By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | 24 January 2025 (IDN) — A new study reveals that financial resources play a significant role in determining the outcome of military conflicts. The comprehensive analysis of over 700 armed conflicts between 1977 and 2013 shows a clear causal effect of increased military spending on war outcomes, raising important questions […]
Human Rights Watch Takes Stock of 2024: A Year of Reckoning
By Jan Servaes* BANGKOK, Thailand | 18 January 2025 (IDN) — The Human Rights Watch Report 2025 was recently launched in Bangkok under the title “2024: A Year of Reckoning”. The press conference, which can also be followed via YouTube, started with a video message from Tirana Hassan, HRW Director General, who tried to put […]
Do Carbon Markets Foster New Scramble for African Land?
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | 15 January 2025 (IDN) — A new study has slammed the growth of carbon offset markets for fuelling a fresh scramble for African land and “perpetuating colonial-era exploitation”. This instrument of emissions trading was introduced by the Kyoto Protocol in 2005 to confront the unrelenting challenge to limit global warming […]
US Fails to Block South American Countries’ Economic Partnerships with China
By Vijay Prashad* NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts, USA | 6 January 2024 (IDN) — In November, Álvaro Noboa, the father of Ecuador’s president Daniel Noboa, had a heart attack. He was hastily taken to a clinic in Guayaquil, his hometown, and then after he was stabilized, flown to a hospital in New York. Álvaro Noboa unsuccessfully ran […]
Cuba: Lights and Shadows of Tourism
By José Luis Perelló Cabrera HAVANA, Cuba | 17 December 2024 (IDN) — Over the past 60 years business relations between the United States and Cuba have travelled on a road plagued by obstacles, restrictions, convergence and divergence, where tourism, as the principal symbol of mobility and trade among persons, has been a mirror, marking […]
Two Words Stick as Nepal PM Goes to China for Connectivity Assistance
By Kalinga Seneviratne Bangkok | 7 December 2024 (IDN) — Breaking with tradition, Nepal’s recently re-elected Prime Minister Sharma Oli, a Communist politician, visited China from 2 to 5 December in a bid to add new momentum to growing trends in the landlocked Himalayan nation to diversify its connectivity to the outside world via railways […]
The Fuss about Kemi Badenoch
By Azu Ishiekwene The writer is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the new book Writing for Media and Monetising It. ABUJA | 28 November 2024 (IDN) — Donald Trump’s election overshadowed Kemi Badenoch’s emergence as the leader of the Tory Party of Britain. Yet, no one gets the worst political job in one of the world’s […]
Report Reveals Harrowing Truth Behind Africa’s Hidden Rape Crisis
By Kizito Makoye DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania | 27 November 2024 (IDN) — A 17-year-old Adebi* recalls how her life changed forever after the war that tore through the walls of her house in Northwest Cameroon in 2019, leaving indelible scars in the way she never imagined. “Some men broke in and raped me and […]
As Micro-credentials Gather Steam Universities Are at A Crossroad
By Kalinga Seneviratne BANGKOK | 26 November 2024 (IDN) — At a conference held here from 20-22 November of mainly Southeast Asian academics and higher education officials, a word uppermost in the minds of speakers and participants was “micro-credentials” a word that is of worry to many who have risen to professor levels over a […]
Behind a Surge in India-Russia Economic Relations
By Rajoli Siddharth Jayaprakash* NEW DELHI | 16 November 2024 (IDN) — In the past decade, the core drivers of India-Russia relations have begun shifting. The traditionally dominant military-technical partnership has declined, with India buying less Russian weapons, technology and military platforms. The economic pillar stagnated as military dealings slowed, with bilateral trade hovering around […]