[Guardian] Exclusive: António Guterres says world’s accounting systems should place true value on the environment
AntónioGuterres called for economies to ‘move beyond GDP’ as a measure of economic and societal success. Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters
The global economy must be radically transformed to stop it rewarding pollution and waste, UN secretary general António Guterres has warned.
Speaking to the Guardian after the UN hosted a meeting of leading global economists, Guterres said humanity’s future required the urgent overhaul of the world’s “existing accounting systems” he said were driving the planet to the brink of disaster.
“We must place true value on the environment and go beyond gross domestic product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing. Let us not forget that when we destroy a forest, we are creating GDP. When we overfish, we are creating GDP.”
For decades, politicians and policymakers have prioritised growth – as measured by GDP – as the overarching economic goal.
But critics argue that endless, indiscriminate growth on a planet with finite resources is driving not only the climate and nature crisis but increasing inequality.
Guterres said: “Moving beyond gross domestic product is about measuring the things that really matter to people and their communities. GDP tells us the cost of everything, and the value of nothing. Our world is not a gigantic corporation. Financial decisions should be based on more than a snapshot of profit and loss.”
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In January, the UN held a conference in Geneva titled Beyond GDP attended by senior economists from around the world – including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, leading Indian economist Kaushik Basu and equity expert Nora Lustig.
The trio are part of a group set up by Guterres that has been tasked with devising a new dashboard of measures of economic success that takes “human wellbeing, sustainability and equity” into account.
A report published by the group late last year argued that, as the world wrestled with repeated global shocks over the past two decades, the need for an economic transformation had become increasingly urgent – from the financial crash of 2008 to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It said those events were exacerbated by the “triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution” and, in addition, warned that rapid technological change was upending labour markets and exacerbating growing inequality.
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Detainees are seen at ICE’s Krome Detention Center in Miami in this July 4, 2025 photo. (Photo by Alon Skuy/Getty Images)
“This decision will wipe out the availability of release through bond for tens of thousands of people,” one critic noted.
A divided federal appellate panel ruled Friday in favor of the Trump administration’s policy of locking up most undocumented immigrants without bond, a decision that legal experts called a serious blow to due process.
A three-judge panel of the right-wing 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled 2-1 that President Donald Trump’s reversal of three decades of practice by previous administrations is legally sound under the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). The ruling reverses two lower court orders.
“The text [of the IIRIRA] says what it says, regardless of the decisions of prior administrations,” Judge Edith Jones—an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan—wrote for the majority. “That prior administrations decided to use less than their full enforcement authority… does not mean they lacked the authority to do more.”
Writing in dissent, Judge Dana M. Douglas, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, asserted that “the Congress that passed IIRIRA would be surprised to learn it had also required the detention without bond of two million people. For almost 30 years there was no sign anyone thought it had done so, and nothing in the congressional record or the history of the statute’s enforcement suggests that it did.”
This is a very, very bad decision from one of the two Reagan judges left on the Fifth Circuit, joined by one of the two most extreme Trump appointees on the court.And, it is about the issue I walked through at Law Dork earlier this week, in the context of Minnesota: www.lawdork.com/i/186796727/…
“Nonetheless, the government today asserts the authority and mandate to detain millions of noncitizens in the interior, some of them present here for decades, on the same terms as if they were apprehended at the border,” Douglas added. “No matter that this newly discovered mandate arrives without historical precedent, and in the teeth of one of the core distinctions of immigration law. The overwhelming majority elsewhere have recognized that the government’s position is totally unsupported.”
Past administration generally allowed unauthorized immigrants who had lived in the United States for years to attend bond hearings, at which they had a chance to argue before immigration judges that they posed no flight risk and should be permitted to contest their deportation without detention.
Mandatory detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was generally reserved for convicted criminals or people who recently entered the country illegally.
However, the Trump administration contends that anyone who entered the United States without authorization at any time can be detained pending deportation, with limited discretionary exceptions for humanitarian or public interest cases. As a result, immigrants who have lived in the US for years or even decades are being detained indefinitely, even if they have no criminal records.
According to a POLITICO analysis, more than 360 judges across the country—including dozens of Trump appointees—have rejected the administration’s interpretation of ICE’s detention power, while just 26 sided with the administration.
While US Attorney General Pam Bondi hailed Friday’s ruling as a “significant blow against activist judges who have been undermining our efforts to make America safe again at every turn,” some legal experts said the decision erodes constitutional rights.
“AWFUL news for due process,” American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick said on social media in response to Friday’s ruling. “This decision will wipe out the availability of release through bond for tens of thousands of people detained in or transported to Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi by ICE.”
