foreign policy, the DSA has taken a strong stand for Palestinian statehood.

Norman Solomon, executive director, Institute for Public Accuracy and national director, RootsAction told IPS the core of the repression being spearheaded by (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio is that the people now running the U.S. government hate democracy and want to stamp out as much of it as they can.

Freedom of speech is at the center of democracy – they need each other – and the witch-hunt being mounted by the Trump regime is methodical.

“ There are many differences between the current wave of repression and the McCarthy era at America’s mid-century, but the very real continuity involves the wielding of government and media power to intimidate and stoke the fires of fear. The goal is to engender passivity and subservience,’ he said.

Much of liberal-leaning America, notably the administrations of many colleges, quickly buckled under pressure to crack down on nonviolent campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza and U.S. support for it.

That dynamic, said Solomon, began in late 2023 and become powerful during 2024, in the last year of the Biden presidency. The common responses from college administrators were forms of authoritarian actions, aiming to cause self-censorship and preemptive obedience – in other words, suppression of First Amendment rights. This process became more extreme after Trump regained presidential power.

“Issuing lists of supposed subversives was a key tactic of the McCarthy Era. It sowed fear, and the result involved poisonous crops of stifled public discourse and fearful silences,” Solomon pointed out.

“Similar dynamics are now underway. But many people and organizations are refusing to accept the repression, and there are reasons to hope that nonviolent emphatic resistance can be effective in mitigating the damage to civic life”, declared Solomon, author of “War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine.”

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Credit: United Nations

By Amitabh Behar
DELHI, India, Jul 29 2026 (IPS)

On 15 September 1953, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India was elected the eighth president of the UN General Assembly — the first woman to hold the UN’s second-highest position. Since then, only four women have followed her, most recently the current president, Annalena Baerbock. Since its founding, the UN has had nine Secretaries-General. All men. Now, 81 years after the UN’s founding, we have a historic opportunity to correct that record. It is time to entrust the UN leadership to a woman of the Global South who shapes a more inclusive, effective and forward-looking UN.

The stakes extend far beyond symbolism. In the coming weeks, attention will turn to the Security Council, where the informal straw polls will effectively determine who emerges as the next Secretary-General, before it forwards its recommendations to the General Assembly for appointment.

Of the six candidates currently in the race, four are women, Michelle Bachelet, Rebeca Grynspan, María Fernanda Espinosa and Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett. Their credentials leave no doubt that the UN has highly qualified women ready to lead. The choice facing UN member states, and especially the Permanent Five is therefore not whether a woman can lead the organisation, but which candidate is best placed to pull multilateralism back from the brink, revers trends of conflict and inequality, uphold international law, and restoring confidence in cooperation as a force for justice and human dignity.

That is no small task. The next Secretary-General will need to provide principled leadership to advance the interests of people whose voices are excluded from global decision-making, while defending the UN’s independence from its most powerful members. Trygve Lie, the first Secretary-General, once called the job “the most impossible job in the world.” This quote has rarely been proven righter than today.

The organisation the next Secretary-General inherits is not in good shape. A recent poll found that just 4% of people in the Global South believe the UN has sufficient authority in global governance; 44% blamed the concentration of power among the Permanent Five in the Security Council. Yet the same poll affirmed the need of the UN in this context with its enduring value as the only universal forum where all member states can address shared challenges — and the need for a Secretary-General who listens to people.

That points to four non-negotiable commitments that should anchor the next Secretary-General’s agenda: representation, participation, accountability and the right to self-determination. Among these four commitments accountability matters most urgently to stop impunity. Committing to it means real reform of a Security Council where the Permanent Five too often act as judge and jury: prioritising prevention, curbing the veto, strengthen the equality of all Security Council members in decision-making so advancements to global peace cannot be blocked, limiting the “penholder” system that lets the P5 monopolise drafting, and putting civilian protection at the centre of every peacekeeping effort.

Ultimately, addressing these structural challenges will require a broader conversation about the future of the UN Charter itself, including serious consideration of Article 109 as a pathway for reviewing whether the Organization’s founding framework remains fit for purpose in today’s world.

