By Oritro Karim
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 26 2025 – Ahead of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade on March 24, the United Nations (UN) unveiled a new exhibition examining the themes of equality and transformative solidarity in the context of the African diaspora.

The Stories of Us, curated by the organization of the same name and the UN Outreach Programme on the Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery, features a series of sculptures by the artists Alanis Forde, Francks Deceus, Láolú, Leasho Johnson and Marryam Moma.
The objective of the exhibition was to showcase the importance of inclusivity, culture, progress, and freedom from the perspective of Afro-descendent artists. The history of the transatlantic slave trade, its ramifications, as well as the enduring racism and discrimination that stifles an inclusive future are some of the essential themes in this collection. The sculpture exhibition is open to all visitors in UN Headquarters in New York City until 25 April.

Nigerian artist Láolú explores the origins of the African diaspora, particularly the Yoruba culture, in the sculpture Afromations. This monochromatic piece depicts a series of figures stylized to resemble traditional Yoruba paintings alongside various symbols including eyes, hearts, and a drum.

Additionally, phrases such as “talented”, “beautiful”, “not like us”, “purpose” and “courage” are incorporated in this piece to describe the African diaspora. According to Láolú, this piece is not only a celebration of the Black identity and its origins, but also a response to the loss of culture as a result of racism.

Afromations by Láolú. Credit: Oritro Karim/IPS

“This has become a very important part of my consciousness since I started living outside of West Africa, where I had never experienced the everyday prejudice that exists elsewhere. The memories of those who have become ancestors too soon call on us to stand for and with one another to demand and work for change. In many ways, this sculpture is inspired by our ancestors,” said Láolú

Tanzanian-Nigerian artist Marryam Moma’s sculpture Melanin Machina focuses on themes of technological advancement and community. Several images of people of African descent who have occupied culturally significant roles throughout history can be seen in the piece, including John Lewis, Lauren Tate Baeza, and sisters Zoey and Nola Jones.

These figures are depicted in robotic suits, along a circuit board backdrop and additional computerized elements. It is apparent that the figures are inextricable from the suits, which is a metaphor for the advancement of technology being permanently ingrained in humanity. A multitude of golden symbols can be seen throughout the piece, symbolizing prosperity.

Ashley Shaw Scott Adjaye, the co-founder of The Stories of Us, opined that the piece showcases the hope and uncertainty that technological advancement brings. Adjaye and our IPS correspondent agreed that Melanin Machina shows the dangers of over-reliance on technology as well as an endless array of possibilities for progress.

“The subjects are presented as hybrid forms that embrace technological advances, while prioritising our health, well-being and security. There is often a lot of fear when it comes to technology and how rapidly it is changing the world. In this moment of transformation, we have to embrace and direct technology so that it serves us. Technology is not our master, but we must master it as a tool of human advancement,” said Moma.

Leasho Johnson’s sculpture, Man Standing in a Cane Field, explores the theme of emancipation, with a specific focus on the abolition of slavery in the Americas. The piece features three different abstract portraits, all depicting the different experiences of enslaved Black people.

The first of these portraits depicts the silhouette of a man standing in a thicket of sugar canes. “It is a man, but not quite belonging to himself-the body is a property of industry”, Johnson explained. This portrait shows the exploitation of Black bodies, as well as his lack of autonomy. Additionally, this portion of the sculpture emphasizes the importance of the remembrance of slavery and the decades of strife among people of African descent.

The second portrait shows a man emerging from a cane field, yet finding it difficult to fully disconnect. This symbolizes the difficulty of processing generational trauma and advancing in life. “Even in looking back, he’s still carrying that history with him. It speaks to the journey of transformation that is never immediate- it is an emergence. It is processing and facing the past, in order to move forward”, said Johnson.

The third portrait in this sculpture was inspired by the dancehall artist King Yellowman, depicting a man struggling with health issues, poverty, and discrimination surrounding his albinism. Adjaye remarked to our IPS correspondent that the depiction of the man’s jaw was particularly jarring as it contrasted with the rest of the sculpture and was an immediate point of attention.

