Viewpoint by Sunil J. Wimalawansa * The COVID-19 pandemic has brought “a tsunami of suffering”, taken over 3.4 million lives and 500 million jobs, while wiping trillions of dollars from global balance sheets, Secretary-General António Guterres told business last May, for equitable vaccine distribution worldwide. NEW JERSEY, USA (IDN) — While the COVID-situations are significantly […]
Decentralisation Vital to Achieving the UN’s Global Goals
Viewpoint by Yossef Ben-Meir The writer is a former Peace Corps Volunteer and president of the High Atlas Foundation. MARRAKECH (IDN) — The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are aspirationally universal, addressing globally relevant issues with earnest objectives. Despite the profound good that they represent, fundamental problems exist with the Goals. They lack prescriptiveness, […]
Life of Anti-Apartheid Activist Dulcie September Profiled in New Documentary
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — South African anti-apartheid activist Dulcie September was the representative of the African National Congress (ANC) in France, Luxembourg, and Switzerland until her murder outside of ANC offices in Paris in 1988. Despite an array of clues, her killer was never identified and the story of […]
Zimbabwean Novelist Tsitsi Dangarembga Called ‘Voice of Hope’
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK (IDN) — For her “ability to capture and communicate vital truths even amidst times of upheaval”, Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga will receive the PEN Pinter prize in memory of the Nobel laureate Harold Pinter. Dangarembga is the author of Nervous Conditions, which she wrote when she was […]
G7 Judged a ‘Colossal Failure’ for All the World to See
Viewpoint by Jon Queally* PORTLAND | USA (IDN) — Anti-poverty groups, climate campaigners, and public health experts reacted with outrage and howls of disappointment Sunday after the G7 leaders who spent the weekend (June 11-13) at a summit in Cornwall, England issued a final communique that critics said represents an extreme abdication of responsibility in […]
WHO Welcomes G7 Commitment to Donate Vaccines but Asks for “More” and “Faster”
By Jaya Ramachandran GENEVA (IDN) — The leaders of seven industrial nations, constituting the Group of Seven (G7 Summit), have pledged in a landmark agreement to share COVID-19 vaccine doses internationally, in support of global equitable access and to help end the acute phase of the pandemic. In doing so, they have built on the […]
DON’T QUOTE ME: An Indian Ocean Island That Comes with an Expiry Date
By Thalif Deen* NEW YORK (IDN) — Just after a band of mercenaries tried to oust the government of the Maldives, I asked a Maldivian diplomat about the strength of his country’s standing army. “Standing army?”, the diplomat asked with mock surprise, “We don’t even have a sitting army.” With a population of about 250,000, […]
US Withdrawal from Afghanistan and National Security
Viewpoint by Manish Uprety F.R.A.S. and Jainendra Karn Manish Uprety is an ex-diplomat & ALCAP’s Special Advisor for Asia & Africa and Jainendra Karn is a senior leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Any views or opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of IDN-InDepth News. NEW […]
EU and the US Concerned About the Humanitarian Emergency in Tigray
By Reinhardt Jacobsen BRUSSELS (IDN) — Together with the United Nations, the European Commission has urged “all parties to the conflict” in Ethiopia’s Tigray region to agree to “a ceasefire immediately to facilitate humanitarian assistance to reach all people in need in Tigray regardless of where they are and to stop violence against civilians”. Leading […]
If Lessons Are Not Learned, Eternal Abnormality the New Normal?
Viewpoint by Jayasri Priyalal * SINGAPORE (IDN) — The new normal has become a famous phrase with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. This new normal could become an eternal abnormality if lessons learned about inequality in the globalized world economy exposed by the COVID-19 are not recognized and acted upon. Today, people feel frustrated […]