Translating these commitments into people’s lives means concrete action in a few key areas: Inequality must finally move to the centre of the UN agenda: billionaire wealth has hit a historic $18.3 trillion and only 16% of the Sustainable Development Goals remain on track. Establishing an International Panel on Inequality, modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will be a vital next step in tackling the inequality emergency.

Civilian protection and defending international humanitarian law must be non-negotiable to dismantle systems of impunity, at a moment when dozens of people fall into humanitarian emergency every minute. And with the world badly off track on the Paris Agreement, the next Secretary-General must build on Antonio Guterres’ legacy and continue pushing to make a just transition away from fossil fuels — backed by real climate finance — a defining political priority.

The next Secretary-General must put a feminist vision at the heart of the UN. This means confronting a rigged, sexist, and racist economic order that prizes endless growth over the care of people and the planet, and backing the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth. And none of this will happen if civil society is sidelined and fundamental rights -including digital ones – are not protected while Artificial Intelligence keeps expanding without control. The UN’s legitimacy depends on hearing from the people it was built to serve — the Charter’s founding principle of “We the Peoples” — especially as civic space shrinks worldwide including in the UN.

In her inaugural address as UNGA president, Pandit said the world “must learn to cooperate effectively in safeguarding peace and in raising standards of living.” Seventy-three years on, as multilateralism strains under the weight of its own contradictions, that sentence has lost none of its urgency.

Leading the UN of tomorrow might be the hardest job in the world. But as Lie also said, the harder the task, the greater the reward. It is time for structural change — and for a woman of the Global South to lead it. We cannot afford to miss this opportunity. The coming weeks, and the opening of the 81st session of the General Assembly, will show whether world leaders are ready to seize it

Amitabh Behar is Oxfam International’s Executive Director

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A person uses an umbrella to keep cool during a heatwave in London, England, in June 2026. Credit: Alastair Johnstone-Hack / Climate Visuals

By Catherine Wilson
SYDNEY, Australia, Jul 28 2026 (IPS)

As Western Europe endured its worst-ever June heatwave in recorded history, the imperative for climate adaptation is now urgent as the continent accelerates beyond others to become the fastest-warming region in the world.

In May temperatures began increasing to levels previously not experienced until mid-summer in July, and the impacts on human health and social inequalities are now evident. Experts emphasise that the warnings are clear about the future under worsening climate extremes.

“The heatwaves that affected western Europe in May and June were unusual because of their intensity and their early timing,” Julien Nicolas, senior scientist at Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, told IPS.

Yet “the weather patterns behind the recent heatwaves, characterised by persistent high pressure over the region and hot air drawn from North Africa into western Europe, have been observed in many previous European heatwaves. Studies have also shown that the number of summer heatwaves has risen particularly sharply in Europe compared with other continental regions.”

Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service reports the average anomalies in air temperatures in Europe during this year’s heatwave from 18-30 June 2026 relative to the average temperature for the 1991-2020 reference period. Cedit: C3S/ECMWF

By late June, the record temperature of 41.7 degrees Celsius was reached in eastern Germany, 40 degrees in Vienna, Austria, and 43.8 degrees in western France, reports the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). While western Europe has borne the worst so far, heatwave conditions now extend across central and eastern Europe. In Romania, located south of Ukraine and west of Hungary, temperatures rose dramatically in early July to exceed 35 to 40 degrees Celsius, Daniel Modoacă, Head of Emergency and Disaster Response at the Romanian Red Cross in Bucharest, told IPS.

France and Spain are also at the centre of a wildfire crisis, fuelled by successive heatwaves that have forced the evacuation of more than 300,000 people. The current emergency has been described by French President Emmanuel Macron as the country’s worst fire-related crisis since World War II.

The record-breaking European summer is consistent with the region warming at twice the global average since the 1980s. The continent’s worst heatwaves have all occurred since 2020, and now one consequence is that ‘Europe faces a growing risk of megadroughts that span large regions and last for several years,’ reports the European Environment Agency (EEA).