This portion shows the repercussions of slavery and the innate value of a person despite immense hardship. Johnson hopes for viewers to take the time to look beyond the surface when looking at themselves and others. “And yet I see (King Yellowman) as someone that erupts with inner value and strength that you experience in how his music creates space for joy, irreverence and the awakening of our bodies – for people to become something more than they are. For me, he is the embodiment of our ability as people to transcend what the stereotypes and current realities expect of us, rooted in our dignity and self-worth,” Johnson said.

Alanis Forde’s sculpture Infinite Journey focuses on themes of personal growth in relation to transformative solidarity. This piece depicts a self-portrait of Forde in which she is lying down and staring at her phone, illustrating the positive aspects of technology and digitization.

Forde is drawn to have several sets of arms and several flowers erupting from her hair. According to Forde, the flowers are representative of her home country, Barbados. Additionally, Forde’s use of pointillism for the subject’s skin and hair establishes the subject as organic and intertwined with both nature and technology. Forde added that this was done to represent “cellular changes” that occur within us all.

“For me the blue dots and transformations have meant both self realisation and the use of an organic armour, of scales, that help me thrive in different settings – speaking to the transformation I also experience as I leave and come back to Barbados. Sometimes we are one thing in one space and something else in another. How can we be our authentic, best selves in all spaces? The digital world allows us to explore that,” said Forde.

Infinite Journey by Alanis Forde. Credit: Oritro Karim/IPS

The final piece in this exhibition is from Haitian artist Francks Deceus, titled Carib-Olympics. This sculpture examines the concept of “Good Trouble”, which “honors global efforts to assert humanity”. It depicts a group of swimmers participating in an Olympics-style swimming race, with a Haitian swimmer at the lead. Swimmers from other nations follow behind.

This represents both the Haitian revolution and the desire for nations with a primarily Black population to achieve economic and social progress. A significant portion of the sculpture depicts several yellow lifesavers, which Adjaye interprets as a representation of international humanitarian aid, which is often unsuccessful in truly advancing development for nations, and rather act as obstacles. Deceus, although open to this interpretation, stated that the yellow lifesavers are representative of the international pressure that unbalanced power dynamics put on people of color.

Deceus told our IPS correspondent that the pool water in this sculpture is “definitely rough ocean water”, representing the struggle for these nations to not only stay afloat but to thrive. Additionally, this acts as a nod to the transatlantic slave trade and the generations that descended from enslaved populations that were brought to colonized lands.

“Haiti has repeatedly been dealt a difficult hand. The historic enslavement of its people left the new independent nation unbearably poor. But this painting reminds us that anything is achievable if we pull together and come together, under one banner,” Deceus explained. “The swimming pool shows that when the barriers of segregation come down and there is opportunity, breakthrough success follows…And even as we have shared direction, we have our shared journeys, and it is through the learning of those different experiences that we discover empathy and solidarity”.

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By Alon Ben-Meir
NEW YORK, Mar 26 2025 – On March 26, Israel and Egypt celebrated the 46th anniversary of their peace treaty, which has upended the very nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Egypt remains pivotal in the search for Israeli-Palestinian peace, especially now in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.

US President Ronald Reagan and Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat at a press briefing, August 1981. Courtesy Ronald Reagan Library.

It is hard to exaggerate the late Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat’s courage when he journeyed to Israel with an olive branch in November 1977. Only a decade before, Egypt’s first President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, fervently and categorically rejected Israel’s very existence, stating, “We will not accept any… coexistence with Israel.”

Ending the 1973 Yom Kippur War with the return of the Sinai to Egypt without making a significant concession to Israel, made it possible for Sadat ‘to claim victory,’ which strengthened his standing in the eyes of the public and allowed him to later travel to Israel as a ‘victor.’ He was received in Israel as a great statesman with an honor guard, creating an indelible mark in the minds of Israelis and Egyptians alike.

