The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
LONDON, Jun 19 2026 (IPS) - When performance artist Sammu Chen tried to tie a red thread to a streetpost, plainclothes police stopped him before he could finish. Chen has twice been detained for his symbolic acts of commemoration of the 4 June 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, when Chinese authorities killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, to crush democracy protests.
The day used to one of commemoration in Hong Kong. Tens of thousands used to attend the mass vigil. But authorities banned it during the COVID-19 pandemic and haven’t permitted it since.
Chen’s attempted act of commemoration took place near the former site of the banned vigil. Close by, police moved on another artist marking the anniversary by holding a question mark-shaped balloon. In recent years, other symbolic acts, such as silently holding candles or flowers, have led to arrests. The organisation that used to hold the vigil closed itself down in 2021 following police investigations and prosecution of its leaders.
China’s campaign to stamp out demands for democracy in Hong Kong doesn’t stop at its borders, as events in the UK recently made plain.
UK spy network
Last month, two men with dual British and Chinese nationality were found guilty of spying on Hong Kong democracy activists in the UK. The case showed how far the Chinese state is prepared to go to silence Hong Kong’s diaspora.
Chi Leung Wai, who worked for the UK’s Border Force, and Chung Biu Yuen, who worked for the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office in London, were found to have carried out shadow policing operations to gather information on exiles. The spies also targeted UK politicians critical of China.
One of their targets was Nathan Law. Law was a student leader and politician active in Hong Kong’s democracy movement, which mobilised in mass protests in 2014 and again in 2019. Having spent time in jail in 2017 for his role in protests, he headed into exile in 2020 when the authorities introduced a draconian National Security Law.
In 2023, Law was one of eight activists the Hong Kong police targeted with arrest warrants, with a bounty of around US$130,000 offered as a reward. Hong Kong police took Law’s parents and brother in for questioning, and in 2024, authorities revoked his passport and those of other exiled activists.
Escalating transnational repression
Such is the level of repression China exerts in Hong Kong that activism can only be sustained among the diaspora. But while many states are exerting transnational repression against diasporas and exiles, the spy case shows that China remains the world leader in this field.
Hong Kong police issued a further round of arrest warrants and bounties against six more exiled activists in December 2024 and announced bounties on another 19 in July 2025. Hong Kong authorities have also started targeting exiles with spurious tax demands and may be gearing up to weaponise international anti-money laundering cooperation agreements against them.
Exiles’ families in Hong Kong aren’t spared. In February, Kwok Yin-sang, father of exiled activist Anna Kwok, was handed an eight-month sentence for violating national security laws after he tried to cash in her education savings insurance policy.
Around 100,000 people have fled Hong Kong to the UK, which controlled the territory before handing it over to China in 1997. That makes them a particular target. In 2024, addresses of Hong Kong citizens living in the UK were published online and anti-migrant protesters were encouraged to attack them, in a move that showed all the signs of a Chinese influence operation.
Intensifying domestic repression
As a new CIVICUS report documents, repression has intensified further within Hong Kong. In 2024, authorities introduced the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, which allows them to criminalise simple acts of dissent by claiming they constitute secession, sedition, subversion and other major crimes. They’ve used this latest law’s sweeping provisions and the 2020 National Security Law to prosecute activists, dissidents and journalists. Since 2020, Hong Kong authorities have arrested at least 365 people and convicted 174 under the two laws. People have been convicted for such trivial offences as wearing T-shirts with protest slogans.
The authorities’ determination to silence dissent was on display again in the aftermath of a horrendous apartment complex fire in November 2025, in which over 160 people died. People were arrested for social media posts calling for accountability . Student Miles Kwan Ching-fung was detained and expelled from university after starting an online petition urging an independent investigation. China’s national security office in Hong Kong warned foreign journalists about negative coverage of the government’s response.
Hong Kong once had one of Asia’s most vibrant media environments, but now it ranks 140th out of 180 on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. In February, media owner Jimmy Lai, whose Apple Daily newspaper championed democracy, received a 20-year sentence under the National Security Law. Lai has been detained under multiple charges since 2019, often in solitary confinement. At 78 years old with diabetes and other reported health problems, he faces dying in jail. Despite Lai’s British citizenship, China has refused international appeals for his release.
The campaign against Lai continues, with four bookshop staff arrested in March on suspicion of selling copies of his biography, deemed a seditious publication. The authorities’ attempts to suppress the book are part of their wider cultural censorship, which extends to banning films, barring publishers from book fairs and demanding the blocking of YouTube videos of the protest anthem ‘Glory to Hong Kong’. In the face of this repression, many civil society organisations, media outlets and political parties have concluded that their only option is to close down.
