News headlines for “Consumption and Consumerism”
World Enters “Era of Global Water Bankruptcy”
- Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, January 21 (IPS) - The world is already in the state of “water bankruptcy”. In many basins and aquifers, long-term overuse and degradation mean that past hydrological and ecological baselines cannot realistically be restored.
World Living Beyond Its Means: Warns UN’s Global Water Bankruptcy Report
- Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS & SRINAGAR, India, January 20 (IPS) - The world has entered what United Nations researchers now describe as an era of Global Water Bankruptcy, a condition where humanity has irreversibly overspent the planet’s water resources, leaving ecosystems, economies, and communities unable to recover to previous levels.
World enters era of ‘global water bankruptcy’
- UN News

The world has moved beyond a water crisis and into a state of global water bankruptcy, says a new flagship report released on Tuesday by UN researchers.
Karatoya
- Inter Press Service

Once a lifeline of northern Bengal, Bangladesh’s Karatoya River now drifts through Bogura as a fragmented, polluted channel, where climate change and human neglect quietly reshape livelihoods, memory, and everyday life.
The UN’s Withering Vine: A US Retreat from Global Governance
- Inter Press Service

The Trump administration’s recent announcement of its withdrawal from 66 international organisations has been met with a mixture of alarm and applause. While the headline number suggests a dramatic retreat from the world stage, a closer look reveals a more nuanced, and perhaps more insidious, strategy. The move is less a wholesale abandonment of the United Nations system and more a targeted pruning of the multilateral vine, aimed at withering specific branches of global cooperation that the administration deems contrary to its interests. While the immediate financial impact may be less than feared, the long-term consequences for the UN and the rules-based international order are profound.
One Carries a Broom, the Other a Schoolbag
- Inter Press Service

SYLHET, Bangladesh, January 19 (IPS) - While other children her age prepared for school, eight-year-old Tania once began her workday. Each morning, she picked up a jharu—the household broom—and cleaned floors inside a private home. At the same time, another child of her age in that household lifted a schoolbag and left for class. One carried a broom. The other carried books.
How Extreme Weather is Testing Tanzania’s $2 Billion Electric Railway Dream
- Inter Press Service

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, January 19 (IPS) - On a rainy Wednesday morning, in Dodoma, the capital of Tanzania, the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) terminal bustled with a steady flow of passengers. Women ushered toddlers along. Snack bags dangling on their hands. Tourists dragged wheeled suitcases across the floor. Students scrolled through smartphones as they returned to campus. Each had been attracted by the speed, reliability and comfort of the electric train.
Economic Dogma Blocks Pragmatic Policies
- Inter Press Service

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, January 19 (IPS) - After condemning pragmatic responses to the 1997-98 Asian financial crises, the West pursued similar policies in response to the 2008 global financial crisis without acknowledging its own mistakes.
Rising hunger and displacement pose growing economic risk, UN tells Davos
- UN News

As global leaders gather at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, UN agencies are warning that rising hunger and displacement are not only humanitarian emergencies but growing threats to global economic stability.
Will AI kickstart a new age of nuclear power?
- UN News

The rapidly expanding use of artificial intelligence worldwide is putting electrical grids under huge pressure and many believe that, to meet that need without contributing to the climate crisis, a full-scale expansion of nuclear energy is essential.

