The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 27 2026 (IPS) - The Eleventh Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) will meet at the United Nations in New York from 27 April to 22 May 2026. State parties to the treaty will meet with the urgent aim of finding common ground on the issue of nonproliferation.
“The NPT is very often referred to as a cornerstone of the international disarmament and nonproliferation regime and also a very important pillar of international peace and security,” said Izumi Nakamitsu, Under-Secretary-General of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (ODA).
The NPT came into effect in 1970 and was extended indefinitely in 1995. This landmark international treaty calls for all signatories to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and promote nuclear disarmament above all and encourages pursuing more peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It remains the only legally binding agreement that nuclear powers adhere to, with 191 states, both nuclear and non-nuclear, as signatories to the treaty. Review conferences are typically held at five-year intervals beginning in 1970 (the conference originally scheduled for 2020 was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and was later held in 2022).
The president of the conference is Do Hung Viet, the Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN. The conference is expected to begin with a general debate during the first week, which will be followed by thematic discussions under each of the three pillars of the Treaty.
It will be attended by high‑level representatives, including Ministers of Foreign Affairs, as well as senior representatives of key international organizations. Side events will be held in parallel to the thematic discussions by attending members of civil society. This year’s conference will assess the implementation of the NPT since the last review conference, which ended without countries reaching a consensus on the final outcome document.
Ahead of the conference, Nakamitsu spoke to reporters at UN headquarters on 24 April. She remarked that state parties should take this meeting as an opportunity to converge on common ground when it came to nonproliferation. Ultimately, country representatives would want to avoid both an increase in proliferation and the intentional use of nuclear weapons. It will be a collective responsibility, said Nakamitsu, for the state parties to reach a consensus on the outcome document.
The NPT Review Conference will convene during a period of deepening geopolitical tensions, where major nuclear powers are embroiled in regional conflicts. The current military conflict in Iran and, in particular, the war in Ukraine from 2022, have caused shifts in countries’ attitudes about nuclear proliferation.
Some experts have claimed that the situation has led to a start of a new arms race as more countries hold discussions around “improving” nuclear weapons and even outright expanding into procuring nuclear arms themselves, as some see weapons as the “ultimate guarantor of national security”. Nakamitsu acknowledged this as a “proliferation driver”, or growing public sentiment for nuclear proliferation, irrespective of the formal governments’ position on the NPT. She also expressed concern over the increased rhetoric that threatened the use of nuclear weapons, warning that the more nuclear weapon states there were, the greater the risks of nuclear weapons being used by mistake or by miscalculation.
“[The] prevention of nuclear weapons’ use will have to become also one of the key focuses of the conference because when it comes to nuclear weapons, again, it’s not just one or two countries’ security; it goes beyond the borders. It is the security of all of us,” said Nakamitsu. “We need to put to rest the wrong narrative that more nuclear weapon states would guarantee our security.”
A “shared sentiment in crisis” within all state parties may in fact encourage them to “protect and maintain” the NPT. Despite this, Nakamitsu warned that with a growing leniency around nuclear weapons, this poses a risk to the gains made right after the end of World War II and throughout the Cold War.
In the current strategic security environment, the rapid rise of certain technologies will also be a factor in discussions. The advent of artificial intelligence has sparked great debate within the international community for its application in certain sectors and the risk of misuse without the proper guardrails.
It was only in December 2024 that the UN General Assembly passed a resolution that detailed the use of AI in the military domain and ‘its implications for international peace and security’, though it should be noted that there is no reference to the use of AI in the context of nuclear weapons.
When asked whether the issue of AI in the military-nuclear nexus would be discussed during the NPT conference, Nakamitsu noted that the integration of AI in the nuclear command and communications channel is “beginning to be discussed on different platforms”, and further consultations would also be held in Geneva this year. The NPT conference may not be the forum for further discussions around this issue or regarding AI governance in the military context. However, this is something that state parties recognise will require investigation, including when it comes to placing guardrails on the use of AI in the military domain.
“There is an increasing awareness that when it comes to nuclear weapons’ command and control, obviously humans have to retain oversight,” Nakamitsu told Inter Press Service.
The challenges facing the international world, particularly in the context of the conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, are placing “significant stress on the treaty,” according to Nakamitsu.
But it is also what makes the NPT review conference and its outcomes all the more relevant. A shared understanding that nuclear proliferation will only lead to further instability and insecurity is what will push member states to engage in critical dialogue over the next four weeks. This must also yield a shared commitment to uphold the principles of the NPT by the end.
IPS UN Bureau Report
LONDON, Apr 27 2026 (IPS) - Yasmin Ullah, from Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, is determined to see justice. On 13 April, she filed a complaint alleging genocide against Myanmar’s president, Min Aung Hlaing, to Indonesia’s Attorney General’s Office. Min Aung Hlaing led the 2021 coup that ousted a democratically elected government and this month was named president following a sham election held amid intense repression, rubber stamping the army’s continuing grip on power. However secure he appears in his position, Yasmin Ullah’s legal action offers hope his impunity may not be guaranteed.
The complaint accuses Min Aung Hlaing of genocide against Rohingya people, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group denied citizenship despite being long established in Myanmar. He’s accused of being responsible for the burning of Rohingya villages, forced evictions, killings and mass rape in a 2017 military operation, during which around 24,000 Rohingya people were killed and over 700,000 forced to flee. The UN’s fact-finding mission and its Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar have extensively documented atrocities. Civil society has played a key role in gathering testimonies from survivors and preserving evidence.
The case was made possible by changes to Indonesia’s criminal code that came into effect in January. While civil society has raised concerns about revisions to other parts of the code that restrict Indonesian people’s ability to speak out and protest, this particular change stands out as a positive development, enabling people to bring charges against alleged perpetrators of atrocities in other countries under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Universal jurisdiction on the rise
Universal jurisdiction applies to crimes under international law, such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, on the grounds that these crimes are an offence against humanity as a whole and as such aren’t bound by borders.
Some states, including France and Germany, have passed laws to enable universal jurisdiction prosecutions. Many powerful states however still refuse to recognise the principle, citing national sovereignty, the long-established doctrine of immunity for heads of state and the potential for prosecutions to be politically motivated.
