The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Apr 16 2026 (IPS) - As global shipping braces for another round of high-stakes negotiations, a volatile mix of rising fuel costs, geopolitical tensions and deep political divisions is testing the fragile consensus around a proposed Net-Zero Framework (NZF) aimed at decarbonising one of the world’s most polluting industries.
The talks, convened under the International Maritime Organization (IMO), come at a moment of acute uncertainty. A crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has sent oil and gas prices surging, exposing vulnerabilities in global supply chains and sharpening disagreements over how fast – and how fairly – the shipping sector should transition away from fossil fuels.
Experts speaking during an online media briefing warned that what is at stake extends far beyond maritime regulation. The outcome, they said, could determine the pace of the global energy transition, the stability of fuel markets, and whether developing countries are protected or sidelined in the shift to cleaner shipping.
“The Hormuz crisis has pushed up oil and gas prices, at least in the near term,” said Tristan Smith, Professor of Energy & Transport at University College London. “Opponents of the Net Zero Framework – led by the United States and others with vested interests in LNG as a marine fuel – are effectively pushing to expand its use in shipping.”
Smith warned that such a shift could have far-reaching consequences. “If LNG prices are already high, this would introduce a major new source of demand from a sector that does not currently rely on it, forcing competition with countries that depend on gas for electricity and basic energy needs. That risks driving prices even higher, benefiting major exporters like the US and Qatar, while creating significant disadvantages for importing countries and those reliant on gas-based products such as fertilisers.”
At the heart of the debate is whether the NZF – first agreed in principle in 2025 – will be adopted as a comprehensive package combining emissions standards with a global pricing mechanism or whether it will be diluted under political pressure.
For many developing countries, the distinction is critical.
“The framework approved in 2025 was carefully designed as a package combining fuel standards and a pricing mechanism,” said Michael Mbaru, a maritime decarbonisation expert at the Office of Kenya’s Climate Special Envoy. “The pricing element is not optional – if it goes away, the whole framework goes away.”
Without that financial pillar, Mbaru cautioned, the burden of transition would fall disproportionately on poorer nations. “Without it, developing countries risk facing the costs of transition without the tools to manage them, making the system less fair and less investable.”
He added that fragmentation – where regions adopt separate rules – would further complicate matters. “Fragmentation would increase complexity and costs, especially for Africa, so we remain committed to a single global rulebook and are not willing to reopen the framework.”
The stakes are already visible on the ground. Mbaru pointed to rising fuel prices in Kenya, where recent increases in petrol and diesel costs have rippled through the economy, underscoring how vulnerable many countries remain to fossil fuel volatility.
Beyond economics, the negotiations are also shaping up as a test of multilateralism.
Last year’s IMO meeting ended in stalemate after a late intervention by the United States and its allies disrupted what had appeared to be a path toward adoption. Since then, countries have regrouped, and alliances – particularly among African nations – have strengthened.
“The US is a major disruptive factor, but this is not simply a US versus climate ambition debate,” Mbaru said. “The shipping industry itself is calling for a global framework because it needs predictability and investment certainty.”
Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the current negotiations is the unusual alignment between regulators and industry.
“The shipping industry is very resilient, but it is constrained by uncertainty,” said Femke Spiegelenberg of the Global Maritime Forum. “We know major changes are coming, but not when or how.”
For shipowners and investors, that uncertainty translates into delayed decisions and missed opportunities. “The NZF provides the certainty and tools the industry is asking for – clear rules, a level playing field, and the ability to plan and invest,” she said. “It is designed to reduce risk and enable investment, and weakening it would increase uncertainty and undermine the transition.”
The industry’s push for regulation marks a notable shift in a sector traditionally wary of global rules. But with billions already being invested in alternative fuels such as green ammonia and methanol, companies are increasingly seeking clarity on the direction of travel.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Rockford Weitz of Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “When you look at global energy markets and the billions already being invested by industry, shipping is leading the transition.”
Weitz pointed to growing momentum in Europe and Asia, where major players are moving toward zero-carbon fuels. “To me, the future is clear: it is a zero-carbon shipping future, even if politics creates short-term disruption.”
Yet politics, he noted, remains a powerful force. “The Trump administration released its strategy and a February 2026 action plan, with a major focus on revitalising US shipbuilding,” he said. “When you look at the details, it should actually support this transition – and the same applies to Saudi Arabia. Instead, ideology is getting in the way of policies that align with their own economic interests, and that’s where the real opportunity lies.”
The geopolitical context is also reshaping the economic calculus of decarbonisation. Rising fossil fuel prices, triggered by conflict in the Middle East, are making alternative fuels more competitive and strengthening the business case for green shipping.
Analysts say the developments could accelerate investment in renewable energy infrastructure, particularly in regions with abundant solar and wind resources. For countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the NZF could unlock new opportunities for green industrialisation – if it is implemented effectively.
Still, the path forward remains uncertain.
Negotiators face three broad scenarios: a renewed push to adopt the NZF as agreed; a shift toward weaker, technical-only measures favoured by some countries; or a compromise that delays decisions while seeking a new consensus.
Each carries risks.
A weakened framework could slow the transition and deepen inequalities. A fragmented system could increase costs and complexity. And further delays could erode investor confidence at a critical moment.
