By Jamshed Baruah NEW YORK (IDN) — In the face of dramatic reversals in global progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), urgent action is required by the international community to improve developing countries’ access to affordable finance. Inaugurating the four-day Forum on Financing for Development (FfD Forum) on April 25, ECOSOC President Mr. […]
World Military Spending Hits a New High of Over $2.1 Trillion—For the First Time
By Thalif Deen NEW YORK (IDN) — World military spending hit a new all-time high last year reaching a staggering $2.1 trillion—for the first time ever. The five largest spenders in 2021 were the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and Russia, together accounting for 62 per cent of expenditure, according to the latest […]
A Staged Default: Sri Lanka’s Sovereign Bond Debt Trap and IMF’s Spring Meetings Amid Hybrid Cold War – Part 3
This is the second in a series of three articles. Please click here for Part 2. Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake * An Unsinkable Aircraft carrier? Asset stripping a strategic island COLOMBO (IDN) — Former US Under Secretary for South and Central Asia, Alice G. Well, a few years ago called Sri Lanka a “valuable piece […]
A Staged Default: Sri Lanka’s Sovereign Bond Debt Trap and IMF’s Spring Meetings Amid Hybrid Cold War – Part 2
This is the second in a series of three articles. Please click here for Part 1. Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake * Sri Lanka a theatre of US proxy war in the Indian Ocean Region? COLOMBO (IDN) — Like Lebanon, once known as the Paris of the Middle East, Sri Lanka is a relatively wealthy country […]
A Staged Default: Sri Lanka’s Sovereign Bond Debt Trap and IMF’s Spring Meetings Amid Hybrid Cold War – Part 1
This is the first in a series of three articles. Viewpoint by Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake * Debt cancellation, not asset stripping is the need of the hour! COLOMBO (IDN) — In Cherry Blossom lined Washington DC in the glare of global media April 18-23 Sri Lanka became the poster child of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF), […]
Caribbean Foreign Relations and Super-Power Politics of Putin’s Ukraine War
Viewpoint by P.I. Gomes Dr P.I. Gomes is retired Ambassador of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana to the Kingdom of Belgium and the European Union and former Secretary-General of ACP Group of State, now the Organisation of African, the Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS). PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago (IDN) — Recent events of […]
UN Condemns UK Plan to Dump Asylum-Seeking Refugees in Rwanda
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has joined other human rights groups in protesting plans by the United Kingdom to dump migrants and asylum-seekers who cross the Channel thousands of miles away to Rwanda as the government tries to cut the record numbers of people […]
A Coastal South African Province Experiences Threat Posed by Climate Change
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | DURBAN (IDN) — Record-breaking levels of rainfall threaten a new round of flooding and landslides in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal. Already, the calamity has taken over 400 lives, left some 40,000 homeless, with an economic cost yet to be tallied. Weather forecasters and climate scientists, speaking to […]
A Congolese Immigrant Family in the US Confronts Police Shooting Like the Executions Back Home
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — When Patrick Lyoya, a Congolese immigrant, died at the hands of a police officer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, his life was cut down by violence much like the home-grown executions Congolese have been facing in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) for years. Close to […]
Ukraine War Could Drive Millions Elsewhere into Starvation
By Kalinga Seneviratne SYDNEY (IDN) — While images of the war devastation in Ukraine have saturated the news bulletins around the world, a much more severe human disaster is unravelling in many other parts of the world that could throw over one-fifth of humanity back into poverty. “We have all seen the tragedy unfolding inside […]