By Darini Rajasingham-Senanayake* COLOMBO | 26 May 2024 (IDN) — Calls for divestment from BlackRock and other International Sovereign Bonds (ISB), have echoed across Columbia, Yale and many non-Ivy League universities in the United States recently. BlackRock is heavily invested in weapons companies fueling a genocidal war in Palestine. However, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF), […]
The Automated Fortress Europe: No Place For Human Rights
By Fabio Chiusi* The writer is a Research Associate at the AlgorithmWatch NGO TURIN, Italy | 24 May 2024 (IDN) — 29,000 people have died in the Mediterranean over the past ten years while trying to reach the EU. You would think that the EU wanted this tragedy to stop and scientists across Europe were […]
Low-Income Countries Face Worst Debt Crisis Ever, says New Report
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS | 23 May 2024 (IDN) — A new report on global economic governance says low-income countries are faced with the worst debt crisis they have ever encountered. Currently, debt service eats up over 50 per cent of public revenue in Kenya; over 60 per cent in Morocco and over 70 […]
A Sustainable Future Must Respect Indigenous Peoples’ Worldviews
By Dario José Mejía Montalvo* The writer is Chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues NEW YORK | 1 April 2024 (IDN) — The recent sessions of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) have addressed crucial issues and persistent and emerging challenges for the realization of Indigenous Peoples’ rights. For […]
Multilateral Development Banks Play Crucial Role in Financing Global Public Goods
By José Antonio Ocampo and Karla Daniela González, Columbia University This article was first published in the 2023/2024 UNDP Human Development Report – Breaking the Gridlock: Reimagining cooperation in a polarized world –on 13 March 2024. NEW YORK | 14 March 2024 (IDN) — There is broad-based agreement among the United Nations and the Group […]
Activists Confront Uganda Over Oil Pipeline Financed by China
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 6 November 2023 (IDN) — As the world tightens its belt to use less dirty oil and more solar and other clean energies, one country on the African continent is moving full speed ahead in the opposite direction. Uganda recently signed on to one of the […]
Vienna Conference Considers Boundaries and Frontiers in Human Trafficking
By Aurora Weiss VIENNA | 29 October 2023 (IDN) — Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings remains a global phenomenon that requires intensive collaboration between governmental and non-governmental entities. Interdisciplinary cooperation, awareness raising, and proactive efforts on national, regional, and international levels are essential in this context. An effective preventive measure is the professional exchange of […]
The New EU List of Tax Havens: Much Ado About Nothing
By Jan Servaes* BRUSSELS | 25 October 2023 (IDN) — The European Finance Ministers recently revised the European list of tax havens. They added Antigua, Barbuda, Belize and Seychelles to the blacklist and removed the British Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, Cayman Islands and the Marshall Islands. The list includes Russia, Panama, and other […]
Will World Bank Boss Be Allowed to Reform the Bank?
By Kalinga Seneviratne SINGAPORE. 22 October 2023. (IDN) — “Economic growth in much of the developing world is retreating,” warned World Bank’s new President Ajay Banga in his keynote speech at a meeting of the World Bank (WB) and IMF (International Monetary Fund) from 9 to 15 October in Marrakech. Pointing out that the world […]
India Refuses to Be Coerced into Dumping Its Independent Foreign Policy
By M K Bhadrakumar * NEW DELHI. 1 October 2023 (IDN) — The sombre mood at the Council on Foreign Affairs in New York during External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s talk on 26 September was only to be expected against the backdrop of the India-Canada diplomatic spat over the killing of a Sikh secessionist in […]