BANGKOK, Thailand, Sep 04 (IPS) - On the road to sustainable development, Sri Lanka provides an interesting case study. Having overcome a three-decade domestic conflict, Sri Lanka has begun its transformation towards a sustainable and resilient society. The extreme poverty rate ($1.90 a day) dropped to 0.8 per cent in 2016. The unemployment rate is below 5 per cent since 2010.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 04 (IPS) - The United Nations is under growing pressure to scrap an event it is co-hosting with the private foundation of Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, who has been linked to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 04 (IPS) - Global governance is slipping away from the United Nations.

Whether it is in managing the Internet, where the UN's governing structure offers only an advisory role for governments; or climate change, where the most exciting actions are now corporate-led partnerships outside the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; or the Gates Foundation-sponsored Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, which is in a tug of war with the World Health Assembly on who sets health policy in developing countries, the institutional basis for global decision-making is changing.

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 03 (IPS) - Large transnational corporations (TNCs) are widely believed to be paying little tax. The ease with which they avoid tax and the declining corporate tax rates over the decades have deprived developing countries of much needed revenues besides undermining public faith in the tax system.

BRUSSELS, Sep 03 (IPS) - In an interview* with Peter Burian, the current EU Special Representative for Central Asia.The EU has presented a new strategy for Central Asia. The first one has been adopted in 2007 and revised in 2015. Where do you see improvements?

HYDERABAD, TELANGANA, India, Sep 03 (IPS) - We have the potential to lead the world in animal welfare, but the tendency to look at the issue in a vacuum has prevented this movement from being taken seriously.

OTTAWA, Sep 02 (IPS) - Trends in global consumption of cigarettes haven't improved since the World Health Organization's (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) came into force, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) earlier this summer.

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 02 (IPS) - The world's high seas, which extend beyond 200 nautical miles, are deemed "international waters" to be shared globally-- but they remain largely ungoverned.