How Cuba Became a Testing Ground for Trump’s New Order at the UN
At first, the Trump administration seemed torn between weakening the UN and using it to…
How Cuba Became a Testing Ground for Trump’s New Order at the UN
At first, the Trump administration seemed torn between weakening the UN and using it to advance the MAGA agenda. Its maneuvering over Cuba suggests Washington still sees the institution as worth capturing, not just weakening. By September 1960, during his first address to the General Assembly, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro had already sized…
Europe’s Asylum Overhaul Is Set to Become Law. Nobody Knows What to Expect.
The EU’s landmark refugee reform promises fairness and solidarity. At the borders, lawyers and rights monitors see something else entirely. In March 2025, a woman arrived at the Closed Controlled Access Centre (CCAC) on the Greek island of Samos. She had survived human trafficking and sexual violence. Upon arrival, she was placed in a…
Spain’s Pedro Sánchez Named Co-Chair of UN SDG Advocates Group
A vocal critic of Israel’s wars and Europe’s military buildup, Sánchez brings a defiant record to the UN’s development campaign. As multiple real-world crises slow development across the globe, UN Secretary-General António Guterres today announced Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain as co-chair of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) advocates group. In a press release,…
As Blue Helmets Retreat, Lacroix Makes the Case for a UN That Stays in the Field
After nearly a decade leading UN peace operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix is looking back at a period in which peacekeeping has become smaller, more dangerous, and more politically constrained. Over the course of his term, the number of uniformed personnel in the field was cut in half, falling from more than 100,000 in 2017 to…
The DRC Puts Natural Resources at the Center of Its Security Council Presidency
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is using its Security Council presidency to spotlight the link between minerals and conflict, while its own resource wealth continues to expose the limits of international law and accountability. For the first time in more than 30 years, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will assume the rotating…
Murky Backroom Deals Keep Secretary-General Selection Process in the Shadows, New Report Says
1 for 8 Billion says the race for the UN’s top job remains vulnerable to opaque political bargaining. A new report published by the advocacy group 1 for 8 Billion sheds light on how some past candidates for UN Secretary-General have likely engaged in backroom deals with powerful member states to secure the global body’s…
Brain Surgery at Your Fingertips
A UNITAR-backed platform is bringing surgical training to frontline health workers around the world. An online training platform developed with UNITAR is seeking to widen access to surgical education for health workers around the world. Launched in 2023, SURGhub now has more than 30,000 users and offers courses ranging from speaking up in the…
What Will It Take to Elect a Woman UN Secretary-General?
The race to choose the next Secretary-General has no shortage of qualified women. The question is whether the UN’s most powerful states are prepared to support a woman to lead. In 2016, seven of the 13 candidates for secretary-general were women. The UN still chose a man. This year, as the UN marks its 80th…
The World Urban Forum Wants to Solve the World’s Big City Housing Problem
BY 2030, 3 billion people will need access to adequate housing—an unmet need that amounts to roughly 96,000 new affordable, accessible homes every day. By 2030, 3 billion people will need access to adequate housing—an unmet need that amounts to roughly 96,000 new affordable, accessible homes every day, according to UN-Habitat. That gap…
Two Afternoons, Two Futures: What Australia’s Response to a Massacre Can Teach a Grieving US
After the Port Arthur massacre, Australia rewrote its gun laws in 12 days. The United States, after decades of mass shootings, is still trapped in grief without action. On a Sunday afternoon in the Broad Arrow Cafe at Port Arthur, Australia, the former penal colony on the Tasmanian coast had become a tourist destination…
Strike a Pixel: AI Models Are Taking Over Fashion, for Better and for Worse
AI is changing fashion fast, with the potential to reduce waste and improve inclusivity or simply make a complex industry more efficient at scale. Fashion has always been obsessed with the latest thing. Hemlines rise and fall, colors cycle in and out, trends appear, vanish, and reappear decades later. But the latest disruption isn’t…
From Addis to America, a Diaspora Finds Its Punchline
For Ethiopian and Eritrean comics, family migration routes, refugee histories and diaspora restaurants have become the infrastructure of a new transnational scene. On a breezy Tuesday evening, lanky Simone Shiferaw—whose stage name is Chifforobe—is pacing outside a restaurant on U Street. Positioning himself before commuters emerging from a nearby Metro station, he hands out…
In the Streets of Europe, Iran’s Future Is Already Being Contested
As diaspora crowds cheered Khamenei’s death, rival opposition camps are still battling over what comes next. From above the crowd, a man’s voice booms out from a speaker like thunder. He chants, slowly at first, in Farsi, “We are a proud and great nation. We will reclaim Iran from tyranny!” and the people standing…
As the Olympic Truce Is Broken Again, a New Index Names and Shames Violators
As war broke out during the Paralympic Games, a new initiative seeks to name and shame violators of the millennia-old Olympic Truce. The final event of the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics featured a fiercely competitive hockey game between arguably the two best men’s teams. On February 22, 2026, the United States upset…
The New Face of Syria at the UN Ambassador Ibrahim Olabi and Syria’s Diplomatic Reset
From a legal activist to the Security Council Chamber, the young ambassador now carries Syria’s bid to turn revolution into a diplomatic renewal. At 32, Syria’s new Ambassador to the United Nations, Ibrahim Olabi, speaks with the gravity of someone shaped by upheaval. “The war made us really age,” he told Envoy in an…
Trump’s Board of Peace Has More in Common With Davos Than the U.N.
While many people initially compared it to the U.N., it might actually be closer to the World Economic Forum in Spirit and in Structure. In January 2026, President Donald Trump used the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, to formally ratify the charter of his Board of Peace, placing the initiative before…
