By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 20 June 2023 (IDN)— After years of negotiations, the United Nations has reached an agreement on a Global Ocean Treaty aimed at ensuring the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity which covers over two thirds of the world’s high seas. “You have pumped new life and hope to give […]
South Pacific Is Not in Good Shape Because of Other Peoples’ Wars
By Kalinga Seneviratne SUVA, Fiji, 20 June 2023 (IDN) — In a keynote speech at the annual Pacific Update conference at the University of the South Pacific (USP), the university’s former Dean of the Business and Economic Faculty, and now the Deputy Prime Minister and Economics Minister of the island country, Professor Biman Prasad told […]
The Madness of Missiles, An Ode to Daniel Ellsberg
By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden, 20 June 2023 (IDN) — The nuclear weapon missile business is contradictory, full of missteps, highly dangerous and prepared in its madness (Mutually Assured Destruction, aka MAD, they used to call it in Cold War days) to plunge the world into a nuclear war that could reduce much if not […]
Ugandan Children Targeted in Attack by Known Terror Group
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 19 June 2023 (IDN) — Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is struggling to defend his security forces that failed to block an attack on a secondary school where some 39 students were brutally murdered and others were abducted. Museveni, who is also the commander in chief of armed […]
African Plan to End Ukraine War Turns Out to be a Non-Starter
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 19 June 2023 (IDN) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, among a group of seven African leaders meeting on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, presented an African plan to end the ruinous war between Russia and the Ukraine.
Protesters Occupy South African Bank for ‘Ecocide’
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK, 19 June 2023 (IDN) — Hundreds of climate activists occupied South Africa’s Standard Bank Group this week as it considers new investments into fossil fuels – also known as “dirty energy projects.” “We want Standard Bank to stop putting their investment into fossil fuels and to invest […]
Ukraine’s Counteroffensive with the Youth on Suicide Mission
By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies NEW YORK, 19 June 2023 (IDN) — As Ukraine prepared to launch its much heralded but long delayed counteroffensive, the media published a photograph of a Ukrainian soldier with his finger on his lips, symbolizing the need for secrecy to retain some element of surprise for this […]
India’s Vibrant New Relationship with US—Political, Economic & Military
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 18 June 2023 (IDN) — When India, the world’s largest democracy, was on the verge of taking a dictatorial path in the mid-1970s, the United States expressed its usual anxieties—and held out its usual threats. Back in June 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had not only declared emergency rule, suspended […]
A Pakistani University Employs Artificial Intelligence to Boost Agriculture
By J Nastranis NEW YORK | KARACHI, Pakistan, 18 June 2023 (IDN) — A member institution of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) in Pakistan, the Iqra University, appears to have spared the South Asian country of an impending food crisis, predicted within two years.
The Women Who are Barred from the Negotiating Table…
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, 17 June 2023 (IDN) — Shirley Chisholm, the first Black American woman elected to the US Congress back in 1972, once famously remarked: “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” The legendary remark was a reflection of the gender bias in the US […]