For now, experts agree on one point: the window for decisive action is narrowing.
The choices made in the coming weeks, they say, will reverberate far beyond the shipping lanes – shaping global trade, energy systems and climate outcomes for decades to come.
As Mbaru put it, the stakes are both immediate and long-term: ensuring that the transition away from fossil fuels is not only ambitious but also fair.
“The framework must reduce long-term exposure to fossil fuel shocks,” he said, “while ensuring that countries with the least fiscal space are not left carrying the heaviest burden.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 16 2026 (IPS) - War is again defining the global landscape. After decades of relative calm following the Cold War, the number of active conflicts has surged in recent years to levels not seen since the end of the Second World War.
Meanwhile, rising geopolitical tensions and heightened security concerns are prompting many governments to reassess their priorities and spend more on defense.
Beyond their devastating human toll, wars impose large and lasting economic costs, and pose difficult macroeconomic trade-offs, especially for those countries where the fighting is taking place.
Even without active conflicts, rising defense spending can raise economic vulnerabilities in the medium term. After the war, governments face the urgent post-conflict task of securing durable peace and sustaining recovery.
In an era of proliferating conflicts, our research in two analytical chapters of the latest World Economic Outlook highlights the deep and prolonged economic harm inflicted by war, which has particularly affected sub-Saharan Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.
We also show that rising defense spending—which can boost demand in the short term—imposes difficult budgetary trade offs that make good policy design and lasting peace more important than ever.
Economic losses
For countries where wars occur, economic activity drops sharply. On average, output in countries where fighting takes place falls by about 3 percent at the onset and continues falling for years, reaching cumulative losses of roughly 7 percent within five years.
Output losses from conflicts typically exceed those associated with financial crises or severe natural disasters. Economic scars also persist even a decade later.
Wars also tend to have significant spillover effects. Countries engaged in foreign conflicts may avoid large economic losses—partly because there is no physical destruction on their own soil.
Yet, neighboring economies or key trading partners with the country where the conflict is taking place will feel the shock. In the early years of a conflict, these countries often experience modest declines in output.
Major conflicts—those involving at least 1,000 battle-related deaths—force difficult trade-offs in economies where they occur. Government budgets deteriorate as spending shifts toward defense and debt increases, while output and tax collection collapse.
These countries may also face strains on their external balances. As imports contract sharply because of lower demand, exports decrease even more substantially, resulting in a temporary widening of the trade deficit.
Heightened uncertainty triggers capital outflows, with both foreign direct investment and portfolio flows declining. This forces wartime governments to rely more heavily on aid and, in some cases, remittances from citizens abroad to finance trade deficits.
Despite these measures, conflicts contribute to sustained exchange rate depreciation, reserve losses, and rising inflation, underscoring how widening external imbalances amplify macroeconomic stress during wartime. Prices tend to increase at a pace higher than most of central banks’ inflation targets, prompting monetary authorities to raise interest rates.
Taken together, our findings show that major conflicts impose substantial economic costs and difficult trade-offs on economies that experience conflicts within their borders, as well as hurting other countries. And these costs extend well beyond short-term disruption, with enduring consequences for both economic potential and human well-being.
Spending trade-offs
More frequent conflicts and rising geopolitical tensions have also prompted many countries to reassess their security priorities and increase defense spending. Others plan to do so. This situation presents policymakers with a crucial question about trade-offs involved with such a boost to spending.
Our analysis looks at episodes of large buildups in defense spending in 164 countries since the Second World War. We find that these booms typically last nearly three years and increase defense spending by 2.7 percentage points of gross domestic product.
That’s broadly similar to what is required by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members to reach the 5 percent of GDP defense spending target by 2035.
Ramping up defense spending primarily acts as a positive demand shock, boosting private consumption and investment, especially in defense-related sectors. This can raise both economic output and prices in the short term, requiring close coordination with monetary policy to temper inflationary pressures.
Overall, the aggregate effects on output of scaling up defense spending are likely modest. Increases in defense spending typically translate almost one for one into higher economic output, rather than having a bigger multiplier effect on activity.
That said, the multiplier or ripple effects of such spending vary widely depending on how outlays are sustained, financed and allocated, and how much equipment is imported.
For instance, output gains are smaller and external balances deteriorate when the stimulus is partly spent to import foreign goods, which is especially the case for arms importers. By contrast, a buildup of defense spending that prioritizes public investment in equipment and infrastructure, together with less fragmented procurement and more common standards, would expand market size, support economies of scale, strengthen industrial capacity, limit import leakages, and support long-term productivity growth.
The choice of how to finance defense spending entails critical trade-offs. Defense spending booms are mostly deficit-financed in the near-term, while higher revenues play a larger role in later years of defense spending booms and when the defense spending buildup is expected to be permanent.
The reliance on deficit financing can stimulate the economy in the short term, but strain fiscal sustainability over the medium term, particularly in countries with limited room in government budgets.
Deficits worsen by about 2.6 percentage points of GDP, and public debt increases by about 7 percentage points within three years of the start of a boom (14 percentage points in wartime). The resulting increase in public debt can crowd out private investment and offset the initial expansionary effect of defense spending.