In these circumstances, it will continue to fall on the diaspora to keep shining a light on the suppression of basic civic freedoms in Hong Kong. States where Hong Kong’s exiles live must be alert to the threats of China’s transnational repression and defend and protect exiled activists. They must confront the full scope of this repression, or be complicit in it.
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
BONN, Jun 19 2026 (IPS) - The United Nations June Climate Meetings (SB64) ended in Bonn with sharp disagreements between developed and developing countries over climate finance, adaptation support and emissions reductions, leaving negotiators with significant unresolved issues ahead of the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye.
After nearly two weeks of negotiations at the World Conference Center Bonn, delegates acknowledged some progress on technical matters such as technology transfer, capacity building and just transition discussions. However, many of the most politically sensitive issues, particularly adaptation finance and implementation support for developing countries, remained unresolved.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell described the atmosphere as increasingly difficult, warning against what he called a tendency among countries to wait for others to act first.
“In some negotiating rooms, we’ve heard a familiar tendency towards ‘you-first-ism’ — groups refusing to deliver commitments or allow the process to move forward unless others go first. This is a recipe for gridlock when we need all negotiating tracks to be moving in the fast lane,” Stiell said in his closing assessment.
The Bonn meetings serve as a key preparatory stage for annual UN climate summits. The discussions are intended to advance technical negotiations and lay the groundwork for political decisions at the next Conference of the Parties. This year, however, the meetings exposed deep divisions over who should pay for climate action and how quickly countries should reduce emissions.
Climate negotiators in Bonn. Credit: UN Climate Change/Lara Murillo
Developing countries argued that adaptation remains an urgent priority because millions of people are already suffering from climate-related disasters. They stressed that without substantial financial support, adaptation plans cannot be implemented effectively.
Speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, Uruguay said developing countries remained deeply concerned about the lack of progress on adaptation and adaptation finance.
“Adaptation remains a key priority for developing countries,” the group said, stating that there is a need to move forward in ways that address the growing adaptation needs of vulnerable nations.
The G77 and China also called for greater attention to climate finance commitments under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement and stressed the importance of turning discussions into practical action.
“We should move beyond dialogues and reports and translate into effective implementation of climate action,” the group said, noting that agriculture, livelihoods and food security in developing countries are already being affected by climate change.
The European Union acknowledged that some progress had been achieved but said the pace of negotiations remained too slow.
“The pace remains insufficient to meet the scale of the challenge before us,” the EU said in its closing statement. The bloc urged countries to focus on implementing previous climate agreements and reaffirmed support for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The EU also expressed frustration over the handling of adaptation negotiations.
“We are extremely disappointed in how GGA negotiations have been handled here in Bonn,” the bloc said, while calling for discussions to continue at a higher political level ahead of COP31.
Several negotiating groups voiced concern over attempts to challenge or weaken scientific findings that underpin international climate action.
The Environmental Integrity Group, represented by Switzerland, warned against efforts to undermine the role of science.
“Science is not negotiable,” the group declared, urging countries to support the timely publication of future reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The group said scientific evidence had consistently guided global climate action and should remain central to future decisions, including the second Global Stocktake process under the Paris Agreement.
The Umbrella Group, represented by the United Kingdom, echoed similar concerns.
“Our climate action must always be guided by the best available science,” the group said. It expressed disappointment that negotiators were unable to reach more substantial conclusions on research and systematic observation.
The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), representing some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, delivered one of the strongest critiques of the Bonn outcome.
The group said it was disappointed by the pace, tone and approach of the negotiations and warned that insufficient progress had been made to ensure a successful COP31.
“AOSIS is deeply concerned by the attempts that were made across agenda items to place the 1.5 limit in doubt, to overlook and diminish its significance as a lifeline for SIDS,” the group said.
Small island nations face existential threats from sea-level rise, coastal erosion and increasingly severe storms.
AOSIS also criticised the slow progress on adaptation finance and transparency issues, saying procedural obstacles had prevented meaningful advances.
The African Group of Negotiators similarly expressed frustration over the lack of movement on climate finance.
Speaking on behalf of 54 African countries and more than 1.6 billion people, Ghana warned that Africa could not afford delays as climate impacts intensify across the continent.
“Antalya and Addis Ababa must deliver meaningful progress as a solid foundation for GST2,” the group said, referring to the second Global Stocktake process.