Sadat’s visionary leadership, matched by Prime Minister Menachem Begin, and President Carter’s determination to seize the hour and mediate between them, paved the way for the historic Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, signed on March 26, 1979. The treaty has endured for the past 46 years because, from its inception, it has served the long- and short-term geostrategic interests and mutual economic and security benefits of both countries.

Although Egyptian and Israeli governments have changed hands several times over the past 46 years, both sides continue to fully adhere to the treaty’s terms, recognizing its crucial geostrategic importance for their respective countries. Thus, the treaty withstood the test of time despite regional instability and the continuing violent Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The treaty has transcended its monumental implications and benefits for Israel and Egypt. It has fundamentally changed the psychological and political dimensions of the Arab-Israeli conflict as it began to resonate among the Arab states after nearly a decade of chastising and sanctioning Egypt for breaking the Arab world’s bloc of enmity against Israel.

Preventing an Arab-Israeli war

With the signing of the treaty, it became clear that Israeli-Egyptian peace would prevent any possibility of an all-out Arab-Israeli war. Egypt has been and continues to be the strongest Arab country militarily, and without it, the Arab states would not start a war against Israel that would surely end in utter defeat.

Without the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, it would have been inconceivable that any of these peace agreements would be established. In 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) established a framework for peace and mutual recognition. In 1994, Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty.

In 2002, Saudi Arabia introduced the Arab Peace Initiative (API), adopted by the Council of Arab States, which de facto recognized Israel’s right to exist, albeit conditional upon the establishment of a Palestinian state. And in late 2020 and early 2021, the Abraham Accords were signed between Israel and, individually, the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

That is, the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty changed the trajectory of the Arab-Israeli conflict in that it psychologically adjusted the Arab States’ mindset toward Israel’s irrevocable existence and opened the door for a political solution, albeit slowly given the continuing conflict with the Palestinians.

Although Saudi Arabia has gained greater prominence in Arab affairs than Egypt over the past decade, Egypt remains central in the search for Israeli-Palestinian peace regardless of its ultimate contour, especially now in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. Without Egypt’s direct involvement and consent about Gaza’s future in the context of Israeli-Palestinian peace, no solution can be achieved.

Egypt has traditionally been involved directly and indirectly in Gaza. It was in control of Gaza until Israel conquered the enclave during the 1967 Six-Day War and has been engaged time and again in mediating the repeating conflagrations between Israel and Hamas.

At no time, however, has Egypt been more directly involved in the Israel-Hamas conflict than it has since Hamas’ October 2023 attack and Israel’s war of retaliation. Regardless of the eventual outcome of this conflict, Egypt will be affected directly, and hence, it has every right to play a direct role in shaping the ultimate solution.

Today, the question is whether Egypt’s President Sisi will show the same courage as Sadat to take the lead and use the 46th anniversary as a turning point, starting by insisting on a framework for the future of Gaza in the context of ending the Israel-Hamas war and ultimately the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Arab Summit in Cairo, held on March 4, which included Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, endorsed Egypt’s comprehensive plan for Gaza’s reconstruction, which aims to rebuild the territory over five years at a cost of $53 billion without displacing its residents. The plan excludes Hamas from future governance, proposing instead a technocratic Palestinian committee under the Palestinian Authority’s oversight.

It emphasizes the need for security, training Palestinian forces, and international support, including potential UN peacekeeping forces. The plan also categorically rejected Trump’s outlandish idea to relocate Palestinians and transform Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Given that Israel will be affected by any plans regarding the future of Gaza, President Sisi should begin to conduct bilateral discussions with Israel to establish exit plans for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza in several stages. Egypt is in a position to disabuse Israel from ever entertaining the idea of exiling the Palestinians from Gaza, threatening that this would jeopardize the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Following the Arab Summit, President Sisi said, “The time has come to adopt a serious and effective political pathway that leads to a fair and lasting solution for the Palestinian cause, in accordance to the resolutions of international legitimacy. I have faith that President Trump is capable of doing this.”