Following a red alert issued for extreme temperatures, Romanian Red Cross volunteers in Bucharest’s Sector 4 distributed drinking water and supported the health and safety of local communities. Bucharest, Romania. Credit: Romanian Red Cross-Bucharest Sector 4

Yet it is not just heatwaves. Europe has also endured excessive rainfall in recent years. Life-threatening floods following major storms occurred in Valencia, Spain, in late 2024. They caused more than 200 deaths, and the devastation ranged from landslides to damage to housing, power, transportation and road infrastructure. In the same year, severe floods also affected Austria, Poland, Czechia and Romania.

But as Europe approaches midsummer, people are facing immediate shocks to their health and wellbeing.

“In Bucharest, the combination of extreme temperatures, dense urban infrastructure and limited nighttime cooling has intensified the impact on vulnerable groups, particularly the elderly, people with chronic illnesses and households facing financial hardship,” Modoacă said, with the interior cooling of homes a major challenge for 17.7 percent of Romanian households already struggling to pay electricity bills.

But the Romanian Red Cross is striving to meet people’s needs by providing drinking water, basic health monitoring, including blood pressure checks, and assistance for those living with medical conditions likely to be worsened by extreme heat. As well as “support for the homeless, who are among the most exposed during prolonged heatwaves, and assistance for rural households, where access to cooling systems and medical services are limited”, Modoacă added.

When high air temperatures are relentless for long periods, and higher than average night temperatures don’t offer relief, the human body is subjected to stress that can diminish its ability to function, leading to heightened risks of heat exhaustion, heat stroke, the worsening of existing illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease, and, in the worst scenario, loss of life.

This year more than 150 million people in European countries have suffered from the heatwave, with 10,000 extra related deaths in late June, according to health authorities. Meanwhile, the WHO reports that heat-related mortality in Europe has risen by 30 percent during the past 20 years, with an estimated 175,000 related fatalities per year. While the same mortality rate for people over the age of 65 years increased by 85 percent from 2000 to 2004 to 2017 to 2021.

In cities, where the built environment has retained the heat to intense levels, health and humanitarian services have been stretched and overwhelmed. In Paris, hospital and ambulance services have been under severe strain, while the French Red Cross has extended its humanitarian outreach to the public with emergency round-the-clock cooling shelters where people can access food, drinking water, sleeping facilities and social support.

However, the longer-term repercussions of climate warming were revealed in new research published in the Global Environmental Change journal. Scientists in Germany claim that severe heatwaves in Europe have widened the inequality gap, significantly impacting lower-income households the greatest and pushing an extra 5.6 million people into risk of poverty on average from 2004 to 2022.

Last month, Mary Friel, the Climate Policy Senior Officer at the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), declared that ‘extreme heat is now one of the defining humanitarian challenges of our time, a major public health risk that demands action from people, institutions and governments alike.’

It was a message reinforced In July by WHO Regional Director for Europe, Hans Kluge, who told the media that most European countries were not prepared for the health repercussions of future heatwaves, including the heatproofing of health infrastructure. ‘Heatwaves can overwhelm hospitals that may not be designed to cope with higher temperatures, especially as admissions rise. Hospital buildings can overheat, causing power supplies and cooling systems, as well as computers and tech services, to fail,’ warns the WHO. Some of the challenges to implementing climate adaptation in the region include limited resources, insufficient dedicated finance and lack of private sector and citizen engagement, claims the IPCC.

Yet the European Union (EU) has demonstrated a commitment to climate action with an ambitious goal of achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Meanwhile, the European Green Deal, which was launched in 2019, sets out a plan to accelerate the region’s transition to clean infrastructure, energy, transport and industries. And last year Copernicus reported that 46.4 percent of all electricity produced in Europe derived from renewables.

At the same time, the current crisis in Europe has worldwide implications, as the global temperature rise is now estimated to be 1.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. And, with current trends, the safety threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius could be reached by the end of the decade. Nicolas told IPS that every additional fraction of a degree above 1.5 degrees Celsius would increase climate threats to ecosystems, water and food security, infrastructure and the economy and “the possibility of parts of the climate system reaching tipping points”.