Yet the question of whether government leaders should be immune from prosecution has increasingly been contested. Immunity wasn’t granted when leaders of Sierra Leone and former Yugoslavia were prosecuted for crimes committed during civil wars, and the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), removed the principle of immunity where it has jurisdiction. Ironically, the Trump administration, which resists international accountability over its officials, may have contributed to further eroding the doctrine of immunity by abducting Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and placing him on trial for drug trafficking.
Universal jurisdiction cases have increased since the end of the Cold War. Belgium, Finland and Germany convicted people for their role in the Rwanda genocide. Switzerland secured the first guilty verdict for crimes committed in the Liberian civil war, while France convicted another Liberian war criminal in 2022. Germany convicted a Bosnian paramilitary soldier of genocide and, in 2021 and 2022, found two Syrian officials guilty of atrocity crimes.
Hopes of justice
Rohingya people have no hope of justice in a country that refuses even to recognise them as citizens, so diaspora civil society organisations are seeking it wherever they find opportunities. In 2025, an Argentinian court issued arrest warrants against Min Aung Hlaing and other senior Myanmar officials on crimes against humanity and genocide charges, in a case brought by a Rohingya organisation. Earlier this year, a human rights organisation filed a criminal case against the Myanmar regime in Timor-Leste. When authorities appointed a senior prosecutor to examine the case, Myanmar retaliated by expelling Timor-Leste’s ambassador.
These efforts complement proceedings in international courts. In 2024, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing for crimes against humanity, while in January, hearings began at the International Court of Justice in a case brought by the Gambian government accusing Myanmar of breaching the Genocide Convention. It isn’t a question of choosing between national jurisdictions and international courts, but rather of taking every avenue available to demand justice.
Universal jurisdiction has its limits. Those accused tend to be safe when they hold power; when states have successfully prosecuted perpetrators, it’s after they’ve lost the power that enabled their crimes. Currently, this means attempts to hold Israel’s leaders accountable for the genocide in Gaza, such as arrest warrants a Turkish court issued against 37 officials, only have symbolic value. Cases motivated by political point-scoring also risk discrediting the principle, as when a body created by Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad found an array of US officials guilty in absentia, without legal basis or consequence.
Actions under universal jurisdiction, when targeted at evident offenders, can nonetheless help build moral pressure and signal that justice may eventually come. At a time when the brutal and illegitimate Myanmar regime is buttressed by China, India and Russia, and with the USA easing its pressure in pursuit of economic benefits, it matters that other countries keep holding the line, isolating the junta and exposing its atrocities.
It matters all the more when pressure comes from Southeast Asian countries, depriving the Myanmar regime of the excuse that human rights accountability is a western imposition. Two members of the Association of Southeast Asian nations, Indonesia and Timor-Leste, have now taken action against a fellow member. But other attempts in the region have faltered. Philippine authorities declined to proceed when five survivors of atrocities filed a case in 2023, while an investigation civil society filed with Indonesia’s national human rights commission that same year, alleging that Indonesian companies were supplying military equipment to Myanmar, has so far seen no progress.
As 2026 president of the UN Human Rights Council, Indonesia is uniquely placed to take the lead in the pursuit of justice for atrocity crimes. Indonesian authorities must treat this case as a priority and give it the attention and resources it needs.
Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 27 2026 (IPS) - Sub-Saharan Africa’s economies entered 2026 with significant momentum. The region had notched its fastest growth rate in 10 years—4.5 percent in 2025—buoyed by reduced macroeconomic imbalances, rising investment levels, and a generally supportive external environment.
Countries such as Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, and Rwanda led the charge, with growth exceeding 6 percent. The median inflation rate fell to about 3.5 percent and public debt levels had started to decline. These gains were hard-won, the fruit of politically difficult but meaningful reforms such as exchange-rate realignments, better spending allocation, and tighter monetary policies.
Progress on the fiscal front has been particularly impressive. The region’s general government primary balance has been steadily improving and is now near balance. By contrast, primary deficits in both advanced economies and other emerging markets remained noticeably wider in 2025 than before the pandemic.
Sub-Saharan Africa achieved this consolidation while simultaneously sustaining reasonably decent growth and bringing down inflation, thanks to bold reforms and notwithstanding headwinds from elevated global uncertainty and much reduced concessional financing.
And just as the region has begun to secure these gains, the war in the Middle East has brought a significant new shock that threatens to stall, or even unwind, that progress. It has pushed up global prices for oil, gas, and fertilizer, disrupted trade routes, and tightened financial conditions. These developments are weighing on the region’s outlook.
We expect growth to slow to 4.3 percent this year, some 0.3 percentage points below pre-war forecasts, while inflation is projected to rise. That may sound benign by global standards, but for a region where rapid growth is imperative to create millions of new jobs for the rapidly expanding population, any hit to growth is problematic.
Oil importers, many of them low-income or fragile states, face worsening trade balances and rising living costs. Oil exporters may benefit from higher oil prices, but remain exposed to volatility and the temptation of procyclical spending.
And the risks are mounting.
A prolonged conflict could further inflate commodity prices, trigger a risk-off episode in global markets, and force abrupt fiscal adjustments in countries with large refinancing needs.
In a severe downside scenario, as detailed in the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, regional output this year could fall 0.6 percent below pre-war forecasts, with oil importers suffering the most, and inflation could surge by an additional 2.4 percentage points.
The human costs are equally stark. Food insecurity looms large: the region remains acutely vulnerable to food-price shocks, and the war has already driven up fertilizer and shipping costs. A 20 percent rise in international food prices could push more than 20 million people into food insecurity and leave 2 million children under age 5 acutely malnourished.
Climate shocks intensify the strain—the recent floods in Mozambique and Madagascar serve as a reminder of the region’s deep vulnerability to weather disruptions.
The unprecedented decline in foreign aid strips away a critical buffer. Unlike past contractions, 2025 marked a sharp structural break in aid flows, with cuts falling hardest on the most fragile states and threatening to unravel essential services—healthcare above all—in countries with no alternative source of finance.