Although both Israel and Egypt would like to see Hamas eliminated, they also know that it would be out of their reach as Hamas will remain a relevant player that cannot be discarded. The summit has not ruled out some role for Hamas in implementing the Egyptian initiative.

Indeed, given how battered Hamas is following 17 months of war that devasted much of its armed forces and laid two-thirds of Gaza in ruin, Hamas began in recent weeks to send mixed signals about its future in Gaza. It has shown a willingness to discuss demilitarization as an end goal of a peace process.

Hamas official Husam Badran said that the group was willing to step aside from governing, stating that “Our only condition is for this to be an internal Palestinian matter… As long as there is a national consensus, Hamas will not be involved in the governance.”

The historic Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty remains the bedrock of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. The main obstacle to achieving this still is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No one is in a better place than President Sisi, who can use Egypt’s indispensable role to advance the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, starting with the establishment of an end-game to the war in Gaza.

There is no time better than now to move aggressively toward that end as Egypt and Israel celebrate the 46th anniversary of their peace agreement. Can Sisi rise to the occasion and match Sadat’s vision and courage?

Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He taught courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

IPS UN Bureau

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By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 26 2025 – The Trump administration, spearheaded by senior adviser Elon Musk, has been on a wild rampage: mass layoffs of government employees, gutting federal agencies, dismantling the Department of Education and USAID, defying a federal judge and threatening universities with drastic cuts in grants and contracts—decisions mostly engineered by the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Perhaps with more to come.

The cuts were best symbolized with an image of Musk wielding a heavy chainsaw aimed at slashing “wasteful spending”

But the layoffs and subsequent reversals– the on-again, off-again decisions– have triggered chaos in the nation’s capital.

And political outrage is fast becoming the norm.

Musk, the tech billionaire, who acts as a virtual Prime Minister to President Trump, has called on the U.S. to exit the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations.

“I agree,” he wrote in response to a post from a right-wing political commentator, saying “it’s time” for the U.S. to leave NATO and the UN.”

The threat against the UN has been reinforced following a move by several Republican lawmakers who have submitted a bill on the U.S. exit from the U.N., claiming that the organization does not align with the Trump administration’s “America First” agenda.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/no-sane-country-would-stand-this-lawmakers-launch-effort-withdraw-u-s-from-united-nations

What’s next?

The abrogation of the 1947 US-UN Headquarters Agreement?

That 78-year-old agreement helped establish the world body in a former decrepit slaughter house in Turtle Bay New York.

The Agreement is an international treaty, and under international law, treaties are generally binding on the parties that sign them. However, the U.S. has a constitutional process for withdrawing from treaties.

In an article in the Wall Street Journal March 14, titled “The U.N. Is Ripping America Off in New York”, Eugene Kontorovich, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a professor at George Mason University School of Law, points out the U.S. offered to host the newly-created U.N. after World War II, amid a wave of optimism about the organization’s ability to prevent future wars.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated the land, and the headquarters was given an interstate-free loan from Washington that would be worth billions today.

The United Nations shall not be moved unless the headquarters district ceases to be used for that purpose, the agreement says. Some U.N. officials have taken this to mean the U.N. can’t be evicted.

“But the agreement is a treaty, and the default rule of international law is that treaties, unless they say otherwise, last as long as the parties wish. If the U.S. cancels the treaty, the entire arrangement disappears, nothing in the treaty’s text prohibits withdrawal. Indeed, had an irrevocable agreement been intended, (the US) Congress, which is needed to approve treaties, would not have allowed the agreement to pass without making it explicit”.

While the treaty refers to the “permanent” headquarters of the U.N., this simply means “durable.” Many international treaties use “permanent” in this way, to mean long-lasting, not eternal. The Permanent International Court of Justice lasted from 1922-46.

