Showing 1 - 10 of 12
UN picks rights council members with bad records
Oped, John J Metzler, Published on 23/10/2025
» In a ritual of near-farcical folly, the UN General Assembly has elected 14 new members to join the Geneva-based Human Rights Council on Oct 15.
An Asean free from 'wars on drugs'
Oped, Gloria Lai, Published on 19/09/2025
» Asean governments recently met in Singapore for a regional meeting about drugs, where the host nation urged renewed commitment to a "drug-free region". The problem isn't simply the recycling of an outdated mantra first declared in 1998, nor the fact that the region's drug markets have only expanded since then, but that this approach ignores how government policies themselves shape those markets -- and the devastating harms that follow.
Time to invest more in women
Oped, María Fernanda Espinosa and Anita Bhatia, Published on 07/07/2025
» The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) in Seville, which ended on Thursday, has taken place at a time of escalating debt crises, rising poverty, declining food security and proliferating climate-related damage. These crises are all exacerbated by deep reductions in official development assistance (ODA), and they all disproportionately affect women and girls, especially in developing countries.
The WTO's investment challenge
Oped, Karl P Sauvant, Published on 01/03/2024
» Every country is eager to attract foreign direct investment -- and for good reason. FDI facilitates capital inflows, creates jobs, drives skills development and facilitates technology transfers, accelerating economic growth and enabling recipient countries to access global markets.
Myanmar eyes return to Asean fold
Oped, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 13/02/2024
» To understand the current game plan of Myanmar's military regime, it is perhaps a good time to remind ourselves of the letter written by former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on Aug 19, 2022. The rather blunt personal letter urged the junta leader to implement the Five-Point Consensus (5PC), saying that if he fails to do so, his Asean colleagues might ban Myanmar from all meetings and recognise the National Unity Government (NUG). In short, Asean would give the seat to the NUG. The letter angered the general, and Hun Sen's practical advice was ignored, including his call for amnesty for four activists who had been sentenced to death. For the past three years, Myanmar's seat at Asean's high-level meetings has been left vacant. Then, on Feb 29, the seat was occupied temporarily.
The fascists are (probably not) coming after all
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 29/01/2024
» ‘Fascism is on the march everywhere!” shrieked the headline on a recent think-piece by my least favourite foreign affairs commentator (who must remain nameless because I don’t want to give him any publicity). But articles and op-eds about the fascist threat are certainly on the march, and occasionally a real fascist pops up in public.
Boosting the clean energy push
Oped, Patricia Espinosa & Lourdes Melgar, Published on 05/12/2023
» The world stands at a critical juncture in the fight against climate change. Either we drastically accelerate the clean-energy transition, or our fast-dwindling chances of preventing global temperatures from surpassing 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels will be destroyed. Few understand the stakes better than Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries.
Time for global climate solidarity
Oped, Saber Hossain Chowdhury & Hassan Damluji, Published on 03/11/2023
» The world is barrelling down a perilous path. Or, as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres put it, "We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator." But global warming is not just another political issue: reducing greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions is an existential imperative that must not be ignored.
Political tsunami sweeps Southern Hemisphere
Oped, John J. Metzler, Published on 26/10/2023
» 'It's the last bus stop in the world," a former New Zealand prime minister once told me while he was visiting New York. Indeed a remote South Pacific island nation of merely 5 million, known for the Kiwi, its All Blacks Rugby team, and some pretty good wines, was sadly hobbled by a woke progressive government who turned the once idyllic place into a land beset by inflation, unaffordable housing and rampant crime and gangs.
A temperature spike in the sea spells doom
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/05/2023
» There is a fever raging in the ocean. Last month it was worst off the eastern coast of North America, where the sea surface temperature was as much as 13.8C higher than the 1981-2011 average for this time of year. Not only was that a record; it was an astounding leap upwards: more than double the previous record.