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Ammar Mohammed Mahmoud Mohammed, Deputy Permanent Representative of the Republic of the Sudan to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council meeting that heard reports of the Secretary-General on Sudan. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten

By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2026 (IPS)

In the three years since the outbreak of the Sudanese Civil War, the humanitarian crisis has deteriorated significantly, with the United Nations underscoring a blatant disregard for international humanitarian law among warring parties. This includes the deliberate targeting of civilians in residential areas, widespread sexual violence, and attacks on critical infrastructure that have hindered aid efforts and pushed communities to the brink of collapse. To manage rising military expenses, the warring parties have increasingly relied on the exploitation of trade routes and territories, prompting humanitarian experts to express concern about a persistent, self-sustaining “war economy.”

“Sudan’s vast wealth of natural resources should benefit its people. Distressingly, what we are seeing today is anything but that. In fact, this wealth is only serving to undermine human rights and drive conflict, bringing pain and suffering on an enormous scale,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk. “This war economy must be disrupted, and the international community must pay much closer attention to the commodities and trade routes that help keep it alive.”

On July 15, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) published a report titled Business and Human Rights in Conflict: Gum Arabic from Sudan, underscoring how the illicit trade of gum arabic is being exploited to fund the violent activities of both the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF). Beyond gum arabic, the report shows that warring parties are generating massive revenues from gold, livestock, and other commodities by seizing control of local extraction, transport, and trade routes.

Historically, gum arabic has been a critical economic staple for Sudan, serving as a key ingredient in food, drinks, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals around the world. Sourced from the bark and branches of the acacia tree, gum arabic acts as a lifeline for over five million people in Sudan and remains deeply embedded in local rural communities.

Before the eruption of hostilities in 2023, Sudan’s gum arabic trade accounted for roughly 70 to 80 percent of the global crude gum arabic exports, with annual exports reaching as high as USD $183 million. Today, the vast majority of acacia forests in Sudan—which form the country’s “gum arabic belt”—are located in regions that are largely under RSF and SAF control, such as Kordofan and Darfur.

The report found that rural communities relying on gum arabic for financial stability have faced numerous protection risks and severe human rights abuses—including looting, extortion, and arbitrary detention. This further compounds the struggles of their daily lives as they face shrinking access to basic services, such as food, clean water, education, and healthcare.

Traders working along corridors stretching through RSF-controlled sections of Darfur and Kordofan have experienced confiscation of goods, excessive taxation, and violence. Additionally, the report notes that considerable quantities of gum arabic have been redirected by the RSF from West Kordofan and Darfur to Souq al-Na‘am, South Sudan, Juba, Chad, Cameroon, and Kenya. Furthermore, the UN has reported that lootings of gum arabic conducted by the RSF are often used as a form of compensation rather than traditional salaries, with roughly 3,700 tonnes looted between January and June of 2024.

OHCHR noted that gold is also a primary driver of Sudan’s war economy, being considered “the most financially significant commodity in export terms”, as well as a major source of revenue for the RSF and SAF. Figures from the Central Bank of Sudan and the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company show that in 2024, roughly 65 tonnes of gold were produced in SAF-controlled areas, including 28 tonnes that were exported through Port Sudan. This generated approximately USD $1.6 billion in revenue, contributing to 48.5 percent of the nation’s annual exports.

Despite gold production climbing to 70 tonnes in 2025, considerable portions of the gross output have been smuggled outside of the country. According to the report, in 2024, only 52 percent of the annual gold exports were passed through formal export channels. Additionally, RSF-affiliated economic entities continue to extract and trade gold from Darfur and Kordofan, with the RSF seizing over 1.3 tonnes of unrefined gold early in the conflict.

“Gold is the most important and decisive financial driver, while gum arabic provides supporting liquidity and demonstrates how the war has extended into agricultural commodities and global trade routes,” said Dr Abdelmonem Mukhtar, Executive Director of the Centre for Evidence and Data-Based Policy. “If it is established that a supply chain contributes directly or indirectly to financing parties to the conflict, regulatory, civil or ethical responsibilities may arise, in addition to reputational and commercial risks.”