The buildup of fiscal vulnerabilities can be mitigated by durable financing arrangements, especially when the increase in defense spending is permanent. However, raising revenues come at the cost of reducing consumption and dampening the demand boost, while re-ordering budget priorities tends to come at the expense of government spending on social protection, health, and education.
Policies for recovery
Our analysis also shows that economic recoveries from war are often slow and uneven, and crucially depend on the durability of peace. When peace is sustained, output rebounds but often remains modest relative to wartime losses. By contrast, in fragile economies where conflict flares up again, recoveries frequently stall.
These modest recoveries are driven primarily by labor, as workers are reallocated from military to civilian activities and refugees gradually return, while capital stock and productivity remain subdued.
Early macroeconomic stabilization, decisive debt restructuring, and international support—including aid and capacity development—play a central role in restoring confidence and promoting recovery. Recovery efforts are most effective when complemented by domestic reforms to rebuild institutions and state capacity, promote inclusion and security, and address the lasting human costs of conflict, including lost learning, poorer health, and diminished economic opportunities.
Importantly, effective post-war recovery requires comprehensive and well-coordinated policy packages. Such an approach is far more effective than piecemeal measures. Policies that simultaneously reduce uncertainty and rebuild the capital stock can reinforce expectations, encourage capital inflows, and facilitate the return of displaced people.
Ultimately, successful post-war recovery lays the foundation for stability, renewed hope and improved livelihoods for communities affected by conflict.
This IMF blog is based on Ch. 2 of the April 2026 World Economic Outlook, “Defense Spending: Macroeconomic Consequences and Trade-Offs,” and Ch. 3, “The Macroeconomics of Conflicts and Recovery.” For more on fragile and conflict-affected states: How Fragile States Can Gain by Strengthening Institutions and Core Capacities.
IPS UN Bureau
PORTLAND, USA, Apr 15 2026 (IPS) - Who should be responsible for providing care and covering expenses for the elderly? Should it be governments, the elderly themselves, their families, a combination of the three, or a new societal arrangement?
As populations age and more elderly individuals live longer lives, there are relatively fewer workers and less tax revenue, causing governments to struggle with the challenge of providing care for the elderly. This struggle is particularly notable in the provision of nursing care and health services.
The challenge is mainly driven by the growing demand for care, workforce shortages, and rapidly rising costs. These issues are expected to become increasingly difficult to sustain in the upcoming years.
Furthermore, this challenge is complicated by age discrimination towards elderly individuals. This discrimination is increasingly prevalent and has a negative impact on older people’s physical and mental well-being. It is associated with earlier death, poorer physical and mental health, and slower recovery from disability in older age.
The proportion of the world’s population aged 65 years or older has doubled from 5% in 1950 to 10% today and is expected to reach 16% by 2050. Most of the world’s elderly are below the age of 75, with 41% in the age group 65 to 69 and 29% in the age group 70 to 74 (Figure 1).
Source: United Nations.
The increase in the proportion of elderly individuals is significantly greater in many countries. For example, in Japan, the proportion of elderly has increased six-fold since 1950. Similarly in Italy and China, the proportion of elderly has tripled since 1950. By 2050, it is projected that approximately one-third of the populations of Japan, Italy, and China will be elderly (Figure 2).
Source: United Nations.
In addition to population ageing, life expectancy at birth for the world’s population has increased from 46 years in 1950 to 74 years in 2026. It is projected that by 2070, the global life expectancy at birth will nearly reach 80 years, with many countries, such as France, Japan, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland, expected to reach life expectancies at birth of around 90 years.
Elderly individuals in need of care are more likely to be women, 80-years-old and older, and live in single households. Many of them experience social isolation while living at home, which negatively impacts their mental and physical health. Additionally, these individuals typically have lower incomes than the country’s average.
The cost of providing care for elderly individuals varies drastically across countries. Costs for care are mainly driven by labor costs, healthcare infrastructure, and government subsidies.
Governments, especially those leaning towards political conservatism, are hesitant to cover the increasing expenses associated with care for the growing numbers of elderly. In the United States, for example, the president recently announced that it’s not possible for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid, and child care costs. Instead, he argued that the one thing the federal government must take care of is the country’s military spending
Many high-income countries rely on migrant workers with irregular work contracts, to fill labor gaps, often operating with limited legal protections and standardized training. The situation is further complicated by poor working conditions, comparatively low salaries, and a lack of recognition making recruiting and retaining care workers difficult.
High-income countries have relatively high annual costs for care, while low-to-middle-income countries typically rely on family members to provide assisted care for the elderly.
For example, in the United States, the average annual cost in an assisted living community is approximately $75,000. Care in Switzerland is also expensive, with nursing home costs averaging over 100,000 Swiss francs annually. Similarly in Germany, the average annual cost for nursing home care is roughly between 36,000 to over 48,000 Euros.
Among OECD countries, publicly funded elder care systems still leave nearly half of older people with care needs at risk of poverty, especially those with severe care needs and low income. Out-of-pocket costs represent, on average, 70% of an older person’s median income across OECD countries.
Governments, especially those leaning towards political conservatism, are hesitant to cover the increasing expenses associated with care for the growing numbers of elderly.
In the United States, for example, the president recently announced that it’s not possible for the federal government to fund Medicare, Medicaid, and child care costs. Instead, he argued that the one thing the federal government must take care of is the country’s military spending.