African negotiators argued that disputes over governance and terminology should not delay efforts to provide desperately needed adaptation finance for vulnerable communities.
The BASIC group, which includes Brazil, South Africa, India and China, also highlighted concerns over declining support for developing countries.
The group called for climate finance to occupy a central place at COP31 and urged countries to complete the transition of the Adaptation Fund so that it can better support vulnerable nations.
BASIC further stressed that developed countries must take the lead in reducing emissions while also mobilising financial support for developing nations.
The Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group delivered an emotional message, saying vulnerable populations were running out of time.
“LDCs do not look to this process for promises, but for action,” Timor-Leste said on behalf of the 44 least developed countries. “Our people didn’t send us here to negotiate the terms of their suffering.”
The group warned that climate impacts are accelerating faster than international responses.
“We reject the blatant undermining of science at this session,” the LDCs said. “Science is neither contentious nor negotiable for our group.”
The Mountain Group, representing 11 mountainous countries, focused attention on the growing vulnerability of mountain regions. Kyrgyzstan said mountain communities are facing severe challenges from glacier loss, water shortages, floods and ecosystem degradation.
The group welcomed the first formal Dialogue on Mountains and Climate Change and called for mountain issues to become a permanent part of the UN climate process.
Meanwhile, the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs), represented by China, emphasised equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities as essential foundations for climate cooperation. The group argued that implementation gaps often arise because promised support from developed countries fails to materialise.
Outside the negotiating rooms, civil society organisations sharply criticised the outcome.
Oxfam accused wealthy countries of avoiding their responsibilities on climate finance.
“The UN negotiations have once again been derailed by rich countries’ refusal to take responsibility for increasing critical public climate finance,” said Mariana Paoli, Oxfam’s Climate Policy Lead.
According to Oxfam, even if the pledge to triple adaptation finance were fully implemented, it would provide about $120 billion, far below the estimated adaptation needs of developing countries, which are projected to reach between $310 billion and $365 billion annually by 2035.
Paoli described the situation as a “dark irony,” noting that the world’s first trillionaire emerged at a time when vulnerable countries were struggling to secure adequate climate finance.
“The unwillingness of rich countries to engage meaningfully is astonishing,” she said.
Despite the tensions, negotiators did achieve some notable progress.
Countries agreed on the selection of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as the new host of the Climate Technology Centre and Network, a key institution supporting technology transfer and climate solutions in developing countries. Several groups welcomed the decision as an important step toward strengthening climate action.
Delegates also reported progress on capacity-building initiatives and discussions surrounding a just transition, which aims to ensure that workers and communities are protected during the shift toward low-carbon economies.
IPS UN Bureau Report
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe , Jun 19 2026 (IPS) - Long burdened by the labour-intensive nature of agriculture, Zimbabwe’s female farmers are finding relief in new agritechnologies that significantly reduce the time they spend in the field.
With assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), female farmers are adopting technologies such as earth augers, multi-crop threshers and grinder-choppers to help them navigate climate resilience and boost production at a time when African countries are facing funding cuts in the agriculture sector, further threatening food security.
As global food prices soar because of the ongoing geopolitical tensions that have disrupted global trade and commerce, female farmers find themselves bearing the high costs of food, but new technologies such as those being introduced for Zimbabwe’s farmers are expected to ease these challenges.
Women in Zimbabwe make up the bulk of small-scale farmers, providing a backbone for the country’s food security efforts, but they have been shut out of agricultural finance, limiting their access to farming inputs and equipment.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, “approximately 80% of women live in communal areas, where they constitute 61% of farmers and provide 70% of the labour.”
Despite Zimbabwe’s farm mechanisation drive, there are concerns that the collateral demanded by banks has made it impossible for women to fully participate in the country’s agricultural economy.
According to the UNDP, the Green Climate Fund finances the project to support rural female farmers through labour-saving agri-tech under the Climate Resilient Livelihoods Project, which aims to strengthen climate resilience.
“The initiative is supporting 230 Farmer Field Schools with earth augers, multi-crop threshers and grinder-choppers designed to reduce the physical burden of agricultural labour, improve productivity and strengthen resilience to climate change,” the UNDP said in its June media brief.
“The introduction of labour-saving technologies is helping women reclaim valuable time, reduce physical strain and participate more actively in income-generating activities, community leadership and climate-resilient farming practices,” the agency added.
