We have updated our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use for Eurasia Group and its affiliates, including GZERO Media, to clarify the types of data we collect, how we collect it, how we use data and with whom we share data. By using our website you consent to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, including the transfer of your personal data to the United States from your country of residence, and our use of cookies described in our Cookie Policy.
Peace in Ukraine is world's priority, says UN chief António Guterres
As the 78th annual UN General Assembly week gets underway in New York—bringing diplomats, ministers, and heads of state together— there is a growing divide in the international community over Ukraine. In the US we’ve heard rumblings from GOP candidates about decreasing or stopping aid, and the once favorable opinion among Americans for continued support has dropped.
Leaders from the Global South, such as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, are calling for a shift in focus away from Europe to getting international development back on track, to talking about debt relief and increasing access to financing. They want to see real progress on the much-vaunted “Sustainable Development Goals” that member nations have vowed to accomplish by 2030. What they don’t want to do is to spend the entire week talking about a distant European war.
But, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres tells Ian Bremmer in an exclusive interview for GZERO World, ending the war in Ukraine is the top priority. “The single most important thing is to have peace in Ukraine," Guterres tells Ian. "The war in Ukraine is a complicating factor of everything else, so the first thing that we need is to stop that war.”
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
- Podcast: UN Secretary-General António Guterres explains why peace in Ukraine is his top priority ›
- How a war-distracted world staves off irreversible damage ›
- António Guterres: Ukraine war united NATO, but further divided the world ›
- An interview with UN Secretary-General António Guterres ›
- UN chief: We must avoid the mistakes that led to World War I - GZERO Media ›
Latest
Is AI's "intelligence" an illusion?
Is ChatGPT all it’s cracked up to be? Will truth survive the evolution of artificial intelligence?
On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, cognitive scientist and AI researcher Gary Marcus breaks down the recent advances––and inherent risks––of generative AI.
AI-powered, large language model tools like the text-to-text generator ChatGPT or the text-to-image generator Midjourney can do magical things like write a college term paper in Klingon or instantly create nine images of a slice of bread ascending to heaven.
But there’s still a lot they can’t do: namely, they have a pretty hard time with the concept of truth, often presenting inaccurate or plainly false information as facts. As generative AI becomes more widespread, it will undoubtedly change the way we live, in both good ways and bad.
“Large language models are actually special in their unreliability,” Marcus says on GZERO World, “They're arguably the most versatile AI technique that's ever been developed, but they're also the least reliable AI technique that's ever gone mainstream.”
Marcus sits down with Ian Bremmer to talk about the underlying technology behind generative AI, how it differs from the “good old-fashioned AI” of previous generations, and what effective, global AI regulation might look like.
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Modern antisemitism on the rise
Antisemitism is nothing new. An ancient Greek historian in the second century BCE railed against the “ridiculous practices” of the Jews and the “absurdity of their law.”
But lately, it feels like an ugly trend is back in fashion. And the numbers back that up. The Anti-Defamation League found 3,700 instances of antisemitic harassment, vandalism, or assault around the country last year, the highest number in its 43 years of tracking. And then there was the horrific attack at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, which killed 11 people and remains the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the United States.
At what point do extremist politics—whether on the Right OR Left—become hate? And where do you draw the line between criticizing Israeli policies and being antisemitic? To help Ian Bremmer wade through these difficult questions is the Israeli actress, writer, and activist Noa Tishby. She served as Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism before Prime Minister Netanyahu dismissed her for speaking out against his controversial judicial reform agenda.
And later, an early look at a new film about one of Israel’s most controversial leaders (present Prime Minister excluded). Golda Meir, Israel's first and still only female prime minister, was beloved until her handling of the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Now a new film starring Helen Mirren tries to reframe her tarnished legacy.
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
China’s economy in trouble
China’s economy has averaged about 10% annual growth year over year for the past four decades. It’s undoubtedly the biggest economic success story of our lifetime, but how long can that last?
Shaun Rein, founder and managing director of the Shanghai-based China Market Research Group, sits down with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World to talk China's post-COVID recovery, Xi's crackdown on the private sector, and why the last year has turned him from a bull to a bear on China's economic outlook.
Annual GDP growth has been on a relative decline since 2010, barring a big jump coming out of the pandemic. Decades of infrastructure investment have left local governments drowning in debt. Almost three years of zero-COVID politics ground China’s economy to a halt. Youth unemployment is surging to record highs and expected to keep climbing.
At the same time, President Xi Jinping is moving China away from the pro-investment policies of his predecessors in favor of ideological and national security priorities. But public support for China’s Communist Party is starting to show cracks, especially among citizens in wealthy cities who experienced the brunt of China’s brutal zero-COVID policies.
Can communist ideology mixed with capitalist ambition sustain growth into the future? Is Xi setting up China for another 4 decades of economic success? And what do China’s citizens make of its return to socialist roots?
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Ukraine's counteroffensive on the brink
In the year and a half since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it has felt like the momentum has consistently been with Ukraine and its Western backers. But is that beginning to change? Months into the long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive, Kyiv has little to show for its military push. So why hasn't it been more effective?
While it looks like Ukraine’s military has recently launched a major thrust towards the south towards the Sea of Azov, the tide of war has yet to meaningfully change. So why haven’t the Ukrainians managed to do more, and to do it faster? And if a military resolution to the conflict isn’t coming any time soon, could a diplomatic solution be back on the table? Ian Bremmer addresses these questions with former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch on GZERO World.