Conservative and authoritarian governments typically do not see much economic benefit from government spending on elderly care, as they perceive the elderly as a societal burden. They argue that health care costs for the elderly is negatively correlated with economic growth and tend to oppose publicly funded efforts for life extension, advocating for limited government spending in these areas.
Furthermore, these conservatives and government officials often stress the importance of individual responsibility and solutions from the private sector. They believe that the costs of caring for the elderly should be borne by the elderly and their families.
However, the total cost of care for the elderly is often unaffordable for most families. In many OECD countries, elderly individuals risk falling into poverty without substantial financial assistance from their governments.
Some countries, such as Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands, have implemented mandatory enrolment in elder care insurance. These programs are typically funded through mandatory payroll contributions.
In many countries, however, informal care for the elderly is still provided by family members, with the majority being women. This informal care is facing increasing strain due to factors such as urbanization, declining fertility rates, dual-career families, workforce mobility, and rising financial costs, all of which are putting pressure on the capacity of families to care for elderly relatives.
Although the need for elder care is rapidly increasing worldwide, the ability of existing systems to respond to current and rising needs remains limited in many countries. Most individuals in need of care rely on families and informal caregivers for support, while care services remain expensive, unstable, and difficult to access. These circumstances place significant strains on families, caregivers, and health care systems.
Further complicating care systems is the fact that elderly individuals often suffer from chronic health conditions. Some common health issues experienced by the elderly include Alzheimer’s disease, arthritis, asthma, back and neck pain, cancer, cataracts, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), dementia, diabetes, frailty, falls and injuries, heart disease, hearing loss, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, osteoarthritis, stroke, and urinary incontinence. Furthermore, as individuals age, they are more likely to experience multiple health conditions simultaneously (Table 1).
Source: World Health Organization.
In conclusion, as a result of population ageing and increased longevity, countries are facing the challenge of providing care for their elderly citizens. The question of who should be responsible for meeting the rapidly growing need and expenses for elderly care remains a contentious issue in many countries.
The general public believes that the government should take on the responsibility of providing care for the elderly. In contrast, many governments, concerned about the escalating fiscal burden, prefer that the elderly and their families themselves provide the necessary care and be responsible for the expenses. Still, others believe that a new societal arrangement is needed to provide care for the elderly.
Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division, and author of many publications on population issues.
NEW YORK, Apr 15 2026 (IPS) - Every powerful actor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict professes to seek peace. The US and EU repeat the two-state mantra, the Arab states invoke Palestinian rights, AIPAC proclaims its defense of Israel’s security, and Israeli opposition parties promise “responsible” leadership and stability.
Yet each, in its own way, has enabled and entrenched a destructive status quo—shielding Israel from accountability, normalizing permanent ruthless occupation, and rendering Palestinian statehood ever more illusory while fueling radicalization on both sides.
The US as the Prime Enabler
Successive US administrations have long recited support for a two-state solution, yet in practice, Washington has done more to bury that prospect than to realize it. For decades, the United States has shielded Israel from real international accountability while refusing to use its vast leverage to compel any meaningful movement toward Palestinian statehood.
By turning the “peace process” into an empty ritual, the US has provided cover for a status quo that is neither peaceful nor temporary.
At the same time, unconditional US military, financial, and diplomatic backing has enabled Israel’s relentless settlement expansion and creeping annexation of Palestinian land. American officials issue ritual complaints about settlements, but the financial and military aid kept flowing and the vetoes at the UN kept coming, signaling that no red line would ever be enforced.
This toxic mix of lofty rhetoric and impunity has locked both peoples into an ever more entrenched, zero-sum conflict and foreclosed the only viable formula—two states—for ending it.
The Gaza war has stripped away any remaining illusions. Even amid mass devastation and accusations of genocidal conduct, Washington has continued to arm and protect Israel diplomatically, becoming complicit in Israel’s war crimes. To be sure, in the name of protecting Israel, the United States has gravely imperiled Israel’s viability as a democratic state and its long-term security while setting the stage for the next violent conflagration, to Israel’s detriment.
The Arab States’ Shortcomings
The Arab states, though never tiring of affirming the justice of the Palestinian cause and the necessity of a two-state solution, have consistently fallen short of their words. Although they possess enormous strategic weight—withholding or granting diplomatic recognition, and opening markets, energy, airspace, and security cooperation—they have rarely used these tools to force Israel to choose between occupation and peace with the Palestinians.
This failure has signaled to Israel that it can normalize relations with some Arab states, à la the Abraham Accords, while maintaining its grip on Palestinian land without risking any backlash.
Even in the face of Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza, most Arab governments limited themselves to statements, summits, and carefully choreographed outrage that stopped well short of meaningful pressure.
The Arab states that normalized relations with Israel continued to protect key political and economic ties, while the front-line states—Egypt and Jordan—maintained security coordination that shielded Israel from real strategic isolation.
By doing so little when so much was at stake, Arab states have become, in effect, accomplices to the perpetuation of the conflict they denounce. Their inaction has left Palestinians without a credible Arab shield, allowed Israel to entrench settlement and annexation, and pushed the two-state solution—the only realistic path to a just peace and security for both Israel and the Palestinians—to the wayside.