Across Zimbabwe, rural women face the same challenges: field work overload and taking care of their families, creating both physical and mental strain, experts say.
However, with the introduction of earth auger machines, which are hand-operated and drill the earth to prepare for planting, beneficiaries say they are experiencing significant ease in farming labour practices.
“Digging basins manually was exhausting. The auger brought real relief. We now finish plots fast and plant on time,” said Christine Mudzingwa, a farmer and housewife in Buhera, in the country’s east.
“There’s balance now. I can tend my garden and spend time with my family,” she said, painting a picture of how female farmers have struggled to juggle their multi-tasking routines.
Rural farmers have traditionally literally beat grain to produce livestock feed, and the physically taxing practice has led to poor health, with fatigue being an integral part of the occupational hazards women have to endure.
“Preparing feed for livestock used to take us the whole day,” says Precious Hobane, another smallholder and beneficiary in Gwanda, a low rainfall district in the country’s west. “We chopped stover manually, and it was very tiring work. During harvest time, threshing grain was another difficult task for women.”
The planting season has been difficult for female farmers because they know the work ahead will be exhausting, but simple technologies are providing relief, the farmers say.
“Digging planting basins manually was one of the most exhausting jobs,” says Christine Mudzingwa, from the Manicaland province in the country’s eastern highlands. “You would spend the whole day bent over with a hoe in hard soil. By evening, you were completely worn out, but the work would still not be finished.”
The UNDP intervention has been a great help for the 230 women, who say they can now invest their energy in other, more productive farming endeavours.
“Preparing feed used to take a whole day. Now the grinder-chopper does the heavy work. The machines help us care for livestock during droughts, and women are no longer exhausted,” explains Hobane.
The UNDP partnership with the government of Zimbabwe is part of a broader Green Climate Fund initiative expected to promote climate resilience and boost food production as countries in the Global South continue to seek ways to cushion their populations against climate uncertainty.
“Through this Green Climate Fund Readiness support, Zimbabwe is strengthening the systems, partnerships and investment pathways required to translate its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) ambitions into climate-resilient and low-emission development outcomes,” said Constance Pepukai, the UNDP Nature, Energy and Climate Team Leader, at the launch of the initiative.
The government has welcomed the climate-proofing support as Zimbabwe seeks to boost household food security amid a series of droughts and floods that have further complicated how smallholders navigate the climate crisis.
“The project provides an important platform for aligning climate technology, private sector engagement and project pipeline development with Zimbabwe’s national climate priorities,” says Washington Zhakata, acting Secretary for Environment, Climate and Wildlife.
For now, the beneficiaries of the small agritech remain confident that their working hours are being invested wisely and that if the technology is to spread further to the bulk of the country’s female farmers, taking to the fields could be less daunting.
IPS UN Bureau Report
NEW YORK, Jun 19 2026 (IPS) - RightsCon, the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age, has served for over a decade as a vital global gathering, bringing together civil society, academics, technologists, policymakers, and the private sector in cross-border collaboration. The abrupt cancellation of RightsCon 2026, following intervention by Zambia’s government just days before the convening was due to commence in Lusaka, should concern us all.
Worryingly, this is not an isolated disruption. It reflects a deeply troubling global pattern of shrinking civic space alongside a rapidly growing, well-resourced, and increasingly networked transnational anti-rights movement. We are calling on civil society, donors, the media, and democratic governments to take a strong stand against these coordinated efforts to undermine human rights and the forums that uphold them.
S. Mona Sinha
On May 1, RightsCon organiser and host Access Now released a statement announcing the summit, scheduled to run between May 5 and 8, could not proceed after Zambia announced it was postponing the event to ensure it “aligns with Zambia’s national values, policy priorities, and broader public interest.”
Access Now reported that on April 27, one day after the Zambian Ministry of Technology and Science had endorsed RightsCon, government officials told organisers that diplomats from China were pressuring Zambia because Taiwanese civil society participants were planning to attend. Zambia’s new conditions for allowing the conference to proceed included select topics being moderated and the exclusion of some participants, including Taiwanese civil society representatives.
Access Now has called this interference “transnational repression” and a deliberate effort to project authoritarian preferences across borders and shrink civic spheres.
Mrinalini Dayal
Digital rights advocacy is essential to advancing gender equality. That is why Equality Now co-founded the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), a global campaign working toward a digital future where everyone can enjoy equal rights to safety, freedom, and dignity.