While Friday’s ruling only applies to those three states, which fall under the 5th Circuit Court’s jurisdiction, there are numerous legal challenges to the administration’s detention policy in courts across the country.
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Alberto Castañeda Mondragón suffered a shattered skull during an arrest by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents last month in Minneapolis. (Photo by Alberto Castañeda Mondragón/GoFundMe)
“They were very racist people,” Alberto Castañeda Mondragón said of his ICE attackers. “No one insulted them… It was their character, their racism toward us, for being immigrants.”
A Mexican man beaten within an inch of his life last month by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is on the mend and on Saturday spoke out to refute what one nurse called the agency’s “laughable” claim that his injuries—which include a skull shattered in eight places and five brain hemorrhages—were self-inflicted.
Alberto Castañeda Mondragón told the Associated Press that ICE agents pulled him from a friend’s car outside a shopping center in St. Paul, Minnesota—where the Trump administration’s ongoing Operation Metro Surge has left two people dead and thousands arrested—on January 8.
The 31-year-old father was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and then savagely assaulted with fists and a steel baton.
“They started beating me right away when they arrested me,” he said.
Castañeda Mondragón was then dragged into an SUV and taken to a holding facility at Ft. Snelling in suburban Minneapolis where he says he was beaten again. He said he pleaded with his attackers to stop, but they just “laughed at me and hit me again.”
“They were very racist people,” he said. “No one insulted them, neither me nor the other person they detained me with. It was their character, their racism toward us, for being immigrants.”
UPDATE: We spoke with Alberto, the man whose 8 skull fractures ICE blamed on a brick wall
He says @ICEgov beat him with the same metal rod they used to smash his friend's car windows
Castañeda Mondragón was taken to the emergency room at Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC) suffering from eight skull fractures, five life-threatening brain hemorrhages, and multiple broken facial bones.
ICE agents told HCMC nurses that Castañeda Mondragón “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall,” a claim his caretakers immediately doubted. A CT scan revealed fractures to the front, back, and both sides of his skull—injuries inconsistent with running into a wall.
“It was laughable, if there was something to laugh about,” one of the nurses told the AP last month on the condition of anonymity. “There was no way this person ran headfirst into a wall.”
“There was never a wall,” Castañeda Mondragón insisted.
Castañeda Mondragón was hospitalized for nearly three weeks. During the first week, he was minimally responsive, disoriented, and heavily sedated. His memory was damaged by the beating—he said he could not initially remember that he had a daughter—and he could not bathe himself after he was discharged from the hospital.
In addition to facing a long road to recovery, Castañeda Mondragón, who has been employed as a driver and a roofer, has been relying upon support from co-workers and his community for food, housing, and healthcare, as he is unable to work and has no health insurance. A GoFundMe page has been launched to solicit donations “for covering medical care and living expenses until he can begin working again.”
“I don’t know why ICE did this to me,” Castañeda Mondragón said in translated remarks on the page. “They did not detain me after the hospital, I am not a criminal, and the doctors say they were untruthful about how the injuries occurred. But I prefer not to fight, I only want to recover, pay my bills, and go back to work.”
On January 23, US District Judge Donovan W. Frank ruled that ICE was unlawfully detaining Castañeda Mondragón and ordered his immediate release.
Frank’s ruling noted that “ICE agents have largely refused to provide information about the cause of [Castañeda Mondragón’s] condition to hospital staff and counsel for [him], stating only that ‘he got his shit rocked’ and that he ran headfirst into a brick wall.”
The ruling also stated that “despite requests by hospital staff, ICE agents have refused to leave the hospital, asserting that [Castañeda Mondragón] is under ICE custody.”
“Two agents have been present at the hospital at all times since January 8, 2026,” the document continues. “ICE agents used handcuffs to shackle [Castañeda Mondragón’s] legs, despite requests from HCMC staff that he not be so restrained. Petitioner is now confined by hospital-issued four-point restraints in an apparent compromise between the providers and agents.”
“Prior to this case, ICE had not provided any explanation for [Castañeda Mondragón’s] arrest or continued detention,” Frank added.
Castañeda Mondragón legally entered the United States in 2022 but reportedly overstayed his visa.
Castañeda Mondragón’s arrest came a day after ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old legal observer Renee Good in Minneapolis. Seventeen days later, Customs and Border Protection officers fatally shot nurse Alex Pretti, who was also 37, in South Minneapolis after disarming him of a legally carried handgun.
The Department of Homeland Security has not announced any investigation into the attack on Castañeda Mondragón, sparking criticism from civil rights advocates and some Democratic elected officials.