The EU’s Shortsightedness
The European Union is Israel’s largest trading partner and a major source of investment, technology, and diplomatic legitimacy. Yet, it has systematically refused to wield this considerable leverage to force a choice between occupation and peace with the Palestinians.
Instead of linking market access, research cooperation, or association agreements to clear benchmarks on settlements and Palestinian rights, Brussels has largely confined itself to criticism and symbolic measures that Israel has comfortably ignored.
The EU’s posture has effectively insulated Israel from serious economic or diplomatic consequences for entrenching an apartheid one-state reality of perpetual domination.
At the same time, although individual EU states, including France, the United Kingdom, and Spain, have recognized the Palestinian state, they have done virtually nothing to turn that recognition into hard power; arms exports and trade preferences continue with Israel as usual. Recognition becomes a cheap, cost-free declaration rather than a meaningful constraint on Israeli policy.
Thus, EU passivity has helped normalize occupation and settlement expansion while leaving Palestinians without an effective European counterweight, making a genuine two-state solution ever more remote, to the detriment of both Israel and the Palestinians.
AIPAC’s Culpability
AIPAC presents itself as a friend of Israel. Still, by relentlessly reinforcing the country’s most hardline positions, it has turned “pro-Israel” into a rigid orthodoxy that equates any pressure on Israeli governments with betrayal, thereby narrowing the range of policies American lawmakers feel politically safe to support.
For decades, AIPAC has backed Israeli governments without qualification—endorsing military campaigns, providing political cover for settlement expansion, and supporting a maximalist posture toward the Palestinians.
It rallies Congress behind unconditional aid, arms transfers, and diplomatic protection. This has helped Israeli leaders believe they can permanently deepen occupation and de facto annexation while still counting on automatic American support.
AIPAC has refused to use its considerable leverage to press for peace-oriented concessions and territorial compromise. Instead, it has rendered the two state solution an empty slogan while supporting the Israeli policies that make it impossible. In doing so, AIPAC has directly contributed to the ever worsening conflict and put Israel’s security under constant threat.
Still, AIPAC has not awakened from its blind support that jeopardizes Israel’s very existence and, with that, scuttles any prospect for an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Israeli Opposition Parties’ Dismal Failure
Israel’s opposition parties have failed to offer a credible, sustained alternative to the right’s permanent conflict paradigm, and in doing so have gravely weakened Israel’s chances for peace. Instead of forcefully championing a two-state solution, most opposition leaders tiptoe around the very words “Palestinian state,” intimidated by electoral backlash and the charge of being “soft” on security. Their political inaptitude has allowed the right to define what is “realistic,” narrowing the political options to endless occupation and recurrent war.
Thus, they have directly contributed to the current impasse, making the conflict ever more intractable. Without a major party willing to argue that Israel’s long-term security depends on a two-state solution, the public hears only variations of the same message: manage, contain, punish, but never resolve. This abdication cedes the strategic debate to the extremist Netanyahu and his messianic lunatics, who are creepingly implementing their scheme of greater Israel, which would bury any prospect for peace.
It is a dire reality for the country that the opposing parties failed to coalesce and present a united front to push for a two-state solution, even following the Gaza war, which has unequivocally demonstrated that after nearly 80 years of conflict, only peace would provide Israel with ultimate security.
Every leader from these parties feels they are the most qualified to be the prime minister, but has failed miserably to offer realistic plans to end the conflict.
By failing to unite, organize, educate, and mobilize Israelis around a clear two state vision, these parties are undermining Israel’s security, eroding its international standing, and endangering its very future as a Jewish, democratic state.
The record of these five enablers is devastating. They made a just peace ever more remote, pushing Israel precariously toward an apartheid one state reality it cannot sustain morally, demographically, or strategically, while abandoning the Palestinians to the cruelest, inhumane occupation.
They must change course now—or condemn Israelis and Palestinians to generations of bloodshed that will erase Israel’s reason for being and extinguish Palestinian nationhood.
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.
IPS UN Bureau
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Apr 15 2026 (IPS) - When Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen addressed her supporters on election night on 24 March, she chose her words carefully. Losing four percentage points after almost seven years in power, she suggested, wasn’t so bad given there’s been a pandemic, a war in Europe and a confrontation with Donald Trump over Greenland. The reality was the Social Democrats had recorded their worst general election result since 1903. Meanwhile, the far-right Danish People’s Party (DPP) tripled its seat count, despite years of the Social Democrats leading a systematic crackdown on immigration to try to prevent it gaining support.
A historic result
While the Social Democrats came first on 21.9 per cent of the vote, they dropped from 50 to 38 seats. Their centre-right coalition partner, Venstre, had its worst result in its 150-year history. These are the two parties that have led every government since mainstream politics began copying far-right narratives on immigration. The bargain has benefitted neither.
Vote-switching data from exit polls told the story. The Social Democrats retained only around two thirds of their 2022 support. Their largest group of defectors — 13 per cent of their previous voters — switched to the Green Left, which now holds 20 seats as parliament’s second-largest party. Right-leaning voters switched to the DPP rather than rewarding the Social Democrats for delivering the immigration restrictions the DPP has long demanded. Time and again, evidence suggests that voters who are highly motivated about an issue tend to prefer parties that have always prioritised it over parties that have adopted it more recently out of electoral calculation.