Debt vulnerabilities are also rising. More than one-third of countries are at high risk of, or already in, debt distress. In 21 countries, fiscal deficits exceed the levels that are needed to stabilize debt. Rising interest bills and dwindling concessional finance are inflating debt-service burdens and crowding out essential development spending.
In some cases, growing reliance on domestic borrowing has deepened ties between government debt and bank balance sheets, raising the specter of financial instability.
In this fraught environment, policymakers must navigate competing pressures. In the short term, they should anchor inflation expectations, shield the most vulnerable from rising prices, and avoid procyclical fiscal policies.
Oil exporters should treat windfalls as fleeting, using them to rebuild buffers and strengthen social safety nets. Oil importers with fiscal space can offer targeted, time-bound support; those without must focus on increasing the efficiency of spending and boosting domestic revenues.
Even as policymakers grapple with the immediate shock, the medium-term reform agenda cannot wait. The premium on accelerating structural reforms—to boost growth and resilience—is now even higher. Improving the business climate, strengthening governance, and reforming state-owned enterprises, especially in energy, transport, and telecommunications, can help attract investment and lift productivity. Deepening regional integration through the African Continental Free Trade Area could bolster supply-chain resilience and expand markets for local producers.
Digital transformation offers promise, but also highlights the region’s infrastructure gaps. Artificial intelligence is already helping farmers boost yields, doctors improve diagnoses, and students master difficult concepts faster.
But scaling such innovations will require investing in electricity, internet access, digital skills, and data governance. Today, just 53 percent of the region’s population has access to electricity, and only 38 percent to the internet.
International role
The international community has a role to play, especially when the economic troubles facing many countries stem largely from shocks beyond their control. Predictable financing, technical assistance, and capacity-building support can help countries weather current storms and sustain reform momentum.
Aid should be prioritized for low-income and fragile states, where alternative sources of finance are scarce. The IMF is already deeply engaged, with programs in 22 of the region’s 45 countries, and stands ready to scale up support for members facing acute balance-of-payments pressures linked to the war.
The optimism that greeted 2026 was not misplaced: it was earned, through years of difficult but necessary reform. The fallout from the war in the Middle East is now testing that progress, but it does not need to erase it. African policymakers have demonstrated they can deliver under pressure. The choices they make now—whether to hold the line on inflation, protect the vulnerable from the worst of the shock, and resist the temptation to unwind the reforms that got them here—will determine whether these hard-won gains endure.
The job of the international community is to support that effort. But the boldness and resolve that the moment demands must come from within the region itself.
This IMF blog is based on the April 2026 Regional Economic Outlook for sub-Saharan Africa, “Hard-Won Gains Under Pressure,” prepared by Cleary Haines, Michele Fornino, Saad Quayyum, Can Sever, Nikola Spatafora, and Felix Vardy.
IPS UN Bureau
SEATTLE. USA, Apr 24 2026 (IPS) - This is the second part of a three-part commentary. Read Part 1: No Kings? Meet King Don and King John – Part 1 of 3 to start from the beginning.
Habeas tattoo?Among Trump’s most outrageous assaults on the rule of law has been an array of legal wrecking balls demolishing due process, habeas corpus, related foundational rights, and the separation of powers in the bargain.
For many years, his target of choice for these efforts has been immigrants. But in his second term, not only has he escalated his persecution of those with and without protected immigration status, he has also increasingly attacked the rights of U.S. citizens to free speech, assembly, the press, due process, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. The targets have included journalists and news sources, academics and universities, state and local governments, corporate officials, military officers, Federal employees, and members of Congress.
One operation of Trump’s mass deportation machine stands out as a template for negating the rule of law: the summary removal, without anything resembling due process, of 261 mainly Venezuelan immigrants to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo – Terrorism Confinement Center). They were given no prior notice of their deportation and were not told their destination. For 137 Venezuelans, The Trump administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act (AEA) which, it claimed, allowed summary deportations without recourse to habeas corpus or other due process. The other 101 Venezuelans and 23 Salvadorans were also summarily deported, under uncertain statutory authority. Once in CECOT, many were disappeared indefinitely without appeal, held incommunicado without contact with families or attorneys, and routinely tortured.
The Alien Enemies Act allows nationals of enemy countries during wartime to be summarily expelled or detained. It was last invoked during World War Two to imprison American citizens of Japanese ancestry in concentration camps, an injustice for which the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 formally apologized.
President Trump justified the use of the AEA because, he claimed, the Venezuelans were members of Tren de Aragua (TdA – Train of Aragua), a metastasized former prison gang. He claimed that TdA was a “narco-terrorist” organization controlled by the Venezuelan government that had invaded the U.S. and was in a state of war with this country. He used these assertions to justify invoking the AEA, posting on Truth Social: “These are the monsters sent into our Country by Crooked Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats. How dare they! Thank you to El Salvador and, in particular, President Bukele, for your understanding of this horrible situation.” In effect, Trump was trying to outsource his violations of constitutional rights to a small friendly dictatorship.
On March 15, 2025, the date the removal flights were scheduled to take the detainees to El Salvador, the non-governmental American Civil Liberties Union filed an emergency petition in federal court to stay the removals. Federal Judge James Boasberg, a George W. Bush appointee, immediately ordered the deportations paused. All the deportees, he ruled, had to be brought back to the U.S. and offered due process to defend themselves against removal.
Although Boasberg demanded that even planes already in the air be turned around, the Trump administration said that the orders came too late and it couldn’t recall the planes. It also claimed to have no control over El Salvador, although it had paid that country at least $6 million to imprison the men. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, the self-described “world’s coolest dictator”, posted sardonically on X: “Oopsie!” The court rejected all of these arguments, but nevertheless the planes delivered the deportees to the Salvadoran mega-prison.
Later in March, Boasberg told the government that it must prove that those targeted for removal are in fact “alien enemies” and allow them to challenge the designation before deporting them. The Trump administration ignored the court’s ruling, and went on expelling more Venezuelans and Salvadorans to El Salvador, arguing that courts had no jurisdiction over what it called foreign policy.
