News headlines for “Consumption and Consumerism”, page 71
Intersectional Feminist Leadership Needed to Realise Global Goals
- Inter Press Service

NEW YORK, July 18 (IPS) - In its 80-year history the UN has never once been led by a woman. As the international community convenes for the 2025 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) to review progress on gender equality and other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this remains a fundamental hypocrisy at the heart of global governance. How can an institution that has systematically excluded women from its highest office credibly champion gender justice worldwide?
From Gaza to Georgia, Human Rights Defenders Pay a High Price for Change. Here’s How You Can Help
- Inter Press Service

HARARE, Zimbabwe / TOURS, France, July 18 (IPS) - Across the globe—from Gaza’s rubble to the streets of Tbilisi—people are standing up for justice, dignity, and basic rights. But far too often, they are paying with their freedom, their safety, even their lives.
Human Rights in an Increasingly Digitizing World
- Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, July 17 (IPS) - Over the past several decades, digital technologies have transformed nearly every aspect of human life, revolutionizing developments across multiple sectors, including healthcare, education, and commerce, to name a few. However, these changes have also brought forth new concerns surrounding the preservation of human rights in an increasingly digitizing world.
3.4 Billion People Left Behind: Interest Payments Now Outpace Education Spending in Half the World
- Inter Press Service

NEW YORK, July 17 (IPS) - Today, 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt interest payments than on health or education. This marks a trembling indication that the United Nations’ promise for the 2030 Agenda could be slipping away.
The Emerging Quad 3.0: Prioritizing a Hard Security Agenda
- Inter Press Service

On 1 July, the foreign ministers of the Quad—Australia, India, Japan and the US—convened for the second time this year in Washington, DC. While the first meeting, held just hours after the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States, signaled the Quad’s significance to the new US administration, the second meeting indicates that the Quad is entering a new phase with a renewed focus on a strategic and hard security agenda, weaning itself away from its non-traditional security priorities. This presents a departure from its previous versions: the first Quad, which collapsed in 2007, centred on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), and Quad 2.0, which was reinstated in 2017, gradually developed a broad public goods agenda.
From Streets to Rivers: Driving Bangkok’s Sustainable Transport Future
- Inter Press Service

BANGKOK, Thailand, July 17 (IPS) - Thailand’s transport sector is a significant contributor to national greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 18.4 per cent of the country’s total emissions. Bangkok is at the centre of this challenge. With more registered vehicles than residents, the resulting traffic congestion worsens air pollution and strains the city’s roads and overall mobility infrastructure.
High Stakes: Mountain Tourism in a Warming World
- Inter Press Service

KARACHI, Pakistan, July 17 (IPS) - “It started with a thunderous roar in the distance, followed by the clatter of rocks grinding together,” said Mohammad Hussain, 26, a student, who witnessed the flash flood that hit the lakeside of Attabad on June 25, around 12:30 pm, in the mountainous Hunza Valley, a popular tourist spot in the northern part of Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B).
To Be, or Not To Be, An Undocumented Migrant
- Inter Press Service

PORTLAND, USA, July 16 (IPS) - To be, or not to be, an undocumented migrant, that is the question for millions of men, women and children in many less developed countries. “Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them” for a better life as an undocumented migrant in a foreign land.
‘International Demand for Coltan Is Linked to Violence in the DRC’
- Inter Press Service

CIVICUS speaks with Claude Iguma, a mining governance expert with a PhD in Social Sciences, who is based in Bukavu, South Kivu province, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
HLPF 2025: Civil Society Is Not A Service Provider – We Are The Frontline Of Transformation
- Inter Press Service

NEW YORK, July 16 (IPS) - As delegates gather in New York over the coming weeks for the 2025 High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), we see this moment as a test. A test of whether world leaders are serious about rescuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) – or content to let the promises of Agenda 2030 drift quietly into irrelevance.

