News headlines for “Free Trade and Globalization”
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.
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.
Global employment stable but decent jobs in short supply
- UN News
Global unemployment remains stable, but progress toward decent work has stalled, according to a new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO), which warns that young people continue to struggle in a job market which risks being further undermined by AI and trade policy uncertainty.
‘Beyond GDP’ economists push for clearer metrics on wellbeing, sustainability
- UN News
Top finance experts are meeting at UN Geneva this week to push for a radical shake up in the way economic growth is gauged, in response to concerns that GDP measurements provide little insight about progress on key sustainability targets that are vital to our survival.
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