By Jan Servaes* BRUSSELS | 28 April 2025 (IDN) — The debate on migration has calmed down a bit in the news media. However, this does not mean that the issue has been ‘solved’. Quite the opposite. In most discussions about migration, we tend to start with numbers. Understanding the scale changes, emerging trends and […]
The Sad Demise of the Painstakingly Constructed World Trading System
By Dr Palitha Kohona The writer was the Former Sri Lankan Ambassador to China and one-time Permanent Representative to the United Nations. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 28 April 2025 (IDN) — We may very well be witnessing the flickering embers of a painstakingly assembled global trading system being callously extinguished by President Trump with brutal […]
Waiting for an African Pope
By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It. ABUJA, Nigeria | 27 April 2025 (IDN) — It’s nothing to laugh off, however tempting. If the movies imitate life, we may not be as far away from an African pope. It happened in The Conclave, […]
Peace Corps: The Third Rail of US Global Development Assistance
By Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir* MARRAKECH, Morocco | 27 April 2025 (IDN) ― Whereas there has been broad consensus that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is in need of reform, there is also an even wider and more deeply held belief that the value of Peace Corps ― begun in 1961 ― is […]
Trump’s First 100 Days an Assault on Rights
By Human Rights Watch WAHINGTON DC | 27 April 2025 (IDN) — The Trump administration’s first 100 days in office have been a relentless barrage of actions that violate, threaten, or undermine the human rights of people in the United States and abroad, Human Rights Watch said today. To illustrate the breadth and depth of […]
Rising Global Debt Requires Countries to Put their Fiscal House in Order
By Era Dabla-Norris, Vitor Gaspar, Marcos Poplawski-Ribeiro WASHINGTON, D.C. | 26 April 2025 (IDN) — Major policy shifts underway have heightened global uncertainty. The series of recent tariff announcements by the United States, and countermeasures by other countries have increased financial market volatility, weakened growth prospects, and increased risks. They come in the context of […]
Stickergate: A Bell that Tolls for All
By Tisaranee Gunasekara* “This isn’t just about Palestine, it’s about everyone’s right to dissent…” Clare Hinchcliffe (Middle East Eye, 20.3.2025). COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 26 April 2025 (IDN) — Zoë Rogers is 21, English, a dog-lover. In August 2024, she, together with five others, crashed a modified prison van into Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons […]
America: The End of Democracy and into the Abyss?
By Seevali Abeysekera* LONDON | 25 April 2025 (IDN) — Before the American presidential election in 2020, I published an article, ”America — the end is nigh”, whose last sentences were: ”A civil war and disintegration of America is thus a real possibility. History has shown us that great empires eventually collapse due to their […]
AUKUS and the Strategic Reconfiguration of the South China Sea: The Emerging Role of HMAS Stirling
By Leonam dos Santos Guimarães* RIO DE JANEIRO | 25 April 2025 (IDN) — The establishment of the AUKUS trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States in 2021 constitutes a profound reconfiguration of the strategic landscape in the South China Sea and the broader Indo-Pacific region. Aimed at enhancing Australia’s […]
Emerging Risks to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Test Ban Regime
By Leonam dos Santos Guimarães* RIO DE JANEIRO | 24 April 2025 (IDN) — Since 2020, the international nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear test ban regime has encountered unprecedented and systemic challenges. The resurgence of geopolitical rivalries, the modernization and expansion of nuclear arsenals, and the erosion of long-standing arms control commitments have brought nuclear weapons […]