It is already apparent that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will be uneven, with poorer countries bearing the brunt of the fallout. This includes the 1.2 million children in Bangladesh who are engaged in the harshest forms of child labour. In such uncertain times, these children – and millions of others elsewhere – are even more vulnerable to exploitative and hazardous work. The reason is simple.

On 14 October, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the southern city of Shenzhen, where he delivered a speech celebrating 40 years of progress since the special economic zone (SEZ) was established there and set a path for the future. A month later, Xi headed to Shanghai’s Pudong district – which was designated China’s first “new area” 30 years earlier – for the same purpose.

The 15 November agreement to form the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between the 10 members of ASEAN and Australia, China, Japan, Korea and New Zealand has only modest immediate economic effects for the European Union (EU).  However, with China playing a central role in the new arrangement, the long-term strategic and geopolitical implications are major.

For much of its life, the United Nations (UN) has hidden behind the comfortable maxim that, “If we didn’t have it, we would have to invent it.” Now at the venerable age of 75 (old enough to have been a 2020 US presidential candidate), the organisation still enjoys widespread approval in global opinion polls. But beneath the surface, the UN faces difficulties that cannot be ignored. Judging by traditional and social media, the issues that the UN pushes tend to get little traction.

Being situated along the “Ring of Fire” and the “Typhoon Belt”, the Philippines is exposed to tropical storms and usually suffers from various natural disasters and calamities such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and flooding. Based on the 2018 World Risk Report, the Philippines ranked third in terms of disaster risk index, and the highest risks are those of earthquakes reported with 10 risk index points and tropical cyclones of 9.5 risk index points.

With the signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) on 15 November, the stage is set for Malaysia to tap into the world’s largest free trade area (FTA) with 2.1 billion consumers, including China, and accounting for approximately 30 percent of the world’s gross domestic product (GDP). Up next is the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) – spanning the Asia-Pacific Rim countries and home to 95 million consumers as well as contributing a

Although COVID-19 infections and deaths are surging in many parts of the world, recent announcements of apparently successful vaccine trials have offered a light at the end of the tunnel.

Once United States (US) President-elect Joe Biden’s administration has made the relatively easy decisions to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, remain in the World Health Organization (WHO), and attempt to reboot the World Trade Organization (WTO), it will confront three key foreign-policy issues.

In less than four years, outgoing United States (US) President Donald Trump has achieved what, historically, only devastating wars had done: recast the global order. With his isolationism, wannabe authoritarianism, and sheer capriciousness, Trump gleefully took a sledgehammer to the international institutions and multilateral organisations his predecessors had built from the ashes of World War II and maintained ever since.

In December 2018, the European Union (EU) revised the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) also called RED II which bans the use of palm oil.