Emphasizing the need for more rigid oversight, Türk called on UN member states to strengthen accountability and monitoring measures to ensure that commodity trade in Sudan does not fund violations of international humanitarian law, but rather helps to alleviate the suffering of civilians. He also urged corporations to prioritize human rights.

“Companies cannot continue business as usual when sourcing from conflict-affected value chains,” Türk said. “They should undertake heightened, conflict-sensitive human rights due diligence, including stronger scrutiny of routes, intermediaries, documentation and possible re-labelling, and ensure that affected people have access to safe and effective grievance and response mechanisms.”

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In Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip, children received polio vaccines as part of the vaccination campaign conducted by UNICEF and its partners in 2025. Credit: UNICEF/Mohammed Nateel

By Shuli Wong
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2026 (IPS)

On Monday July 20, a team from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) visited two displacement sites in Gaza where they found two family tents decimated by domestic fires. This incident is indicative of the increasing frequency of domestic fires in Gaza.

Families are resorting to burning waste, cardboard, and trash to help prepare meals following the ban on gas cylinders and cooking stoves from entering Gaza since October 2023. While cooking gas is available, it is only offered in limited quantities and at extremely high prices.

The domestic fire risk in Gaza is situated within a larger, much more dire humanitarian access crisis, as documented in UNICEF’s Humanitarian Situation Update Mid-Year Review. Access restrictions and operational constraints continue to disrupt humanitarian delivery, with only 44 percent of aid trucks from Egypt able to offload between May and June. Severe restrictions remain in place for the entry of fuel, spare parts, and essential materials, which have driven system failures across health and water services. Across the Gaza Strip, an estimated 82 percent of families are water insecure, and nearly 90 percent of water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

Violence against civilians has also intensified across Gaza. The UN Human Rights Office reported that Israeli forces killed at least 57 people, including women and children, between July 13th and July 20th.

UN Spokesperson to the Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric also detailed the aftermath of an Israeli drone strike on July 17th west of the Nuseirat refugee camp, in which seven people were reportedly killed and others injured as the strike coincided with mourners leaving a nearby funeral prayer.

On July 15th, a teacher was injured after being shot by Israeli forces while she was working at a temporary learning space west of Khan Younis. Since the start of 2026, OCHA has reported 26 education-related incidents. These findings echo their Humanitarian Situation Report from July 16th, in which 84 schools are under pending demolition or stop-work orders.

Despite operational constraints and security risks, humanitarian organizations have been working to restore and expand access to education after more than two years of disruption. At the beginning of 2026, UN partners helped 435,000 pre-primary and school-aged children, including 9,300 children with disabilities, access structured learning at 610 temporary learning spaces. Furthermore, 344,000 children received learning materials and 11,000 teachers were supported. UNICEF’s Mid-Year Review reported helping 266,000 children access formal and non-formal education opportunities, which has helped provide children with a sense of normalcy amid the ongoing upheaval and crisis.

Since the ceasefire was reached last October, there have been some improvements and gains in food security and nutrition levels, thanks to expanded humanitarian food, nutrition and agricultural assistance. But those gains are still fragile. UNICEF, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme warned that families are struggling to meet basic needs, and these gains will be reversed without continuous humanitarian aid, funding and investment in recovery in the Gaza Strip. As of now, only one crossing, the Kerem Shalom/Abu Salem crossing in the south of Gaza, remains open for humanitarian assistance. The latest analysis on food security shows that an estimated 1.4 million people, or 67 percent of Gaza’s population, are experiencing crisis or worse levels of food insecurity.

Health and infrastructure remain heavily strained across the Gaza Strip. On July 20th, the Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator Susanne Tkalec met with leadership members of the Emirati Hospital in Rafah to determine solutions to strengthen the medical waste management systems in Gaza amid ongoing health and sanitation system stress.

Despite hospitals being explicitly protected under international humanitarian law, “healthcare workers, patients, ambulances, and hospitals have all been targeted,” said Dr. Javid Abdelmoneim, International President of Médecins Sans Frontières. Dr. Abdelmoneim went on to explain that “whether through direct violence, dismantling the healthcare system or obstructuring humanitarian assistance, inducing famine, weaponising water, causing higher levels of prematurity and mortality among infants and high levels of miscarriage, or denying care… it’s clear: the number one health issue in Palestine is Israel’s occupation.”