“Trump should reopen the 1947 agreement locating its headquarters. It was a terrible real-estate deal”, declared Kontorovich

Dr. Stephen Zunes, a Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of San Francisco, told IPS removing the United Nations headquarters from the United States has long been advocated by the far right and generally dismissed as a fringe idea not to be taken seriously.

However, as the Trump administration has already demonstrated, even the most extreme ideologically-driven proposals can indeed end up being implemented as policy, he said.

“The United States has not always upheld its obligations under the treaty, such as in 1988 when the Reagan administration refused to allow PLO chairman Yasir Arafat to address the world body, resulting in the entire General Assembly relocating to Geneva to hear his speech”.

Removing the United Nations headquarters from the United States, he argued, “would symbolize the end of the global leadership we have had since the end of World War II when the victorious allies established the world body.”

Along with the Trump administration’s decision to disestablish the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Fulbright Program, and other symbols of American leadership internationally, it would end any semblance of the United States remaining a preeminent force in international cooperation.

At the same time, the United States has increasingly become an outlier when it comes to the international community rather than a leader or partner.

“This is true even under Democratic administrations, as indicated by Biden’s rogue positions in regard to Israel’s war on Gaza, Palestinian statehood, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and other UN institutions.”

Having the UN headquarters in a more neutral location may end up being for the best, said Dr Zunes, who has written extensively on the politics of the United Nations.

So far, the US has withdrawn from the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), while it has warned that two other UN organizations “deserve renewed scrutiny”– the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—a warning seen as a veiled threat of US withdrawal from the two UN agencies.

Meanwhile, the United States has cut $377 million worth of funding to the UN reproductive and sexual health agency, UNFPA.

Giving an indication of UN agencies moving some of their functions out of the US, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters at a briefing last month: “We have been investing in Nairobi, creating the conditions for Nairobi to receive services that are now in more expensive locations”.

“And UNICEF will be transferring soon some of the functions to Nairobi. And UNFPA will be essentially moving to Nairobi. And I can give you many other examples of things that are being done and correspond to the idea that we must be effective and cost-effective,” he said.

Asked about the possible withdrawal of the US from the world body, Martin S. Edwards, Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs, School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, told IPS it would not be clear what the intent of this move would be.

In fact, what is certain, he pointed out, is that it would be a mistake of gigantic proportions. The Trump administration, solely to curry favor with some small fraction of its base, would be handing a huge diplomatic victory to China, who would not hesitate to jump at the chance to host the UN.

“And even this White House has to see that, so I don’t see this as advancing US interests in any form. On the contrary, had the White House thought the UN as unimportant, they wouldn’t have designated Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador,” he declared.

A report in the Washington Examiner last January said Stefanik, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, and the US Ambassador-elect to the UN, has vowed to utilize her skills as a lawmaker to scrutinize the funding provided to the U.N. and cut the budget provided if necessary.

“As a member of Congress, I also understand deeply that we must be good stewards of U.S. taxpayer dollars,” Stefanik said. “The U.S. is the largest contributor to the U.N. by far. Our tax dollars should not be complicit in propping up entities that are counter to American interests, antisemitic, or engaging in fraud, corruption, or terrorism.”

As the largest single contributor, the US currently pays 22% of the United Nations’ regular budget and 27% of the peacekeeping budget. Still, the US owes $1.5 billion to the UN’s regular budget.

And, between the regular budget, the peacekeeping budget, and international tribunals, the total amount the US owes is $2.8 billion.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Jomo Kwame Sundaram
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Mar 26 2025 – The World Bank set its US ‘dollar-a-day’ poverty line using its 1990 data. Despite many doubts and criticisms, its poverty numbers fell until the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020.

Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Cash measures
The Bank claimed credit for reducing poverty in the three decades before 2020, mainly due to rapid growth in China. But official poverty estimates elsewhere have generally declined more slowly, if at all.

Poverty has long been seen in terms of inequality, as people generally feel poorer compared to others. Meanwhile, explanations of poverty differ considerably, with many calling for better policy measures.