In this stalemate, some observers questioned whether the executive branch was effectively placing itself above constitutional restraints such as habeas corpus by intentionally ignoring valid orders from the judiciary.
Trump and Congressional Republicans bitterly attacked Judge Boasberg and called for his impeachment. This prompted Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to issue a rare rebuke, reminding them that impeachment is not an “appropriate response” when disagreeing with a judicial decision.
An appeals court ruled in March that the Trump administration was denying the detainees’ due process. “Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemy Act,” commented one judge.
In April, the Supreme Court allowed the government to continue deportations on the technicality that the detainees had filed for relief against summary removal in the wrong court. But it also affirmed that “an individual subject to detention and removal under that statute [the AEA] is entitled to ‘judicial review’” and advance notice.
Outside of the courts, the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch accused the U.S. and Salvadoran governments of “enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention” of the Venezuelan deportees. “These enforced disappearances are a grave violation of international human rights law,” said Juanita Goebertus, Americas director at HRW. “The cruelty of the US and Salvadoran governments has put these people outside the protection of the law and caused immense pain to their families.”
Several news organizations investigated the alleged criminal records and gang affiliations of the Venezuelan men, and found them mostly non-existent. The New York Times reported that “most of the men do not have criminal records in the United States or elsewhere in the region, beyond immigration offenses” and “very few of them appear to have any clear, documented links to the Venezuelan gang.”
The ACLU filed Homeland Security’s “Alien Enemies Act Validation Guide” as an exhibit in a lawsuit. Verónica Egui Brito of the Miami Herald analyzed this “scorecard”, which the agency had used to determine whether the accused were members of Tren de Aragua.
It turned out that two of the criteria that supposedly indicated gang membership were certain tattoos and “urban street wear” such as jerseys and sneakers featuring basketball great Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls. But experts on Latin American gangs pointed out that TdA did not use specific tattoo images to identify its members. USA Today reported that internal Federal Bureau of Investigations and Department of Homeland Security documents have for years questioned the validity of using tattoos to identify TdA members. As to the Jordan and Bulls merch, it has long been among the most popular street fashions in much of the world, and could probably be used to falsely accuse thousands of young men in most cities of gang membership.
The whole “validation guide” appeared less a serious tool for criminology than the Trumpian equivalent of a Dick Tracy Magic Decoder, designed to help immigration “crimestoppers” detain anyone whose markings, clothing, accent, or skin tone struck them as suspicious.
Some of the men’s families also challenged the deportations, denying that the men were gang members or criminals at all. A few deportees became causes célèbres.
Most notoriously, the U.S. government admitted that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man with a U.S.-citizen wife and child, had been removed by mistake. The Supreme Court ordered that the government bring him back to the U.S. Yet even after that, the Trump administration tried to prevent Abrego Garcia from returning, and at first Bukele flatly refused to let him go. After Abrego Garcia was finally repatriated, the Trump administration tried to charge him with an unrelated minor infraction, then to deport him to one of several African countries. Costa Rica offered to take Abrego Garcia and he accepted, but the Trump administration refused. In February 2026, a judge ruled that ICE could not re-detain him. But the government continues to litigate his case.
In the face of strong exculpatory evidence for most of the deportees, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem opined: “They should stay there [in the Salvadoran prison] for the rest of their lives.”
Finally, after four months of imprisoning the Venezuelans in CECOT under its proprietary interpretation of the Alien Enemies Act, the Trump administration abruptly sent most of them back to Venezuela in a swap of prisoners.
In December 2025, Judge Boasberg rejected most of the government’s arguments on the merits of the case, including Trump’s premises for invoking the AEA, and found that the U.S. denied the men due process. Finally in February, he issued an order that any of the deported Venezuelans who still wanted to challenge their removal had to be allowed to return to the U.S., with travel expenses paid by the U.S. government, to continue their immigration cases in court. The judge and the Venezuelans’ counsel, however, recognized that only a few of the men were likely to accept the offer.
In the emerging reality, there was a remarkable lack of evidence that any of the 200-plus deportees were actually members of Tren de Aragua, or that more than a handful had committed any serious crime. Beyond that, the Trump administration’s cases rested on a series of evidentiary dominos that cascaded down with a few pushes from legal and journalistic investigations.
In presidential debates during 2024, Trump falsely claimed that members of Tren de Aragua had “taken over” Aurora, Colorado, and other U.S. cities.
In fact, it turned out that a small number of armed young men, whom the police had not linked to TdA, had committed burglaries and firearm offenses against the residents of a couple of run-down apartment complexes with some Venezuelan residents. One of them, and nine others suspected of ties with the gang, were arrested by the police. The Aurora police chief told USA Today that “the city is not taken over by gangs”, and that, as in most other metropolitan areas, there were gangs there before any Venezuelans moved in.
Further investigations by several news organizations found that TdA is not a major drug smuggling enterprise, just a former prison gang that was evicted from prison and spread out to prey largely on Venezuelan refugees in South America. Around 90 percent of the nearly 8 million Venezuelans who have left their country went elsewhere in Latin America; only about 10 percent came to the U.S. A national survey by USA Today of federal, state and local law enforcement found that, despite claims of thousands of TdA gangsters, authorities had arrested fewer than 135 confirmed members. These have mainly committed petty street crimes such as purse-snatching, retail theft, and jewelry store robberies, many against other Venezuelans.
TdA bears little resemblance to the major cartels and maras of Mexico and Central America. These operate more like big transnational corporations heavy with advanced armaments, lawyers, and accountants. They are the ones who produce and smuggle most of the drugs entering the U.S., particularly fentanyl, the most deadly. The small gangs of Venezuelan petty thieves in a few cities were well within the capabilities of local law enforcement to dismantle with normal police work.
A key element of White House arguments for invoking the Alien Enemies Act was that Tren de Aragua was controlled by the Venezuelan government. However, this claim was also contradicted in an internal assessment by an elite forum of U.S. spy agencies. The National Intelligence Council concluded in a “Sense of the Community Memorandum”: “ [T]he Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.”