Equality Now and AUDRi were looking forward to returning to RightsCon to reconnect with allies and forge new relationships. Over 500 sessions were scheduled, including two by Equality Now on co-creating solutions to online safety and privacy challenges, and addressing the exclusion of women from artificial intelligence development and other emerging technologies.
Activists have spent months preparing, from developing proposals and collaborating with partners to organising funding, travel, and logistics. Significant time, energy, and resources have been invested that cannot be recouped.
RightsCon is one of the few annual, in-person opportunities where smaller frontline organisations meet potential funders. Locally led groups, particularly those in the Global Majority already grappling with funding cuts and rising competition for limited resources, will be hardest hit by the lost networking, visibility, and donor engagement that sustains their work.
Beyond this substantial loss is the deeply troubling shutting down of a vital locus for dialogue and collective action, alongside a growing anxiety that this will not be the last such disruption of an essential global forum.
RightsCon: a unique mix of diverse voices
RightsCon is the only global, civil society-led convening focused on the intersection of technology and human rights. Other international gatherings on the internet, emerging technologies, and digital governance are generally complex, exclusionary multilateral processes dominated by governments and the tech companies whose products and power are meant to be scrutinised.
Discussions about digital harms, inequality, and the future of our online world are often relegated to the margins or excluded completely, despite their far-reaching consequences. In contrast, RightsCon is where activists set the agenda, and lived experience is central.
Participants working towards safer, inclusive digital futures can share insights and learn from others’ successes and challenges across diverse contexts. The summit’s activist spirit prioritises voices often excluded elsewhere: women and girls, LGBTQI+ communities, Indigenous peoples, and those resisting surveillance and authoritarian rule.
Holding RightsCon in Zambia was a deliberate choice by Access Now intended to lower barriers to participation. For people from Global Majority countries, visa requirements and travel costs to Europe or North America are routinely insurmountable, and increasingly restrictive visa policies are making access evermore difficult. Equality Now staff have been unable to attend UN gatherings in New York for exactly this reason.
The impacts of widespread exclusion from attending consultative and decision-making settings cannot be overstated. That Zambia’s government sought to justify postponing RightsCon on visa grounds, saying some speakers and participants were “subject to pending administrative and security clearances”, is a stark illustration of how bureaucratic levers can be wielded to stifle dissent.
Tech-facilitated gender-based violence
In an increasingly digital world, women and girls face distinct and escalating threats to their rights, safety, privacy, and freedom. The rapid advance of technologies is opening new frontiers for human traffickers, coercers and abusers, but existing legal systems everywhere are ill-equipped to handle these multi-jurisdictional harms.
At RightsCon 2026, we were going to jointly explore legal solutions to the explosion of tech-facilitated gender-based violence. Online violence is rarely, if ever, confined to a ‘virtual’ space; it follows women and girls into their homes and workplaces, and often involves real-world harm including physical violence.
Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence risk deepening existing inequalities and amplifying misinformation and bias, while expanding surveillance and online exploitation and abuse place fundamental rights and freedoms at risk.
Without civil society-led convenings that centre human rights in digital technologies, it becomes harder to build the intersectional, integrated, responsive movements needed to defend online rights, especially for marginalised communities.
That is precisely why losing this moment hurts so much, and why the issues that RightsCon sought to elevate, including those that governments seek to suppress, must be debated in the global spotlight. At Equality Now and AUDRi, we are planning alternative ways to hold conversations with even wider audiences than a conference format allows. We will not be deterred.
Standing against the pushback on human rights
Equality Now has been tracking the pushback against human rights advocates globally, particularly those working on gender equality and against misogyny and gender-based violence. Even knowing how organised that pushback has become, it is devastating to watch RightsCon become a casualty of it.
The cancellation and the speed of it set a worrying precedent for future international human rights convening. No forum is truly safe from political scrutiny, interference, or silencing.
This is the moment for a coordinated response. Funders must step up to prioritise digital rights and engage with organisations at the convergence of human and digital rights and development. Regional gatherings and alternative spaces need resourcing to replace this year’s RightsCon.
Democratic governments need to defend the right to assemble across borders and scrutinise international pressure that may have shaped RightsCon’s cancellation.
To our peers across the digital rights community: we stand with you. Silencing one convening will not silence the movements behind it. We will continue to organise, collaborate, and defend the freedoms and human rights at stake, because the price of allowing authoritarian pressure to determine who gets to participate, speak, and assemble is simply too high.