For decades, the Bank refused to address inequality, focusing instead on poverty. Efforts to improve poverty measurement have long been driven by the belief that policy cannot be improved without better estimating it.

Measuring or estimating cash incomes has inevitably been prioritised. But the focus on money incomes poses problems. Money measures of poverty can be helpful but also deceptive. For instance, many children from urban households with incomes above the poverty line remain undernourished.

However, incomes above any arbitrarily set poverty line do not necessarily ensure well-being. This has generated interest in poverty indicators other than money incomes.

Such criticisms reflect a money fetish and the widespread practice of measuring welfare, well-being and poverty in cash terms. Recognising the value of other poverty indicators is now uncontroversial.

Dimensions of poverty
Yet many still want a single composite multidimensional poverty index despite its well-known problems. A dashboard of several key dimensions of poverty, rather than a single composite index, offers much more relevant information to improve policymaking.

Aware of such problems and limitations, OECD and UN Member States have not approved of composite indices. Neither adopted the pioneering work on composite indices by the most influential statistician of both bodies.

Composite indices, such as the human development index, have only been adopted and used by UN funds and programmes, which do not require Member State approval or review.

Meanwhile, lower infant and maternal mortality have accounted for over 80% of improved life expectancy in many developing countries. Low-cost reforms for safer pregnancies and births have significantly extended average life spans at low cost.

Food security
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has long defined food-secure households as those with enough income to afford enough carbohydrates or dietary energy (typically measured in calories or joules) for a sedentary lifestyle.

Despite this low bar and its methodological problems and limitations, undernourished or ‘food-insecure’ households have increased worldwide since 2014, growing for years while the World Bank’s estimate of poor households continued to decline!

According to the Bank, the number of poor worldwide only increased for the first time since the 1990s during the pandemic, both absolutely and relatively. This discrepancy between multilateral poverty and undernourishment trends has triggered debates over the significance of different well-being and deprivation measures.

Various controversies and doubts about Bank poverty numbers have prompted many to regard undernourishment as a better indicator of deprivation and lack of well-being than the poverty measure.

Although income inequality trends are moot and the subject of much dispute and controversy, disparities worldwide have risen again in recent years.

Meanwhile, dollar billionaires have proliferated worldwide as inequality has worsened. As income and wealth inequalities worsen, some convergences have also occurred, causing both trends to be mixed and uneven.

With rural impoverishment spreading worldwide, urbanisation has grown while reducing rural food production for household subsistence consumption. Rural households typically produced food for own consumption by breeding animals, harvesting fruits and vegetables, or even gathering food available nearby.

However, urban areas offer far fewer subsistence production and consumption opportunities. Cash incomes and spending increasingly determine food consumption, including personal nourishment.

Nutrition matters
As man does not live by bread (‘carbs’, i.e., dietary energy from carbohydrates) alone, a more holistic approach requires a more comprehensive approach to human nutrition.

Comparisons of the physical development of children of food producers and cash croppers suggest that household money incomes have not always determined the nutritional status of many.

Food producers’ children are generally better off than those of cash croppers. Why? Probably, food producers are far more likely to provide adequate nourishment to their families regardless of cash incomes.

Thus, children of food producers meet many of their food needs without buying them on the market. Hence, the common presumption that higher cash incomes ensure well-being, including nutrition, is doubtful.

Malnutrition challenges our understanding of well-being and its complex determinants. Many now suffer malnutrition, not only due to both macro and micro-nutrient deprivation but also due to the growing significance of diet-related non-communicable diseases.

As with obesity and overweight, diabetes incidence has risen with new consumer preferences. Incomes, the media, and other influences increasingly shape lifestyles with significant consequences for nutrition and health, many of which are perverse.

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What started with a ‘salty’ cup of tea ended with one couple losing their home to climate-change-induced rising sea levels. Solutions, like sea walls, restoration of mangroves, and water management, are too slow to stop the ruin of once-thriving coastal communities.