Castañeda Mondragón told the AP that he considers himself lucky.
“It’s immense luck to have survived, to be able to be in this country again, to be able to heal, and to try to move forward,” he said. “For me, it’s the best luck in the world.”
But he suffers nightmares that ICE is coming for him.
“You’re left with the nightmare of going to work and being stopped,” Castañeda Mondragón said, “or that you’re buying your food somewhere, your lunch, and they show up and stop you again. They hit you.”
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Jeff Bezos, founder and executive chairman of Amazon, speaks during an event on November 6, 2025 in Miami, Florida.(Photo by Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for America Business Forum)
“Congress made a choice: cut assistance for the most vulnerable to double down on a tax code already favoring dominant firms,” said one progressive think tank.
The tax law that congressional Republicans and US President Donald Trump enacted last summer has proved to be a massive boon for Amazon, slashing the corporate behemoth’s 2025 tax bill even as its profits surged and it moved ahead with mass layoffs that have cost 30,000 workers their jobs since October.
Citing a new securities filing, the Wall Street Journalreported Friday that Amazon’s “current US taxes, an accounting measure of taxes incurred last year, declined to $1.2 billion from $9 billion” while the company’s “pretax US profit increased by 44.5%, to $89.5 billion. On a cash basis, the company paid $2.8 billion in federal income taxes last year after paying more than $7 billion in each of the prior two years.”
The 87% decline in Amazon’s federal tax bill for 2025 was largely attributable to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s corporate-friendly depreciation tax breaks.
The new securities filing comes just days after Amazon confirmed it axed 16,000 corporate jobs as part of what’s believed to be a sweeping effort to replace workers with robots and artificial intelligence models in the coming years.
The Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, noted that the tax benefits that Amazon and other giant corporations are raking in “didn’t come free.”
“The same law slashed Medicaid and the [Affordable Care Act] and is now exacerbating our medical debt crisis,” the organization wrote on social media. “Congress made a choice: cut assistance for the most vulnerable to double down on a tax code already favoring dominant firms.”
In a statement on Friday, Amazon—founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos—said its dramatically lower tax bill “reflects… changes by Congress” purportedly aimed at encouraging “greater investment in the American economy, its innovation, and its workers.”
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) noted Friday that Amazon is one of four companies that “have now disclosed that they collectively received $51 billion in federal tax breaks in 2025, much of that likely from the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that was signed into law by Trump over the summer.”
“The annual financial reports recently released by Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla disclose that these corporations collectively reported $315 billion in US profits for 2025, and collectively paid just 4.9% of that amount in federal corporate income taxes—with Tesla paying exactly zero,” wrote ITEP’s Matthew Gardner. “That amounts to a collective tax savings of $51 billion last year for these four giant multinational corporations, versus what they would have paid if they paid the full 21% federal corporate income tax rate.”
“ Tax cuts pushed through by the Trump administration last year and in 2017 have made it possible for the fastest-growing companies in the world to pay record-low federal income tax rates on their income,” Gardner added. “The tax avoidance of these four companies alone blew a $51 billion hole in the federal budget last year, and this is likely just the tip of the iceberg.”
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US Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, watch the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, on February 6, 2026. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
The vice president attended the opening ceremony in Milan, where people also protested the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Winter Olympics.
US Vice President JD Vance was booed at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Italy on Friday, but at least one widely shared video of it was swiftly scrubbed from X, the social media platform controlled by former Trump administration adviser Elon Musk.
Acyn Torabi, or @Acyn, “is an industrialized viral-video machine,” the Washington Postexplained last year, “grabbing the most eye-catching moments from press conferences and TV news panels, packaging them within seconds into quick highlights, and pushing them to his million followers across X and Bluesky dozens of times a day.”
In this case, Torabi, who’s now senior digital editor at MeidasTouch, reshared a video of the vice president and his wife, Usha Vance, being booed that was initially posted by filmmaker Mick Gzowski.
However, the video was shortly taken down and replaced with the text, “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.”
Noting the development, Torabi, said: “No one should have a copyright on Vance being booed. It belongs to the world.”
As of press time, the footage is still circulating online thanks to other X accounts and across other platforms—including a video shared on Bluesky by MeidasTouch editor in chief Ron Filipkowski.
JD Vance loudly booed at the Winter Olympics today.
The Vances’ unfriendly welcome came after a Friday protest in the streets of Milan over the presence of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the Winter Olympics, with some participants waving “FCK ICE” signs.
The Trump administration has said the ICE agents—whose agency is under fire for its treatment of people across the United States as part of the president’s mass deportation agenda—are helping to provide security for the vice president and other US delegation members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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