By Fermín Koop* BUENOS AIRES, Argentina | 15 March 2025 (IDN) — Every five years, parties to the Paris Agreement on climate change must submit action plans that increase their level of ambition in meeting its goal: to halt the average global temperature rise at 2C above pre-industrial levels, if not 1.5C. The current slate […]
Venezuela’s Maduro Crowned President for 3rd Term: Will Guyana’s Borders Face Increased Incursions?
By P.I. Gomes The writer is former Secretary-General, Organisation of African, Caribbean & Pacific States (OACPS), Brussels, Belgium. PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago | 31 January 2025 (IDN) — On 10 January 2025, Nicolas Maduro was bestowed with the Presidential sash of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela granting him a third 6-year term, 2025 […]
Kenya Deploys 200 More Police Officers to Haiti as Crisis Escalates
By Nicholas Mwangi* NAIROBI | 27 January 2025 (IDN) — Kenya has deployed another batch of 217 police officers to Haiti, adding to the 400 sent last year as part of a “multinational mission” aimed at addressing the country’s deepening crisis of gang violence. The intervention aims to protect critical infrastructure and conduct “targeted operations” […]
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 […]
UN Considers Haiti’s Destiny ‘Bright’ Despite Terrifying Escalation of Violence
By Caroline Mwanga NEW YORK | 28 December 2024 (IDN) — Haiti is faced with a multifaceted crisis including rising gang violence, political instability, the displacement of over 700,000 people as well as widespread hunger. UNICEF has reported a sharp increase in the recruitment of minors by armed gangs, with the number of child recruits […]
Ecuador Opens World Heritage Natural Site Galapagos Islands to US Military
By Pablo Meriguet and Benjamin Zinevich* QUITO, Ecuador | 23 December 2024 (IDN) — On 15 February 2024, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboasigned a series military cooperation treaties with the US government, allowing ships, military personnel, armament, equipment, and submarines to be installed in the natural reserve, which UNESCO declared a World Natural Heritage Site in […]
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 […]
Colombia: Women-Led Fish Farming Is Offering an Alternative to Drug Crops
By Iñigo Alexander* BOGOTÁ, Colombia | 11 December 2024 (IDN) — The Amazon rainforest in southern Colombia stretches lush and green across the horizon, but beneath its dense canopy lies a shifting reality. The southern province of Putumayo—a remote region bordering Ecuador, at the edge of the country’s Amazon—has long been dominated by coca plantations […]
Haiti: Children Face Unprecedented Crisis Amid Escalating Violence
By Vibhu Mishra NEW YORK | 12 November 2024 (IDN | UN News) — This year has seen a staggering 1,000 per cent or ten-fold surge in sexual violence against children in Haiti, during an unprecedented crisis which has seen armed gangs continue to terrorize communities amid a growing humanitarian disaster. Virginia Gamba, UN Special […]
Latin America: The Tug of War Between Global Gateway and Belt-and-Road
By Javier Lewkowicz* BUENOS AIRES, Argentina | 6 October 2023 (IDN) — Last year, the European Union renewed its economic and strategic interest in Latin America by announcing investments of EUR 45 billion (USD 48.7 billion), seen by many as a way to regain influence in the face of China’s growing presence in the region. […]