S. Mona Sinha, Chief Executive Officer, Equality Now, and Mrinalini Dayal, Global Coordinator of the Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi)
IPS UN Bureau
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Jun 19 2026 (IPS) - US President Trump’s policies are supposed to make America great again (MAGA), which means different things to various parties. Some of its consequences are inadvertent, including undermining dollar dominance and inducing stagflation worldwide.
Jomo Kwame Sundaram
In July 1944, delegates from some 44 countries met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to create a new multilateral monetary and financial system.
The US held 70% of the world’s gold reserves at the time, with gold priced at $35 per ounce. Other central banks bought and held US Treasury bonds and similar dollar assets as liquidity reserves.
This effectively made the US dollar the primary means of payment in the post-war international monetary system. The exchange rates of other national currencies were all set against the dollar.
As other economies recovered post-war, the US current account and trade surplus declined. Until 1971, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) occasionally adjusted fixed exchange rates for ‘structural’ balance-of-payments deficits or surpluses.
Exorbitant privilege
This dollar-based international monetary system gave the US what France’s Gaullist leadership called an ‘exorbitant [economic] privilege’.
Under the Bretton Woods arrangements, the US would never face balance-of-payments problems, as it paid for imports with its own currency, which it could print at will.
Nurina Malek
Foreign central banks soon became accustomed to holding US Treasury bonds as official reserves, effectively funding the large and growing federal debt.
Such foreign central bank demand kept the dollar strong in foreign exchange markets. Persistent capital inflows into the US have kept the dollar overvalued.
The strong dollar has boosted domestic consumption of imports, depressed exports, widened trade deficits, and kept consumer price inflation in check.
In 1960, Robert Triffin warned the US Congress about the inevitable problems that arise when a national currency is also used as an international reserve currency.
He urged the US Federal Reserve Bank (Fed) to consider the dollar’s international role when making domestic monetary policy.
In August 1971, President Richard Nixon unilaterally ended the US Bretton Woods commitment to redeem dollars with gold. Thus, the dollar clearly became a fiat currency, with exchange rates shaped by market confidence.
Protection through diversification
After the 2009 Great Recession, Western central banks kept nominal interest rates low for over a decade through coordinated ‘quantitative easing’ (QE).
Low interest rates were maintained for over a decade through the 2020-21 Covid-19 recession before the Fed raised interest rates from 2022, ostensibly to address inflationary pressures.
Borrowers worldwide were thus induced to take on more debt. Governments, corporations, and households borrowed more, increasing accumulated debt.
International payment obligations are increasingly being settled by other means. Gradually, dollar-based arrangements are co-existing with euro- and renminbi-based arrangements and BRICS-initiated alternatives.
Thus, US indebtedness and stagnation have been growing with inflationary pressures. Unsurprisingly, other monetary authorities’ previous preference for holding US Treasury bills as official reserves has declined.
Instead, official reserves have been increasingly diversified to include more gold holdings ostensibly to help hedge against inflation and currency debasement.
About 36,200 tonnes, a fifth of all gold holdings, are now held by central banks, up from 15% at the end of 2023. By 2025, non-US central bank gold holdings exceeded their US Treasury bonds for the first time this century!
Trump 2.0
Criticism of the dollar system has resurfaced from time to time, especially as Washington weaponises more financial instruments and arrangements.
The second Trump administration has threatened major US federal government creditors, including China and longtime allies such as Japan and the Gulf monarchies.
As loyal allies are bullied, many are quietly moving away from prevailing dollar-based international monetary and financial arrangements, which have long been preferred for convenience.
After bombing ten nations in the first year of Trump 2.0, US military spending has been rising rapidly, especially with the Iran war and many of its consequences likely to be protracted despite the promise of a ceasefire.
With international confidence in the US consistently undermined by unexpected unilateral White House initiatives, governments are trying to reduce their vulnerabilities, especially by diversifying their reserve assets.
But unlike early in his first term, Trump now welcomes a weaker dollar as “great”. His ongoing efforts to lower Fed interest rates also reflect successive US presidents’ refusal to address ever-larger federal fiscal deficits over the decades.
With inflation rising, market premiums over Fed interest rates are pushing up commercial rates. These hurt the real economy, employment, and banks, many struggling with rising defaults.
All this exacerbates financial ‘market corrections’ in the US and beyond. Trump-induced international disruptions are worsening instability and slowing economies worldwide.
Trump’s policies have slowed the world economy, including the US. With efforts to address the Hormuz crisis undermined by Israel, his legacy will now surely include having induced the first major stagflation in almost half a century.
