A few days ago, I had coffee with an old family friend. Before long, we got talking about the vaccine. She hasn’t had it and said she is scared to get it. I knew I had to try to persuade her to get protected, so I gave it everything I…

The number of people forced to flee their homes due to conflict and persecution hit a record 82.4 million in 2020. That figure has doubled within a decade, with 1% of humanity now forcibly displaced, according to figures released on Friday by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR. These are the…

I’ll say this for the conspiracists, they are nothing if not creative. The lies they spread to undermine vaccine confidence are getting weirder by the day. Now, in the latest cruel twist of the infodemic, they’ve pivoted to targeting the vaccinated and their loved ones. All kinds of wild conspiracies…

My job at the United Nations is to inform the public about the state of our world. That involves stories of ever-growing numbers of people suffering, wars erupting, a deadly virus spreading, economies collapsing and the planet taking revenge for being repeatedly abused. This information matters. It is about the…

Almasa Salihovic was just eight years old when her brother, Abdulah, was murdered. He had sought shelter in a UN compound near the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica as thousands of his neighbors fled the advancing Bosnian Serb army (VRS) through the surrounding woods and hills. After two days, on…

Never again. It’s a response we reach for instinctively whenever we are confronted with the sickening facts of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. But what does it really mean? Even if we recognize the warning signs, what can we do concretely to prevent hate from spilling over into…

Days ago, Buffalo was just another city. Then, in one murderous afternoon, it joined Christchurch, Charleston, and El Paso on the list of places synonymous with hate crimes. That the list keeps growing is testament to our failure to tackle hate speech. We must act now, before the next atrocity. …

Time is slipping away from us. There is no doubt the world must act now to avoid catastrophic ecological collapse. But climate action is being undermined by bad actors seeking to deflect, distract, and deny efforts to save the planet. Disinformation, spread via social media, is their weapon of choice. …

Today we celebrate World Press Freedom Day. It’s a cause close to my own heart, given my background in journalism and career devoted to communications. Despite progress, journalists continue to face a multitude of threats, including censorship, intimidation, and physical attacks. Many work in the fog of wars, and they…