Showing 1 - 10 of 63
How world order looks after 2025
Oped, Yuen Yuen Ang, Published on 05/01/2026
» For mathematicians, 2025 may stand out as a "perfect square": 45 multiplied by 45, a rare symmetry. But its significance goes far beyond numerical elegance -- it marks the year the postwar global order expired and a new one began.
How G20 can help curb inequality
Oped, Jayati Ghosh, Published on 01/12/2025
» This month's G20 Summit in Johannesburg marked several historic firsts. For starters, it was the group's first-ever summit in Africa, and the first to include the African Union as a full-fledged member. It also set less encouraging precedents: it was the first meeting boycotted by a key founding member -- the United States -- on spurious grounds, and the first in which that same country tried to prevent the host from issuing a final declaration. Equally unprecedented was South Africa's decision to ignore the American threat and issue one anyway.
World leaders are destroying the rule of law
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/12/2025
» Russia's "big concession is they stop fighting, and they don't take any more land," US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, when asked what Russia was conceding in the thinly disguised surrender document he was trying to shove down Ukrainian throats. He truly is a 19th-century man at heart.
Crushing dissent widens rifts with governments
Oped, Amitabh Behar, Published on 31/10/2025
» Thousands of civil society organisations (CSOs) and activists are gathering in Bangkok during the International Civil Society Week from Nov 1–5. The event will be organised by the CIVICUS Alliance. CIVICUS is an international non-profit organisation focused on civil rights and citizen action. It was founded in 1993 and is based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Resetting development finance
Oped, Carlos Cuerpo and Joseph E Stiglitz, Published on 03/07/2025
» At the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development this week in Seville, delegates are calling for urgent action to fix a system that has stopped working. Prior to the third such gathering a decade ago, in Ethiopia, we had witnessed unprecedented advances towards reducing poverty, increasing school enrolment, and providing clean water worldwide. Today, however, progress is not only slowing but potentially stagnating -- or, worse, reversing.
Too long in power a bad idea for leaders
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/07/2025
» Leading an entire country for a few years is a steep learning curve, but it's useful experience. Being in power for a dozen years makes most leaders arrogant and careless, but some remain more or less functional. Being in power for more than 30 years just makes you stupid. Consider Cambodia's Hun Sen and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
14th floor back again
Oped, Editorial, Published on 02/06/2025
» The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) deserves a praise for launching a probe into another case of a wealthy recipient of privileged treatment who spent a month in a special patient room on the 14th floor of Police General Hospital (PGH).
Choices have costs
Oped, Postbag, Published on 16/05/2025
» Re: "No German engines for submarines", (BP, May 15).
Theatre of white refugees from South Africa
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/05/2025
» As my flight landed in South Africa on Sunday, I looked in vain for the plane that was due to take off with the first 49 white, Afrikaans-speaking "refugees" of the many thousands who are supposedly going to find safety from racist persecution in Donald Trump's United States.
Building the next generation of public institutions
Oped, Geoff Mulgan, Published on 28/02/2025
» Public institutions worldwide are in crisis. Trust in them is declining, and US President Donald Trump's administration, working hand in glove with the world's richest man, Elon Musk, view them as enemies that need to be dismantled. In the face of funding cuts and geopolitical fragmentation, multilateral organisations look weaker than ever.