IPS UN Bureau
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 18 2026 (IPS) - As the campaign for a new UN secretary-general gathers momentum, will the US exercise the decisive vote — or the veto– in the final selection?
The US has publicly declared its opposition to some of the basic goals in the UN’s socio-economic agenda, including gender empowerment and policies relating to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), while dismissing climate change as “a hoax” and a “giant scam.”
The Trump administration has also downplayed human rights and adherence to international laws—two concepts ingrained in the UN system.
When NASA announced last week that the astronauts who would fly on Artemis III, the next return-to-the-moon mission, the New York Times pointed out the crew consisted of four men and no women, triggering a question from the Times: “Was this part of the push by the Trump administration against DEI policies?”
If the US administration continues to take a hard line against DEI, what are the chances of the US administration supporting a female candidature for the next Secretary-General?
In an interview with the Times last January, President Trump said he does not “need international law” to guide his actions, arguing that only his own “morality” and “mind” will constrain his global powers.
So, what would be the fate of any candidate— male or female—who vociferously advocates these UN goals?
James E. Jennings, President, Conscience International, told Inter Press Service, the reason the United States has been disproportionately influential at the UN since the founding of the organization is because of its global leadership position and its long-term financial support for many of its programs.
However, he said, things have greatly changed in the last two years, with the US Administration abolishing the United States’ massive aid programs and trying to sideline or replace the UN with Republican-branded regressive policies.
“President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms dovetailed with the ideals of the UN Charter, but Washington’s atavistic regime is determined to dominate the globe, not through equality but intimidation”.
“Such actions will be a disaster for both the UN and the US, whose soft power has been a major contributor to its strength through attraction of immigrants, investment, and generous aid programs. No more”.
It is difficult to reconcile Trump’s policies, Jennings argued, based on fear with those of the UN’s charter and goals of mutual respect among nations. Strong and unified pushback from the majority of UN member states with explicit support for independent, visionary global leadership will advance peace and protect vulnerable people everywhere.
“It is unimaginable that the US under the current MAGA Republican leadership would NOT try to select the next US Secretary-General outright, or if unable to do that would not try to block anyone considered unfit from Mr. Trump’s point of view. Personal leadership qualities and policy beliefs will matter less than whether the next head of the UN body kowtows to the US President”.
That fact alone makes it difficult to select a courageous and principled person. At a time of critical challenges for the world body, installation of UN leadership that would be intimidated by or under the thumb of Washington might well be the death knell for what is indubitably one of history’s grandest and most visionary efforts at peace and prosperity for all, he pointed out.
Meanwhile, come election time, will there be a battle of the vetoes – as it happened in a bygone era?
In 1981, Salim Ahmed Salim of Tanzania was backed by the Organisation of African Unity, the Non-Aligned Movement and China. But his bid was blocked by a US veto.
In 1996, a second five-year term for Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt was vetoed by the US—even though he received the support of 14 of 15 members in the Security Council.
In 1981, China cast a record 16 vetoes against Kurt Waldheim to prevent a third term, leading to his withdrawal and the selection of Javier Pérez de Cuéllar.
Asked for his perspective, Mandeep Tiwana, Secretary-General, CIVICUS told IPS “The veto power wielded by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council is the most anti-people feature of the UN system. Civil Society groups have for years been calling for its voluntary relinquishment but to little or no avail”.
It is time, he said, for a fundamental reconsideration of the veto power. No process can be considered fair or transparent if any one state, however populous, has the power to block it.”
Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics and Program Director for Middle Eastern Studies, University of San Francisco, who has written extensively on the politics of the UN, told IPS under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the United States has blocked the election of candidates for Secretary General, even when they had the support of the fourteen other members of the Security Council.
“Given how Trump has been even more prone to attack the United Nations and bully member states, including ostensible U.S. allies, it is likely that the United States will make it even more difficult this round for the UN to choose its next administrator,” he said.
So far, the list of candidates for the post of Secretary-General include: Michelle Bachelet Jeria (Chile): former President of Chile and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés (Ecuador): former President of the UN General Assembly. Rafael Mariano Grossi (Argentina): Current Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Rebeca Grynspan Mayufis (Costa Rica): Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Macky Sall (Senegal): former President of Senegal and Maria Fernandez Espinosa Garces, former President of the UN General Assembly and former Foreign Minister of Ecuador.
IPS UN Bureau Report
NEW YORK, Jun 17 2026 (IPS) - “General” Sultani Makenga stood before thousands of newly trained armed group recruits in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in February and offered them a promise. “You are now part of an army that has risen up to liberate the country and to really liberate the people,” declared Makenga, the military leader of the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group.