Shelter needs across Gaza remain outmatched by supply. In the first ten days of July, UN humanitarian partners provided 2,300 households with bedding items, tarpaulins and tents, and 13,000 families received kitchen sets. However, access to cooking fuel is still severely limited, as noted by the domestic fires. In addition, the supply stockpiles themselves are severely limited, with less than 1,000 tents currently available and only enough essential household supplies to support 7,000 families.

Across the occupied Palestinian territory, UN agencies continue to warn that violence, funding gaps, and access restrictions have created an unprecedented need that continues to outpace what can be delivered in terms of water, healthcare, education, and shelter.

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A view of Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. Credit: Unsplash/Ekrem Osmanoglu

By Maximilian Malawista
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 27 2026 (IPS)

On Wednesday, July 22, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, and Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement, best known as a 123 agreement, as well as an accompanying bilateral safeguards agreement, according to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Saudi Ministry of Energy.

While the agreement was expected to be submitted to Congress for review, President Donald Trump has conditioned U.S. nuclear cooperation on Riyadh, normalizing relations with Israel in order to receive U.S. nuclear technology. A condition that appears difficult to satisfy given the Kingdom’s hardline stance that it will not normalize relations with Israel until a Palestinian state is established with East Jerusalem as its capital, according to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader.

Washington mentions that these two agreements “lay the legal foundation for a decades-long, multi-billion-dollar partnership that advances several priority economic and strategic objectives, including nuclear nonproliferation.” The agreement has a 30-year term.

The 123 agreement, named after Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 – a U.S. federal law – provides the legal framework for long-term civilian nuclear cooperation between the United States and partner countries. The 123 agreement is mandatory before any significant exports of U.S.-origin nuclear material, such as nuclear reactors, nuclear fuel, and other major components can go to any partner.

Saudi Arabia’s nuclear agreement with the U.S. is more than an energy deal. It has the potential to reshape the Kingdom’s relationship with oil, and its geopolitical role in building the Middle East’s next-generation clean-energy infrastructure.

The advent of nuclear energy could also free up the amount of hydrocarbons Saudi Arabia can export. The Kingdom produced 22,744,529.0 TJ of oil and oil products in 2023, having consumed 6.4 million TJ domestically, equivalent to approximately 28 percent of its production. The Kingdom also produced 3,640,348.0 TJ of natural gas, having consumed all of its domestically produced natural gas that year. For reference, 3,600 TJ is equal to 1 TWh.

Expressed in barrels of oil equivalent (boe), Saudi Arabia produced the energy equivalent to 3.72 billion barrels of oil, in oil and oil products in 2023, consuming 1.05 billion barrels of that oil. This indicates that roughly 72 percent of the Kingdom’s oil and oil products, measured in energy terms, are not domestically consumed, leaving a substantial share available for exports and other uses. Saudi Arabia is the world’s second to third largest exporter of oil, producing 11 percent of global demand.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), transport accounts for roughly 30 percent of Saudi Arabia’s final energy consumption, followed by non-energy uses (29.7 percent), industry (19.9 percent), and commercial and public services (11 percent).

Although the pace at which Saudi Arabia can transition away from fossil fuels remains uncertain, nuclear power could gradually reduce domestic oil consumption, freeing up oil for export. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a reactor can take about five or more years to be built after licensing and regulatory approvals are already completed.

Saudi Arabia’s first nuclear plant is expected to consist of two reactors, each producing around 1.4 GW, bringing the plant to a total capacity of 2.8 GW (2,800 MW). Assuming a 90 percent capacity factor, annual energy generation will be 22.1 TWh per year, nearly five percent of Saudi Arabia’s 431.9 TWh electricity generation.

Although Saudi Arabia’s first nuclear plant would account for only about 5 percent of the Kingdom’s current electricity generation, it would represent an important step toward reducing domestic hydrocarbon consumption in support of the country’s national strategy, Vision 2030.

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