Joe Kent, Trump’s former head of counterterrorism, asked the Council to reconsider these findings. It did so, and came back with the same conclusions. Not long after, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard removed Michael Collins, a veteran intelligence analyst, from his post as acting chair of the Council.
The affair suggested that Kent, Gabbard, White House advisor Steven Miller, and their crew were trying to provide Trump with bespoke intelligence, custom tailored to fit whatever fabricated casus belli he was trying to invent. But some career intelligence professionals pushed back, calling bullshit on their manipulations.
Other dominos fell as more Trump claims were discredited by well-established geopolitical realities. The President claimed that he had saved tens of thousands of lives by dismantling Tren de Aragua and keeping drugs out of the U.S. However, the only drug responsible for large numbers of overdose deaths in the U.S. is fentanyl, a powerful opioid, which is almost exclusively produced in and exported from Mexico.
Venezuela reportedly plays little to no role in the fentanyl trade. Nor is it a major producer of cocaine or other drugs. It is mainly a trans-shipment corridor for cocaine from other South American countries headed for Europe, not the U.S.
In the end, the courts upheld the rights of some of the Venezuelan detainees trampled by Trump. But the long delays and tortures they suffered made those rights seem more aspirational than enforceable.
Beyond the Venezuelans, the rejection by the Trump administration of immigrants’ rights to habeas corpus and due process has been pandemic across the U.S.
An investigation by Reuters found that since October 2025, hundreds of judges have ruled more than 4,400 times that the government is unlawfully detaining immigrants, yet the government has continued the illegal detentions undeterred. This ignoring of or delay in complying with court orders has also made a travesty of the separation of powers, which requires that the executive branch respect the rulings of the judiciary.
A federal judge ordered the release of one such detainee, writing: “It is appalling that the Government insists that this Court should redefine or completely disregard the current law as it is clearly written.”
Many of these attacks on immigrants seem to be obvious violations of U.S. and international immigration laws. While some have been successfully remedied in court, they may also be a disturbing test run: the President has openly floated the idea of deporting U.S. citizens who have been convicted of serious crimes to El Salvador and imprisoning them there indefinitely without due process.
He has also tried to criminalize assistance to immigrants by arresting and, in a few notorious cases, killing or gravely injuring U.S. citizens who were trying to defend their neighbors against violence and harassment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other immigration agencies.
“The path to authoritarianism is being built on the backs of immigrants”, asserted Kiko Matos, President of the National Immigration Law Center, in TIME magazine. “While [the Trump administration is] ostensibly targeting immigrants, what is being constructed is both the infrastructure and compliance that will facilitate a broader loss of rights for all Americans.”
There’s a familiar progression that Trump and his cadre have inflicted on their shifting scapegoats. They start by branding immigrants as dangerous individual criminals, a go-to move of nativists for centuries. Then they escalate to alleging that they are gangsters working for foreign cartels. Then they try to link those cartels to an enemy government and declare them “narco-terrorists”.
Moving on to other targets, it’s easy to apply this field-tested stratagem to those who Trump calls “the enemy within”. And so protesters, activists, civil society groups, opposition politicians and other critics end up labeled “domestic terrorists”.
A similar public-relations gambit was used against the crews and passengers of small boats in the Caribbean north of Venezuela and the eastern Pacific.
This is the second part of a three-part commentary. Read Part 1: No Kings? Meet King Don and King John – Part 1 of 3 to start from the beginning.
To be continued in Part 3 of 3
About the author
SRINAGAR, Apr 24 2026 (IPS) - A high-stakes international summit in Colombia starting today (April 24) is expected to sharpen global efforts to phase out fossil fuels, as governments, scientists and Indigenous leaders warn that the world is running out of time to avert irreversible climate damage.
During a virtual press briefing on April 16, Colombia’s Environment Ministry and a diverse panel of experts outlined expectations from the upcoming Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Summit in Santa Marta. The event is being positioned as a critical platform to accelerate energy transition and address mounting pressure from Indigenous communities living on the frontlines of extraction.
It was at the Belém Climate Conference in 2025, wherein a coalition of over 80 countries unanimously decided to act decisively to phase out fossil fuels that have been driving three quarters of global greenhouse gas emissions.
On the sidelines, 24 countries went further: they issued the Belém Declaration, pledging to work collectively toward a just, orderly, and equitable transition aligned with 1.5°C pathways. To this end, Colombia and the Netherlands volunteered to co-host the First International Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels.
The Conference is taking place from 24 to 29 April 2026 in Santa Marta, Colombia. The organisers invited 97 national governments and 30 subnational governments. The high-level segment convenes on April 28–29, 2026.
“We are in a moment of no return. It is clear that there is climate change and that there is no denialism. This is the moment… to accelerate the transition and the progressive elimination of fossil fuels,” said Luz Dary Carmona Moreno, Colombia’s Vice Minister for Environmental Land Use Planning.
The summit comes at a time of growing geopolitical tension and continued global dependence on fossil fuels. Carmona noted that conflicts and economic instability continue to be shaped by oil, gas, and coal and stressed that there is an urgent need for structural change.
“The economy continues depending on fossil fuels,” she said, pointing to global crises that reflect the entrenched role of hydrocarbons.
Colombia has framed the Santa Marta conference around three strategic pillars. The first focuses on overcoming global dependence on fossil fuels. The second addresses transformation of supply and demand systems. The third seeks to rethink multilateral cooperation frameworks.
Carmona emphasised that the conference aims to produce a concrete roadmap, backed by science, public participation, and political will.
“This conference seeks common points to accelerate the transition, concrete actions and enablers that allow that acceleration,” she said.
The event has already drawn strong international participation. According to Colombian officials, 45 countries have confirmed attendance, along with 13 ministers and a broad coalition of civil society groups, indigenous organisations, academics, and private sector actors.
More than 2,800 participants, including grassroots organisations, Indigenous communities, youth groups, and labour unions, have registered to take part.
Indigenous Leaders Warn of “Unjust Transition”
For Indigenous leaders, however, the urgency of the climate crisis is matched by frustration over what they describe as a gap between rhetoric and reality.
Oswaldo Muca, General Coordinator of the Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of the Colombian Amazon (OPIAC), said communities continue to bear the brunt of extraction despite promises of a “just transition”.