Behind him, at the Tshanzu training camp, recruits can be seen marching in lockstep, smashing bricks with their bare hands and foreheads, leaping through flaming hoops and chanting in unison as they prepare to fight against Congolese government forces.
Not seen in this video are the M23’s executions, brutal punishment, and inhumane treatment to enforce loyalty and submission. The Tshanzu and nearby Rumangabo training camps should serve as a stark warning about the armed group – and by extension neighboring Rwanda’s role in eastern Congo.
We interviewed more than 100 former detainees who either escaped or were deployed and then surrendered to the Congolese army. Their accounts reveal the horrendous reality for those forcibly recruited. New civilian arrivals undergo an initiation ritual meant to mark their transition into military life
Backed by Rwanda’s logistical, equipment, and troop support, the M23 has captured large swathes of eastern Congo. Its effective control over the M23 makes Rwanda an occupying power, as well as criminally liable for the group’s rampant abuse. After it seized the provincial capitals of North and
South Kivu in early 2025, US President Donald Trump stepped in to revive faltering mediation efforts between Congo and Rwanda, proposing a “peace for minerals” deal to secure US interests in the region’s resource-rich east.
Two peace accords were signed — in June and December — including a ceasefire and economic-integration pact between Congo and Rwanda, which calls for the departure of Rwandan troops from Congo.
Yet Rwanda has continued to play a central role, helping the armed group to fill its ranks. While Rwandan leaders travelled to Washington discussing various peace, security and mineral agreements, M23 forces were forcibly rounding up thousands of captured Congolese soldiers and civilians, including police, civil servants, teachers and students — some as young as 12 — and sending them for training and indoctrination at military camps. The M23 picked up many from their homes, churches, schools and hospitals, summoned them to meetings under false promises of payment, or stopped them on the streets and sent them to the camps.
We interviewed more than 100 former detainees who either escaped or were deployed and then surrendered to the Congolese army. Their accounts reveal the horrendous reality for those forcibly recruited. New civilian arrivals undergo an initiation ritual meant to mark their transition into military life.
“It’s a test of how much suffering you can endure,” said a 25-year-old construction worker grabbed in the eastern city of Goma while buying phone credit in March 2025. “There were 200 of us; 10 died. Two were shot, the others whipped to death. We buried them in a mass grave with around 50 others.”
Life in the camps was marked by routine beatings and killings for minor infractions. Detainees described starvation, drinking from puddles, and licking rainwater from leaves. Some died from exhaustion, dehydration, or hunger.
Former detainees recalled limbs protruding from the ground, as bodies were often buried in shallow graves. At night dogs came to feed on the remains. It’s likely that hundreds of detainees, maybe more, died in the camps throughout 2025.
Those confined to detention cells endured even harsher treatment. Bodies were regularly pulled out of the cells for burial. When detainees were finally released to begin a new training cycle in November, scores collapsed.
Children were not spared. Boys were forced to follow military training, dig roads, cut wood, transport heavy supplies, and fetch water over long distances. Makenga selected some to serve as guards, beating other detainees.
The strategy appears to be designed to cement the control of the M23 and the Alliance Fleuve Congo – the politico-military alliance that includes the M23 – over much of eastern Congo. Rwandan forces were positioned around the camps, ready to shoot anyone who tried to flee. Recruits said they were subjected to ideology sessions, singing songs and criticizing Congo’s leadership.
Chanting in unison, the recruits in Makenga’s video display discipline and power—an army ready for war. Despite the M23’s withdrawal from some areas, and Rwanda’s signing of a peace agreement committing to removing Rwandan troops from the country, there is no indication that the conflict in
Congo is over. The M23’s mass forced recruitment campaign is evidence of a failure to confront the structures that enable such abuses.
The US has sanctioned the Rwandan army and four senior commanders. Other countries, including the European Union and the United Kingdom, should urgently follow suit and review cooperation with Rwanda that risks fueling abusive forces.
In the meantime, the US should make clear to Rwandan President Paul Kagame that causing more suffering of civilians will result in further sanctions.
A major gap in the peace accords is the lack of measures to ensure justice or accountability for past atrocities. Unless those responsible – including commanders like Makenga – face consequences for their horrific crimes in eastern Congo, impunity will continue to fuel abuse.
Philippe Bolopion is the executive director and Clémentine de Montjoye is a senior researcher, both at Human Rights Watch.