By Rebeca Grynspan The writer is the Secretary-General of UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The following are extensive excerpts from her Statement to 14th session of the three-day International Debt Management Conference on 17 March 2025. GENEVA, Switzerland | 21 March 2025 (IDN) — The Romans had a god named Janus—the deity of thresholds, beginnings, […]
Bhutan’s Growing Migration Wave Demands Better Planning
By Namdu Lhamo, Jelle J P Wouters, Binaya Pasakhala* THIMPU, Bhutan | 20 March 2025 (IDN) — Sonam and Pema migrated a decade ago from eastern Bhutan to the south-west Pasakha Industrial Estate, located on the border with India. The married couple were farmers, but Bhutan’s climate change impacts and interwoven rural crises, including escalating human-wildlife […]
Global Trade in Flux: Navigating Policy Volatility and Structural Shifts
BY UN DESA NEW YORK | 20 March 2025 (IDN) — International trade is once again in the spotlight. A new Monthly Briefing from UN DESA examines the evolving dynamics, offering insights into both the risks and potential opportunities ahead. Structural shifts in global trade Global trade is undergoing profound changes, with globalization evolving along […]
Call for Debt Reforms to Prevent ‘Defaults on Development’
By J Nastranis NEW YORK | 19 March 2025 (IDN) — UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan has urged reforms to prevent the current debt crisis from derailing progress. “Behind us lies a system that needs reform; before us, the chance to build one that serves people and stability, long-term development, not recurring […]
Trump’s Betrayal of America’s Social Contract and Global Standing
By Alon Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 19 March 2025 (IDN) — Trump’s betrayal of the ideals and values that America has embraced and which made it an unrivaled nation is tragic. Every Republican with a conscience should rise and put America first, above a felon and a party, before it is too late From its […]
Time Overdue to Slow Immigration and Take the Consequences
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 18 March 2025 (IDN) — Was the cultured and sophisticated Italian writer, Oriani Fallaci, speaking for the large numbers of working class people who end up being the ones who usually play host to immigrants, when she wrote in a leading liberal Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, of her […]
Rethinking Climate Finance to Work for Women in Nepal’s Coffee & Pashmina Value Chains
By Elena Mayer-Besting, Duygu Cinar, and Darshni Nagaria* KATHMANDU, Nepal 18 March 2025 (IDN) — Women in Nepal, who are the backbone of the agriculture sector, are faced with an escalating challenge: the climate crisis. For rural farmers like Gnaga Maya Adhikari, the impacts of climate change are already a harsh reality: “Over the past […]
Giving The Indo-US Nuclear Deal a New Lease of Life
By Kapil Patil* NEW DELHI, India | 17 March 2025 (IDN) — In a series of recent high-level meetings, India and the US have launched renewed efforts to infuse a new lease of life into the historic Indo-US nuclear deal brokered by then-US President George Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in May 2005. […]
From Crisis to Strategy: The OSCE and Arms Control in A Divided Europe
By Alexander Graef The writer is a Researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg. It was first published on the Website of the European Leadership Network. HAMBURG | 16 March 2025 (IDN) — Over its nearly 50 years of existence, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has […]
Iran Calls Trump’s Proposed Negotiation A “Deceptive Tactic”
By Abdul Rahman DHAKA, Bangladesh | 16 March 2025 (IDN) — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei said on March 12 that the US offer to talk with Iran is not credible. He claimed since the Trump administration is neither ready to address Iranian concerns nor willing to lift its illegal unilateral sanctions to […]