“We are very concerned. We talk about a just transition, but in practice it is not true,” Muca said.
He described ongoing environmental degradation in Indigenous territories, including illegal mining, deforestation and mercury contamination.
“Mining continues. Extraction continues. Deforestation continues. The territories and Indigenous peoples continue suffering this problem, and it is becoming more serious every day,” he said.
Muca also criticised the lack of direct benefits for local communities, noting that profits from extraction often leave the country while environmental damage remains.
“The resources do not reach Indigenous territories but they destroy the territory and leave the damage,” he said.
He called for Indigenous participation at every stage of policymaking, from design to implementation, across technical, political, legal and financial dimensions.
Science Points to Sharp Cuts
Scientific findings presented during the briefing reinforced the scale of transformation required.
Dr Marcel Llavero Pasquina, a researcher at the University of Barcelona, said limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius would require drastic reductions in fossil fuel production.
“Eighty-six percent of oil and gas reserves currently under production should be prematurely decommissioned,” he said.
Even under a less ambitious 2-degree scenario, at least 12% of producing reserves would need to be phased out.
Pasquina also warned that no new fossil fuel exploration is compatible with global climate targets. “At least 10,000 of the existing oil and gas extraction contracts should be cancelled,” he said.
He highlighted the economic tensions shaping climate negotiations, noting that fossil fuel companies stand to lose trillions of dollars under transition scenarios.
“Fossil fuel companies… have a material and quantifiable conflict of interest,” he said, arguing they should be excluded from climate policymaking.
At the same time, governments face significant fiscal challenges, with potential revenue losses estimated at US$117 trillion globally under a 1.5-degree pathway. Still, Pasquina stressed that these costs are outweighed by the human and environmental toll of inaction.
“These transition costs are dwarfed by the climate costs communities would otherwise suffer,” he said.
Policy Momentum Builds
Despite the scale of the challenge, policy experts pointed to growing momentum worldwide.
Paola Yanguas Parra, a policy advisor at the International Institute for Sustainable Development, said governments have already begun implementing measures to restrict fossil fuel expansion.
“We found… 58 active restrictions, which go from bans and moratoria to exploration and licensing,” she said.
These measures include protections for ecologically and culturally significant areas such as the Amazon, as well as restrictions on extraction methods like fracking.
Yanguas Parra noted that such policies often make economic sense in addition to environmental benefits.
“You would take a huge environmental, social and climate cost… for something that would not even make you enough profit,” she said, referring to unviable extraction projects in remote regions.
She added that the summit offers an opportunity to shift global discussions from whether to transition away from fossil fuels to how to implement that transition effectively.
“This coalition will focus on implementation, on learning from each other,” she said.
Amazon at a Crossroads
Speakers from across the Amazon basin warned that the region is increasingly being treated as a new frontier for fossil fuel expansion.
Alana Manchineri, an Indigenous leader from Brazil, described the climate crisis as an immediate reality rather than a distant threat.
“There is no more space for delays,” she said.
She warned that oil and gas projects are already causing widespread damage, including water contamination, biodiversity loss and rising conflict.
“It is not just environmental damage but violations of rights and ways of life,” she said.
According to Indigenous organisations, more than 320,000 square kilometres of Indigenous land in the Amazon basin are already affected by oil and gas blocks.
Manchineri stressed that any transition must fully incorporate Indigenous knowledge and leadership.
“This path will only be legitimate and effective with the full participation of Indigenous peoples,” she said.
Beyond COP: Complement, Not Replacement
Panellists repeatedly emphasised that the Santa Marta summit is not intended to replace existing UN climate processes but to complement them.
“There are groups of countries… that have gathered to discuss more focused issues,” Yanguas Parra said, describing the summit as part of a broader ecosystem of climate cooperation.
Pasquina offered a more critical view, arguing that while UN climate negotiations have produced frameworks like the Paris Agreement, they have failed to curb rising emissions.
“The COP has been a great success on paper. In reality, emissions have only been increasing,” he said.
He suggested that initiatives like Santa Marta could increase pressure on countries that have resisted stronger action.
A Test of Political Will
As preparations intensify, expectations for the summit remain high. Colombian officials say the final outcome will be a report outlining actionable steps and mechanisms to accelerate transition.
“We want the report not to remain just another document. We expect people to turn it into action,” Carmona said.
For many participants, the success of the summit will depend on whether it delivers concrete commitments rather than broad declarations.
Indigenous leaders, in particular, say the credibility of the process hinges on real inclusion and tangible change on the ground.
“If we do not take real and effective actions. We can talk about a just transition, but in reality, other mechanisms will continue destroying the territory,” Muca warned.
IPS UN Bureau Report
WASHINGTON DC, Apr 24 2026 (IPS) - About 132 wars are happening in the world today, displacing 200 million people. 80 percent of these conflicts are happening in sensitive biodiversity areas where Indigenous Peoples live.
An estimated 476 million Indigenous Peoples in the world, living across 90 countries and territories, speaking a majority of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages, represent 5,000 different cultures, faiths, and ways of life.
Currently many wars across the world are fought on land where Indigenous Peoples live. Indigenous Peoples live often in contested border areas on the front lines of violent conflict, insurgency, and organized crime with devastating humanitarian impact.
We remember all the lives that we have lost in our territories. We remember the wisdom which will get us through this that and will pave the way for healing people, for peace, and the one planet we all co-habitat together. Peace, not wars, will be the pathway.
Peace-making efforts are usually negotiated at high political levels where Indigenous Peoples are rarely represented. Relations between states and Indigenous Peoples must always be remembered if some of the world’s longest-running conflicts are to be solved.
The protection of peace, peoples and planet cannot be complete if Indigenous Peoples are left behind as also stated in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that nations around the world have pledged at the United Nations– to be achieved by 2030.
Any peace-building efforts in global conflicts must therefore involve and include Indigenous Peoples. The world of today needs meaningful peacebuilding that works for all.
Indigenous Peoples have their own traditions, culture, and spiritual practices that help to resolve violence and build local peace. While often highly successful, Indigenous People’s efforts are underappreciated by the peacebuilding community or ignored entirely in formal peace processes.