The two discuss a range of topics, from the state of the counteroffensive to whether a diplomatic resolution to the war is still possible. They also look back at Yevgeny Prigozhin's failed--or aborted, or curtailed--coup. Yovanovitch, for one, doesn't think that story is over by a long shot.
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Russia, Sudan & the power of diplomacy
Can diplomacy solve the world’s most urgent crises?
GZERO World travels to UN headquarters in New York for a special conversation with US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield ahead of the United States taking over the presidency of the Security Council for the month of August.
The United States has a lot of priorities for the session, including food security, human rights, and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. But with Russia a permanent, veto-wielding member of one of the world’s most powerful diplomatic bodies, how much can really get done?
“What Russia is doing undermines everything that the UN stands for,” Thomas-Greenfield told Bremmer in an interview with Ian Bremmer from the floor of the Security Council chamber. “They are undermining the work of this council by carrying out this unprovoked war on Ukraine.”
Thomas-Greenfield spoke with Bremmer about the contentious relationship with Russia, worries about the world’s food supply after the collapse of the Black Sea grain deal, and the urgency of addressing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
Can the countries of the world put aside their differences and competing interests to effectively deal with the most pressing international security challenges? And what else does the US hope to accomplish during its Council presidency in August?
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Politics, trust & the media in the age of misinformation
Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, GZERO World takes a hard look at the media’s impact on politics and democracy itself.
In 1964, philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase, “the media is the message.” He meant that the way content is delivered can be more powerful than the content itself.
A lot’s changed since 1964, but the problem has only gotten worse. The ‘80s and ‘90s saw the rise of a 24/7 cable news cycle and hyper-partisan radio talk shows. The 21st century has thus far given us podcasts, political influencers, and the endless doom scroll of social media. And now, we’re entering the age of generative AI.
All of this has created the perfect ecosystem for information––and disinformation––overload. But there might be a bright spot at the end of the tunnel. In the world where it’s getting harder and harder to tell fact from fiction, news organizations, credible journalists, and fact-checkers will be more important than ever.
How has media changed our idea of truth and reality? And how can we better prepare ourselves for the onslaught of misinformation and disinformation that is almost certain to spread online as the 2024 US presidential election gets closer? Can trust in American’s so-called “Fourth Estate” be restored?
Ian Bremmer sits down with journalist and former CNN host Brian Stelter and Nicole Hemmer, a Vanderbilt University professor specializing in political history and partisan media.
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld or on US public television. Check local listings.
Most Popular
Is it time for the US government to rethink how it keeps its secrets?
Here’s one of the United States' worst-kept secrets: its flawed classification process. Whether it’s the unnecessary classification of material or the storage of top-secret documents behind a flimsy shower curtain in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom, it’s crucial to address our approach to confidentiality. Joining GZERO World to discuss all things classified, including those documents in Trump’s bathroom, is former Congresswoman Jane Harman. As the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee after 9/11, the nine-term congresswoman has insider knowledge of the matter.
India is not a US ally ... or is it?
If the United States and India were to ever make it Facebook official, their status would be: "It's Complicated." These two global behemoths may seem like close allies, especially judging by the warm welcome President Biden gave Prime Minister Modi during his White House visit in June, but in reality, they are anything but best friends.
Putin's endgame in Ukraine
We still have a lot more questions than answers about Vladimir Putin’s political future and Russia’s war in Ukraine after Wagner Group head Yevgevny Prigozhin’s 24-hour attempted mutiny and subsequent exile to Belarus. On the first episode of GZERO World’s newest season, Ian Bremmer spoke with former Carnegie Moscow Center director and Kremlin ally Dmitri Trenin about the Russian view of the war and Putin’s endgame in Ukraine, just hours before Prigozhin announced his armed rebellion.
GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Season 6 preview
GZERO's US public television show, GZERO World with Ian Bremmer is launching its sixth season on Friday, June 30. Ian Bremmer shares a preview of some of the fascinating guests lined up for the season's first few episodes.
Episodes
Who polices the Supreme Court?
Who watches the watchmen? And who oversees the US Supreme Court? As SCOTUS, the highest court in the US, gears up to issue some blockbuster rulings this summer, ethical concerns swirl around its members, and its public support is at an all-time low. Ian Bremmer talks with Yale Law School legal expert, New York Times Magazine columnist and co-host of the Slate’s Political Gabfest podcast, Emily Bazelon.
World Bank's David Malpass on global debt & economic inequality
The world has a huge debt problem. Economic growth is slowing, but global debt is skyrocketing. David Malpass sits down with Ian Bremmer on GZERO World for his final interview as president of the World Bank Group to discuss the debt crisis, his tenure at the World Bank, and solutions for combatting growing economic inequality.
The road to repair: Pete Buttigieg & crumbling US infrastructure
The richest country in the history of the world should be able to keep its infrastructure updated and its roads intact. Congress passed the Biden administration’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which includes $550 billion dollars for America’s roads, bridges, mass transit, rail, airports, and ports. On GZERO World, Secretary Pete Buttigieg discusses what he has called "the single largest dedicated bridge investment since the construction of the Interstate highway system."
Republican identity crisis: Chris Christie vs. Donald Trump
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie shares his views about the 2024 GOP primary and Trump: "I think there's one lane for the nomination, and right now Donald Trump's in the front of that lane." Christie says that "to get in the front of that lane, you better intervene and go right through him because, otherwise, trying to go around him? I don't think it's a strategy."