The overall picture leaves neither bloc with a majority. The left-wing grouping holds 84 seats and the right holds 77, both short of the 90 needed to govern. Frederiksen has submitted her resignation as prime minister but, as leader of the largest party, has been charged with forming a new government. This is a task made harder by the conditions attached by Moderates leader Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who’s unwilling to join a government that does not include both left and right.
Twenty-five years of accommodation
The Social Democrats’ turn on immigration began in the aftermath of their 2001 election defeat. The party believed it was losing working-class voters to the far right over immigration and concluded it needed to compete on that ground. It framed anti-immigration policies as a defence of the welfare state, trying to emphasise solidarity rather than xenophobia, and over the next decade moved steadily rightward on this issue.
The nine seats the DPP got in 2001 became invaluable to centre-right Venstre leader Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who formed a minority government with its support. His government subsequently launched a wave of amendments to the Aliens Act, which was changed 93 times between 2002 and 2016 with the explicit goal of making Denmark less appealing to asylum seekers.
Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, the DPP grew steadily, winning 20.6 per cent of votes in 2015 to become the biggest force on the right. Between 2015 and 2018, immigration law was amended over 70 times.
When Frederiksen became Social Democrat leader in 2015, she sought to outbid the DPP. By the 2019 election, the Social Democrats’ anti-immigration platform closely mirrored the DPP’s. And in the short term, it worked for them. They won the 2019 election while the DPP lost almost 12 percentage points. In losing, though, the DPP had won: its previously fringe positions on migration, belonging and identity had been absorbed into mainstream politics.
A rights-violating regime
On entering government in 2019, Frederiksen entrenched what the Social Democrats called a ‘paradigm shift’, moving from integration to deterrence, detention and return, with the stated goal of admitting ‘zero asylum seekers’. Denmark became the first European state to declare parts of Syria safe, enabling it to deport Syrian refugees to an active conflict zone. In 2021, parliament authorised the outsourcing of asylum processing to countries outside Europe. By 2024, Denmark was granting under 900 people asylum a year, the lowest figure in four decades, pandemic years excluded.
The human rights consequences have been documented by international civil society organisations and bodies such as the United Nations Committee Against Torture. Amnesty International has raised concerns about the forced return of asylum seekers to danger in violation of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Denmark’s three-year waiting period for family reunification for refugees with temporary protection status violates the right to family life. Policies targeting government-classified ‘ghetto’ areas — overwhelmingly low-income neighbourhoods with high concentrations of people from migrant backgrounds — have been challenged at the European Court of Justice on grounds of racial discrimination.
The harm has been intentional. A framework designed to make Denmark as unwelcoming as possible has placed tens of thousands of people in prolonged legal uncertainty, with documented effects on family stability and mental health. Under Denmark’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, Frederiksen pressed for similar policies across Europe and, alongside far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, lobbied for a revised European Convention on Human Rights to enable easier deportation. Centre-left governments in Sweden and the UK have looked to Denmark as a model.
Normalisation, not neutralisation
The political calculation was that taking ownership of immigration would reduce its salience as an issue and deny the far right the fuel to grow. Instead, the move intensified demand, leaving opponents of migration taking ever more extreme positions while erasing the distinction between mainstream and far-right politics.
Denmark’s experience is a lesson other European centre-left parties appear determined not to learn. Twenty-five years of accommodation have produced a society in which far-right assumptions have become normalised, at enormous and ongoing cost to those whose rights are being stripped away. This is not a template; it is a warning.
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
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 15 2026 (IPS) - The United Nations faces two crucial elections later this year: the election of a new Secretary General, with no confirmed date for polling, and the election of a new President (PGA), scheduled for June 2, for the upcoming 81st session of the General Assembly.
In accordance with established geographical rotation, the president for the next session will be elected from the Asia-Pacific Group with two candidates in the running: Dr. Khalilur Rahman of Bangladesh, currently serving as Foreign Minister, and Andreas S. Kakouris, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cyprus. A third declared candidate, Riyad Mansour (Palestine), withdrew from the race.
The dual candidacy breaks a longstanding tradition of a single candidate running for the office of PGA from each geographical group.
According to one of the established rules, speeches before the General Assembly were limited to 15 minutes– but rarely enforced.
The longest speech –269 minutes–was credited to Fidel Castro of Cuba at a meeting of the General Assembly on 26 September 1960. But the longest speech ever made at the UN was by V.K. Krishna Menon of India. His statement to the Security Council was given during three meetings on 23 and 24 January 1957 and lasted more than 8 hours.
In a bygone era, the General Assembly was also the center of several politically memorable events in the history of the world body.
When Yasser Arafat was denied a US visa to visit New York to address the United Nations back in 1988, the General Assembly defied the United States by temporarily moving the UN’s highest policy making body to Geneva– perhaps for the first time in UN history– providing a less-hostile political environment and a platform, for the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Arafat, who first addressed the UN in 1974, took a swipe at Washington when he prefaced his statement in Geneva by remarking: “it never occurred to me that my second meeting with this honorable Assembly, since 1974, would take place in the hospitable city of Geneva”.
On his 1974 visit to address the General Assembly, he avoided the hundreds of pro and anti-Arafat demonstrators outside the UN building by arriving in a helicopter which landed on the North Lawn of the UN campus adjoining the East River.