Two years ago, we started mapping some of the root causes of these violent conflicts that are currently happening, and we tried to analyze what is happening in the world today. This is what we this is what we found that to mitigate violent conflicts happening in our world today it is imperative that we understand what is happening in territories where Indigenous Peoples live and work with them to provide solutions.
Indigenous women across cultures and nations have also evolved, extraordinary forms of nonviolent protest and mechanisms to confront decades of militarization, weaponization and structural violence that have marked their lives for decades. We must put them in the forefront of national and global peacebuilding efforts.
Indigenous Peoples have lived for centuries with violence in their lives, yet the resilience that they showed in the face of entrenched violence is note-worthy.
Indigenous Peoples have since time immemorial evolved innovative ways of peacebuilding. We acknowledge the Great Law of Peace of the Haudenosaunee People as well as Loiyunmba Shinyen of Manipur, Indigenous forms of governance and constitution making that evolved in the 12th century in America as well as in Asia and in many other parts of the world.
We recognize the extraordinary role of Indigenous women, our mothers, grandmothers, and ancestors who have forged innovative peacebuilding methods against all odds.
Indigenous Peoples have been trying to engage with the United Nations since the 1970s to resolve, mitigate and prevent violent conflicts. We noted that the first time that special attention was paid to Indigenous Peoples by the peace area of the United Nations was in connection with the peace process in Guatemala in the year 1995 in the UN General Assembly Agenda Item 42 A/49/882 dated 10 April 1995.
The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) adopted in 2007 contains several articles that are very relevant to preventing conflict. 17 years since the adoption of UNDRIP, conflict in Indigenous lands and territories has increased more than ever. We are now in the search to find new solutions and pathways.
The issues of peace were excluded from the formal original mandate of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and it was only in May 2016 that the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) designated conflict, peace, and resolution as the special theme for its fifteenth session.
Two years ago, to address the issue, we organized the First Global Summit on Indigenous Peace building. The Summit was held in Washington DC on 11 & 12 April 2024 and brought together 120 Indigenous Peacebuilders from over 30 countries. Following the Summit, an International Declaration on Indigenous Peacebuilding was adopted and signed, and the Global Network of Indigenous Peacebuilders, Mediators and Negotiators was born.
Following the Summit, we worked with UN member states which led to a UN General Assembly Resolution on Indigenous Peacebuilding adopted in December 2024.
At the First International Declaration on Indigenous Peacebuilding adopted in April 2024, it was resolved that the Summit will be held every two years until we reduce conflicts in Indigenous territories by 50 percent.
We are therefore meeting for the Second Global Summit on Indigenous Peacebuilding that is bringing together over 200 extraordinary Indigenous Peace builders – Indigenous Elders, Women, Leaders and youth, from 80 countries belonging to seven socio-cultural regions of the world on 25 and 26 April 2026 in New York City alongside the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
The Global Summit is to empower us, to understand what is happening in the world, share Indigenous approaches to peace building, share knowledge, studies, science, research, practices to enable us to work to mitigate violent conflict. The Summit is held in the hope that future generations will help in healing people and the planet.
The aims of the Second Global Summit on Indigenous Peace Building are to find ways to implement the First International Declaration on Indigenous Peacebuilding adopted on 12 April 2024, reflect on 20 Years of UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and call to the UN and member states for an International Decade on Indigenous Peacebuilding, 2027-2037.
The Summit will also see the launch of Global Indigenous Mothers March for Peace, Healing and Unity that will commence from the Summit and go on for two years non-stop in areas around the world which are in conflict and will culminate at the Third Global Summit on Indigenous Peacebuilding in 2028.
Binalakshmi Nepram is Founder-President of Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples, Gender Justice and Peace
IPS UN Bureau
Apr 24 2026 (IPS) -
CIVICUS discusses Gen Z-led protests in Nepal with Abhijeet Adhikari (Abhi), a lawyer and political activist who took part in the protests.
Abhijeet Adhikari
What drove young people onto the streets, and what were their demands?
Since this protest was decentralised, there was no uniform agenda but rather a pile of frustrations with the workings of the political system.
A decade ago, Nepal introduced a new federal democratic constitution that people saw as a new beginning that would lead to development and better living conditions. But politicians didn’t live up to those aspirations and instead played a game of musical chairs with the post of prime minister, with a few politicians from the three biggest political parties taking turns and not allowing new parties or people in their own parties to rise against them. There was no clear separation between government and opposition, and five or six governments would rotate in quick succession during one parliamentary term. It was hard to hold anybody accountable.
Nepal’s economy is highly dependent on remittances sent by migrant workers, and following high school, every young person thinks about where to go to find a job or a better life. This went on for years, and frustration with politicians who only thought about their own benefit continued to accumulate.
The trigger was the government social media ban. Following a trend in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, young people had started comparing their lives with those of politicians’ kids, and a trend called ‘nepokids’ exposing their lavish lifestyle went viral on TikTok. It seems that security agencies advised the then-prime minister that things might get out of control, so he decided to ban the platforms. He didn’t realise our generation was born with the internet and social media, meaning we know how to use VPNs to access the web. The ban only added another layer of frustration at not being able to express our frustration.
Once we were on the streets, we organised our demands. The first was the reversal of the social media ban. The second was an end to the musical chairs game between top-tier politicians. And the third was reform of the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, the institution that deals with corruption.
We tried to put all of this in language young people would connect with. We used AI tools to generate Gen Z-friendly slogans, such as ‘delete corruption’ and ‘stop putting filters on our democracy’. People also brought anime-inspired posters, particularly One Piece characters. The whole aesthetic was very uniquely Gen Z.
How did events unfold on 8 and 9 September?
We gathered at Maitighar Mandala, a symbolic monument located in the heart of Kathmandu, and planned to march to the Everest Hotel, which is the closest you could get to the parliament building, as the streets beyond the hotel were blocked. When we arrived, we were surprised there were very few security personnel there. We didn’t know that earlier, people had come towards parliament from various sides, with electric fence-cutting machines and kerosene. A few violent groups pushed the crowd towards restricted areas. The police, who weren’t prepared to handle the crowds, panicked and started shooting at protesters. Within four hours, they killed 19 people, including children, some of them in their school uniforms.
