September is known for the annual sessions of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. But this time, most of the activities are being conducted due to Covid-19.This year marks UN’s 75th anniversary, although the collective future of the organization is shrouded in unilateralism, nationalism and populism. The intergovernmental organization should have been the desirable multilateral forum for finding solutions to many of the world’s most pressing problems—from pandemic to nuclear weapons to disruptive technologies to devastating wildfires. That is not the case at the moment. Instead, the global body has been the prisoner of the politics of big powers.

HONG KONG – Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s new book The Room Where It Happened bills itself as “the most comprehensive and substantial account” of President Donald Trump’s administration. And, indeed, it has quickly become a critical resource for those seeking to understand Trump. But, despite Bolton’s juicy revelations about Trump’s conduct of foreign policy (which his administration tried in vain to keep off bookshelves), the book does little to answer the fundamental question facing the US: Is its current foreign-policy muddle Trump’s fault, or the result of something deeper and more structural?