As world leaders prepare to gather at the UN General Assembly, Anthony Albanese is positioning Australia between American security guarantees and Chinese economic power—and choosing reform over rupture. Anthony Albanese, into his fourth year as Australia’s prime minister, can still be a little prickly when challenged by the media. Asked recently about Canadian counterpart…
As UNGA brings the world’s leaders to New York, diplomatic gift-giving offers a window into how countries court allies, signal priorities and seek influence. While visiting Buckingham Palace in March, President Zelensky of Ukraine gifted King Charles an Apple iPad. But this one was unlike any other. With one swipe of a finger, the…
As calls grow for the UN to finally choose a woman secretary-general, Envoy examines the barriers that have kept women from the top of global diplomacy—and the networks now trying to break them down. At the United Nations, the walls do not always live up to the grand promises of its founding Charter. An organization…
The contest to choose the next UN secretary-general is expected to hinge on gender, geography, and power politics. But another question is hovering over the race: how much should age matter? Like the sea levels, the age of world leaders has risen significantly over the last five decades and continues to do so, even at…
The former Portuguese prime minister brought experience, instinct and reformist ambition to the UN. But Ukraine, Gaza and a broken Security Council turned his decade into a study in constrained leadership. Was António Guterres’s decade at the United Nations like a Ferrari in the Grand Prix of global diplomacy, driven at the speed of a…
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…