When he addressed the General Assembly, there were confusing reports whether or not Arafat carried a gun in his holster—“in a house of peace” — which was apparently not visible to delegates.
One news story said Arafat was seen “wearing his gun belt and holster and reluctantly removing his pistol before mounting the rostrum.” “Today, I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter’s gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand,” he told the Assembly.
Setting the record straight, Samir Sanbar, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and head of the former Department of Public Information told Inter Press Service (IPS) it was discreetly agreed that Arafat would keep the holster while the gun was to be handed over to Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then Foreign Minister and later President of Algeria (1999-2019).
Incidentally, when anti-Arafat New York protesters on First Avenue shouted: “Arafat Go Home”, his supporters responded that was precisely what he wanted—a home for the Palestinians to go to.
Although Arafat made it to the UN, some of the world’s most controversial leaders, including Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad, and North Korea’s Kim il Sung and his grandson Kim Jong-un never made it to the UN to address the General Assembly.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Minister of Industries of Cuba, addresses the General Assembly on Dec. 11, 1964. Credit: UN Photo/TC
Meanwhile, when the politically-charismatic Ernesto Che Guevara, once second-in-command to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, was at the UN to address the General Assembly sessions, back in 1964, the U.N. headquarters came under attack – literally. The speech by the Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary was momentarily drowned by the sound of an explosion.
The anti-Castro forces in the United States, reportedly backed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had mounted an insidious campaign to stop Che Guevara from speaking. A 3.5-inch bazooka was fired at the 39-storeyed Secretariat building by the East River while a vociferous CIA-inspired anti-Castro, anti-Che Guevara demonstration was taking place outside the U.N. building on New York’s First Avenue and 42nd street.
But the rocket launcher – which was apparently not as sophisticated as today’s shoulder-fired missiles and rocket-propelled grenades – missed its target, rattled windows, and fell into the river about 200 yards from the building. One newspaper report described it as “one of the wildest episodes since the United Nations moved into its East River headquarters in 1952.”
As longtime U.N. staffers would recall, the failed 1964 bombing of the U.N. building took place when Che Guevara launched a blistering attack on U.S. foreign policy and denounced a proposed de-nuclearization pact for the Western hemisphere. It was one of the first known politically motivated terrorist attacks on the United Nations.
After his Assembly speech, Che Guevara was asked about the attack aimed at him. “The explosion has given the whole thing more flavor,” he joked, as he chomped on his Cuban cigar.
When he was told by a reporter that the New York City police had nabbed a woman, described as an anti-Castro Cuban exile, who had pulled out a hunting knife and jumped over the UN wall, intending to kill him, Che Guevara said: “It is better to be killed by a woman with a knife than by a man with a gun.”
Meanwhile, in 2004, when the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the predecessor to the present African Union (AU), barred coup leaders from participating in African summits, Secretary-General Kofi Annan singled out the OAU decision as a future model to punish military dictators worldwide.
Annan went one step further and said he was hopeful that one day the General Assembly would follow in the footsteps of the OAU and bar leaders of military governments from addressing the General Assembly.
Annan’s proposal was a historic first. But it never came to pass in an institution where member states, not the Secretary-General, reign supreme.
The outspoken Annan, a national of Ghana, also said that “billions of dollars of public funds continue to be stashed away by some African leaders — even while roads are crumbling, health systems are failing, school children have neither books nor desks nor teachers, and phones do not work.” He also lashed out at African leaders who overthrow democratic regimes to grab power by military means.
Meanwhile, some of the military leaders who addressed the UN included Fidel Castro of Cuba, Col Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya, Amadou Toure of Mali (who assumed power following a coup in 1991 but later served as a democratically elected President), and Jerry Rawlings of Ghana (who seized power in 1979, executed former heads of state but later served as a civilian president voted into power in democratic elections). As the International Herald Tribune reported, Rawlings was “Africa’s first former military leader to allow the voters to choose his successor in a multi-party election”.
In October 2020, the New York Times reported that at least 10 African civilian leaders refused to step down from power and instead changed their constitutions to serve a third or fourth term – or serve for life.
These leaders included Presidents of Guinea (running for a third term), Cote d’Ivoire, Uganda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana and Seychelles, among others. The only country where the incumbent was stepping down was Niger.
Condemning all military coups, the Times quoted Umaro Sissoco Embalo, the president of Guinea-Bissau, as saying: “Third terms also count as coups”
Back in 1977, a separatist activist/lawyer from London, Krishna Vaikunthavsan, who was campaigning for a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, surreptitiously gate-crashed into the UN, and virtually hijacked the General Assembly when he walked to the GA podium ahead of Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister ACS Hameed, the listed speaker, and lashed out at his government for human rights violations and war crimes.
When the President of the Assembly realized he had an interloper, he cut off the mike within minutes and summoned security guards to bodily eject the intruder from the hall. And as he walked up to the podium, there was pin drop silence and the unflappable Hameed, unprompted by any of his delegates, produced a riveting punchline.
“I want to thank the previous speaker for keeping his speech short,” he said, as the Assembly, known to tolerate longwinded and boring speeches, broke into peals of laughter.
