News headlines for “Free Trade and Globalization”, page 2
Can workers compete with machines and stay relevant in the AI era?
- UN News

AI looks set to be transformative for us all, but it also brings a real risk of job losses and widening social and economic divides. UN experts are focusing on how to manage that transition, to ensure the benefits of the technology outweigh the threats.
Talent Wasted: Afghanistan’s Educated Women Adapt Under Taliban Restrictions
- Inter Press Service

KABUL, January 28 (IPS) - Young women in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, are trying their hands at unfamiliar tasks in embroidery, tailoring and designing beads in market stalls. Many should instead have been sitting at desks writing computer software or reporting news, the fields they trained for.
‘Since the Coup, Factory Employers Have Increasingly Worked with the Military to Restrict Organising and Silence Workers’
- Inter Press Service

CIVICUS speaks to the Business and Human Rights Centre (BHRC) about labour rights abuses in Myanmar’s garment industry since the 2021 military coup.
Haiti at a Crossroads: Political Uncertainty and Gang Control Push Nation Toward Collapse
- Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, January 28 (IPS) - As Haiti’s Transitional President Council (TPC) approaches its February 7 expiration date and the country remains without a newly elected president, humanitarian experts warn the nation risks further sliding into insecurity, raising fears of broader collapse.
World’s Oceans Hit Record Heat in 2025, at Great Economic and Social Costs
- Inter Press Service

UNITED NATIONS, January 22 (IPS) - In 2025, global ocean temperatures rose to some of the highest levels ever recorded, signaling a continued accumulation of heat within the Earth’s climate system and raising deep concern among climate scientists. The economic toll of ocean-related impacts—including collapsing fisheries, widespread coral reef degradation, and mounting damage to coastal infrastructure—is now estimated to be nearly double the global cost of carbon emissions, placing immense strain on economies and endangering millions of lives.
Eighty years at the heart of global development
- UN News

From humanitarian crises and youth unemployment to climate resilience and development financing, many of today’s global challenges pass through a single United Nations body that is quietly turning 80 this year.
Thousands of Kenya’s Smallholder Coffee Farmers Risk Losing EU Market as Deforestation Law Takes Effect
- Inter Press Service

NYERI, Kenya, January 21 (IPS) - For the last twenty years, Sarah Nyaga, a smallholder farmer from Embu County in central Kenya, has farmed coffee. Like most across Kenya, she relies on the export market. A greater percentage of Kenya’s coffee ends up within the European Union market, but a new law threatens to disrupt what has been a source of income for thousands of farmers like Nyaga.
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.

