The heads of state and government of the seven leading industrial countries will gather in Germany on June 7 and June 8 to discuss the most pressing global challenges. The Group of Seven countries are linked not only by prosperity and economic strength, but also by their shared values: freedom, democracy and human rights. Anyone doubting that there is a point to such summits need only look to the world’s trouble spots to realize that there is a need, indeed a duty, to co-operate intensively to find joint solutions.

U.N.: A military defeat of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq could scatter extremists around the globe. Would the world be a safer place if the United States and its allies were to defeat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria? Not necessarily, according to a senior U.N. counterterrorism official. Extremist fighters have proven remarkably adept over the past three decades at transforming themselves at the close of battles.

In the hilltop village of Murehe, electricity is an exotic and faraway rumour. Like 97 per cent of the population in Burundi, one of the world’s poorest countries, the villagers here rely on candles and kerosene for a dim and flickering light. [...] What’s even more significant is how the village got its lamps. This wasn’t a traditional charity giveaway – the old-fashioned type of foreign aid. Instead, there was a business plan, technical innovation, a system of income generation with village enterprises and a partnership with a profit-making company.

Within a global society increasingly vexed by income inequality, conflict and environmental challenges, he and other event participants argued that the only smart long-term businessmove is to demonstrate a tangible commitment to the larger good. 

The UK government’s humanitarian response package for the Nepal earthquake now stands at £22.8 million, following a contribution to the United Nations’ emergency appeal, International Development Secretary Justine Greening announced today. Britain has released a new £5.3 million support package to the UN following their ‘Flash Appeal’ to provide additional help to people affected by the devastating 7.8 magnitude Nepal earthquake. 

The UN's humanitarian chief has said she is "extremely concerned" that Nepal's customs authorities are slowing the delivery of earthquake aid, as the death toll from the disaster crossed 7,000 on Sunday. After the government ruled out finding more survivors buried in the ruins of the capital Kathmandu, the focus was shifting to delivering aid to families and others in far-flung areas of the devastated nation

Over the next year, the United Nations will make a critical choice. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s term ends Dec. 31, 2016, and a new leader will replace him. In the past, the election of a successor has taken place in the fall of a secretary-general’s final year in office, but the debate is heating up early this time around.Since the birth of the United Nations in 1945, eight men, from Norway, Sweden, Burma (or Myanmar), Austria, Peru, Egypt, Ghana and South Korea have held this important post. The next secretary-general should be a woman.

The United States has been privately leaning on France and other allies to hold off on pushing a measure at the U.N. Security Council that is designed to force movement on the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process at least until negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program have concluded, diplomats told Foreign Policy.