Meanwhile, a security officer once recalled an incident where the prime minister from an African country, addressing the General Assembly, was heckled by a group of African students. As is usual with hecklers, the boisterous group was taken off the visitor’s gallery, grilled, photographer and banned from entering the UN premises.
But about five years later, one of the hecklers returned to the UN —this time, as foreign minister of his country, and addressed the world body.
This article contains excerpts from a book on the United Nations titled “No Comment – and Don’t Quote Me on That” authored by Thalif Deen, Senior Editor at Inter Press Service news agency. A former member of the Sri Lanka delegation to the UN General Assembly sessions, he is a Fulbright scholar with a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, New York, and twice (2012-2013) shared the gold medal for excellence in UN reporting awarded annually by the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA). The book is available on Amazon. The link to Amazon via the author’s website follows: https://www.rodericgrigson.com/no-comment-by-thalif-deen/
IPS UN Bureau Report
NAIROBI, Apr 14 2026 (IPS) - Over 800 households in Ikolomani Constituency in Kakamega County, Western Kenya, fear eviction to pave the way for a British firm, Shanta Gold Limited, to begin extracting gold valued at Sh683 billion ($5.29 billion) on an estimated 337 acres of residential and agricultural land.
Efforts by residents to protest against the looming displacement during an attempt for a public participation session on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) by the government on 4 December 2025 were met with police brutality, leading to four deaths due to bullet wounds, arbitrary arrests and scores of injuries.
According to the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), the incident is part of a disturbing and escalating pattern in Kenya’s extractive sector, where communities seeking accountability are met with brutal force, political threats, and procedural manipulation.
“Mining zones are increasingly becoming death traps rather than engines of community development,” reads part of a statement issued by the commission following the incident.
This trend mirrors what is happening in many other countries across Africa, where communities living in mineral-rich areas face forceful displacements, abuse of basic human rights, and environmental degradation linked to industrial mineral extraction, often perpetrated by foreign firms with full support of the political class.
According to Appolinaire Zagabe, a Congolese human rights activist and the Director for the DRC Climate Change Network (Reseau Sur le Changement Climatique RDC) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), often, people he terms ‘greedy government officials’ sign contracts with extractive firms to legalise their activities, then use police machinery to forcefully and brutally evict communities without informed consent and proper compensation.
It is based on such injustices that civil society organisations, social movements, faith-based actors, Indigenous Peoples, pastoralist and peasant organisations from Africa under the umbrella of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) launched a campaign calling for land policies that protect African smallholder farmers and communities against punitive extractive practices and land grabbing, which are currently a threat to human rights, livelihoods and sustainable food systems.
“Land is more than a resource; it is our heritage, our identity, and our future,” said Rev. Tolbert Thomas Jallah Jr, the Executive Director at the Faith and Justice Network, during the launch of the campaign on the sidelines of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD+20) in Cartagena, Colombia.
“Across Africa, our soils feed our families, sustain our economies, and connect generations, yet today, land degradation, industrial extractive practices by foreign enterprises, climate change, and land grabbing threaten the very foundation of our food systems,” he added.
In a joint declaration at the conference, the organisations observed that rural communities across the world continue to face dispossession, land concentration, and ecological destruction.
“Despite global commitments to end hunger and poverty, land and food systems are increasingly controlled by corporate and financial interests, while communities that produce food remain marginalised and insecure,” reads part of the declaration statement.
It was further observed that carbon offset projects, extractive industries, agribusiness expansions, and speculative land markets are accelerating dispossession, soil degradation, and social inequality, often excluding communities from territories they have governed collectively for generations.
The campaign, dubbed “Protect Our Land, Restore Our Soil”, is now calling on governments to strengthen land rights and protect smallholder farmers; communities to embrace sustainable farming practices that rebuild soil fertility; and youthful farmers to view agriculture not as a last resort but as a powerful pathway to innovation and resilience.
“When soil is degraded, food becomes scarce, and when land is taken or misused, communities lose dignity and security,” said Rev. Tolbert, who is also the sitting Chairperson at the AFSA’s Board of Directors.
Just like the looming evictions of residents of Ikolomani in Kenya, Amnesty International has also observed that people of the DRC also pay a high price to supply the world with copper and cobalt: forced evictions, illegal destruction of their homes, and physical violence – sometimes leading to deaths.
The DRC supplies 70 to 74 percent of the copper and cobalt used in lithium-ion batteries. These batteries power our smartphones, laptops, electric cars, and bicycles, and they play a major role in the energy transition away from fossil fuels. This transition is urgent and necessary.
However, according to Amnesty International, mineral-rich regions of the DRC are sacrificed to mining development, leading to a shocking series of abuses in the region. Thousands of people have lost their homes, schools, hospitals, and communities due to the expansion of copper and cobalt mines in the country, especially in Kolwezi, which sits above rich copper and cobalt deposits.
The AFSA-led campaign calls on governments and corporate organisations to guarantee meaningful participation of affected communities and free prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples in land, agriculture and climate decision-making to avoid conflicts and abuse of basic human rights.
“The future lies not in further commodifying land and food systems, but in restoring community control over territories, securing pastoralist mobility and commons, and supporting agroecological transitions rooted in justice and ecological integrity,” observed Mariann Bassey Olsson, a Lawyer, and Director at Action (Friends of the Earth Nigeria).
IPS UN Bureau Report