Before the protest, there had been rumours of international rules prohibiting shooting at people in school uniforms, and many people thought that if students marched in front, police wouldn’t shoot at them. That sadly wasn’t the case.
The next day, people took to the streets again, and some opportunist groups did too. Someone put up a website with politicians’ home addresses, and mobs marched to their homes and set them on fire. They also burned down government buildings, including parliament, executive offices and the Supreme Court.
The prime minister resigned and protesters pushed for the dissolution of parliament, which the president then did. Following further pressure on social media and in critical circles, a retired Supreme Court judge was brought in as transitional prime minister. Even though this was not the constitutional process, people accepted it as a temporary solution to regain political stability, and it was this prime minister who paved the way to a peaceful and fair election.
How were the protests organised, and what role did social media play?
Protests were decentralised. Two Discord channels were used, which no longer exist because all those violent plans, arson included, were discussed there. But only around 2,000 people were on Discord before the protest, and many more groups joined spontaneously. Those who were already activists posted about the protests on social media.
Some of us joined as a group, and thought we were at the centre of it, but when we reached Maitighar, we felt like drops in the ocean. It was a massive protest, and we didn’t know who was leading it.
The day before, we had got together and planned, and many other groups did the same. We shared the call through Instagram and TikTok. Some went to schools and asked school departments to give a half-day waiver so students could join.
After the protest, the Discord channel grew to around 10,000 people, who started voting on Discord for who should become prime minister. The person who received the most votes on Discord eventually became prime minister. It was a very Gen Z way of doing politics.
However, I think ‘youth-led’ would be a more appropriate label than Gen Z protest. Gen Z might be accurate from the perspective of social media driving it. But while people in the city who have access to the internet may have Gen Z characteristics, the same age group in rural Nepal may not fit the description.
What risks did you and other protesters face?
On the first day, when we reached the Everest Hotel and saw the crowd push further, I was aware I should not go beyond that point. But when we heard on social media that people were entering the parliament building, we ran through another alley. A special task force police officer, there to guard the parliament building, loaded his gun and pointed it directly at me. But he didn’t fire.
After the protest turned violent, the police searched every place where protesters could be hiding, taking people out and beating them. From around noon un late night, eight or nine of us hid in a cubicle. It was dangerous to go back home, because there were lots of police in civilian clothes on the streets. During those two or three days when the army had effectively taken over and there was no functioning government, we had reason to believe our phones were being monitored.
Now there are people in prison and facing criminal charges for throwing stones or making TikTok content while the parliament building was burning. But those who manipulated the crowds and instigated violence supposedly in the name of the movement do not seem to be facing consequences.
How has the movement organised since the protests?
After the protest, people from different circles started forming their own Gen Z groups. There are over 40 now. A few of them, including Gen Z Alliance, Gen Z Civic Forum and Gen Z Front, are still active. Some have remained informal, some have registered as non-governmental organisations and some have formed political parties, although they didn’t receive a significant share of the vote. These are the ones who positioned themselves as guardians of the Gen Z movement, but not in terms of the aspirations and values we actually had.
People continue to take to the streets because the Karki Commission, formed to investigate who is responsible for the 19 deaths on 8 September and for the arson and vandalism on 9 September, has submitted a huge report, but the government has not yet released it. This has happened before: in the 1990s, when democracy was restored, a similar committee, the Malik Commission, produced a similar report that was never made public. In the 2006 transition, the report by the Rayamajhi Commission wasn’t made public either. People won’t have it again and are demanding transparency.
What did the protests achieve, and what lessons have you taken from them?
I believe more in institutions and processes than in charismatic figures and results. So I think it would have been best not to dissolve parliament. By the second day of protests, we could have pushed for any law we wanted, because parliamentarians’ morale was so low that they would have agreed to almost anything protesters demanded. Instead, we demanded the dissolution of parliament.
Negotiations should have been held mostly by the president’s office as the only legitimate institution after the prime minister’s resignation, but instead, the army dominated negotiations. That was another blunder. The negotiation process itself should have been taken into public discussion. After that, the focus should have been on reforming the party system and making the system more accountable, but instead, we thought everything would change if new people were brought in. The problem is that the new will eventually become old, and any new party that doesn’t create radically different structures will end up like the old political parties.
I also think that when it comes to protest, organised leadership is best, because in decentralised structures no one can be held accountable if things go wrong. Also, they allow people to push their own agendas and the real demands of protests risk being lost.
Additionally, I am concerned that while bottom-up protests arising from rural areas may produce more inclusive and progressive results, urban-centred protests arising in reaction to governance failure and lack of economic opportunity may end up leading to polarisation and the rise of authoritarian figures. After this protest, political dynamics have shifted towards delivery. People have started demanding meritocracy, forgetting all about inclusion. Even if this government successfully delivers on people’s aspirations, it could be like the government in India, providing good infrastructure but dismantling political institutions, disrupting the social fabric and promoting religious extremism.
How do you see the future of Nepal’s democracy?
Right now, people have put their expectations and trust in a single person, while trust in institutions is shrinking by the day. Even civil society has lost credibility. Two decades ago, civil society was at the forefront of the change that took Nepal from monarchy to republic. But gradually, civil society leaders have been discredited. Civil society is mostly a launching pad for politics; people don’t remain there for long. Most prominent civil society leaders have become members of parliament for one party or another.
If this government fails, people will start thinking about bringing back the old monarch. Authoritarian nostalgia will take over. I am also concerned about political radicalisation taking on ethnic or religious dimensions, particularly given the fundamentalist elements active along the border with India.
As for the protests, I think the government will continue to allow people to come out in the street, but it won’t listen to our demands.
CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.
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Gen Z protests: new resistance rises CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
Nepal’s Gen Z electoral revolution CIVICUS Lens 19.Mar.2026
Nepal’s Gen Z uprising: time for youth-led change CIVICUS Lens 10.Oct.2025