30 years ago this month, I was in Beijing as a British development minister for the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). But what took place at that gathering – including the seating for the first time of a delegation from Taiwan – was overshadowed by what was happening across the city.

The path to peace on the Korean Peninsula remains as perilous as ever.

In the years leading up to Syria’s civil war, the country endured three consecutive record-breaking droughts. By forcing internal displacement, the droughts arguably contributed to the social tensions that erupted in popular protests in 2011. But that does not mean that the Syrian conflict is a “climate war.”As extreme weather events proliferate, it’s becoming increasingly easy to find a link between climate change and violent confrontations.

Critics often claim that China is using its massive “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) as a form of coercive “debt-trap diplomacy” to exert control over the countries that join its transnational infrastructure investment scheme. This risk, as Deborah Brautigam of John Hopkins University recently noted, is often exaggerated by the media.

Climate change is the world’s most urgent problem, and in the United States (US), the left, at least, is taking it seriously. Earlier this year, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats, introduced a Green New Deal (GND) resolution, which offers a blueprint for decarbonising the US economy.

A few years ago, toward the end of his life, my father battled severe depression. As a physician and professor, he did not lack access to mental-health care. But he had grown up in a society that stigmatised mental illness, and he was unwilling to seek professional help. As a son, it was devastating to watch my father suffer.

Since the massive mobilisation effort that preceded the 2009 Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen, the world has begun translating words and intentions into real action on climate change. European leadership – from government, civil society, and business – has played a pivotal role in driving progress. Given how much remains to be done, such leadership must continue – and become stronger.The successes of the last decade should not be underestimated.

Indonesia, home to 264 million people, is the world’s fourth-most populous country. Its capital, Jakarta, is the second-most populous urban area on Earth. For the sake of its long-term economic and social health, ending population growth should be a priority. As Indonesian President Joko Widodo (widely known as Jokowi) acknowledged in 2016, “Family planning is key for the success of future generations.”And not just in Indonesia.

On a trip to Ethiopia in the 1990s, I met with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to try to persuade him to stop jailing journalists. Since Meles’s guerrillas had ousted a repressive Soviet-backed dictatorship a few years before, there had been an explosion of exuberant and sometimes wildly inaccurate little newspapers, many of them attacking Meles.

Japan’s Emperor Akihito will abdicate on 30 April, having sat on the Chrysanthemum Throne since 1989. At the age of 85, Akihito seemingly wishes to live in quiet retirement with Empress Michiko, his wife of 60 years. His elder son, Crown Prince Naruhito, will succeed him as emperor.Akihito’s reign began upon the death of his father, Hirohito, whose life had spanned decades of domestic and international turmoil.