By Jan Servaes* BRUSSELS | 28 April 2025 (IDN) — The debate on migration has calmed down a bit in the news media. However, this does not mean that the issue has been ‘solved’. Quite the opposite. In most discussions about migration, we tend to start with numbers. Understanding the scale changes, emerging trends and […]
The Sad Demise of the Painstakingly Constructed World Trading System
By Dr Palitha Kohona The writer was the Former Sri Lankan Ambassador to China and one-time Permanent Representative to the United Nations. COLOMBO, Sri Lanka | 28 April 2025 (IDN) — We may very well be witnessing the flickering embers of a painstakingly assembled global trading system being callously extinguished by President Trump with brutal […]
Peace Corps: The Third Rail of US Global Development Assistance
By Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir* MARRAKECH, Morocco | 27 April 2025 (IDN) ― Whereas there has been broad consensus that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is in need of reform, there is also an even wider and more deeply held belief that the value of Peace Corps ― begun in 1961 ― is […]
AUKUS and the Strategic Reconfiguration of the South China Sea: The Emerging Role of HMAS Stirling
By Leonam dos Santos Guimarães* RIO DE JANEIRO | 25 April 2025 (IDN) — The establishment of the AUKUS trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States in 2021 constitutes a profound reconfiguration of the strategic landscape in the South China Sea and the broader Indo-Pacific region. Aimed at enhancing Australia’s […]
Ending FGM Means Funding Grassroots African Activists
By Nimco Ali OBE and Baroness Helena Kennedy LT KC NAIROBI, Kenya | 17 April 2025 (IDN) — As two women who have spent our lives working for the human rights of women and girls, we are joining forces to highlight the ongoing failure to support grassroots activism to end the devastating practice of female […]
Urgent Need for South Africa to Improve Access to Justice for Rape Survivors
By Jean-Paul Murunga and Sylvia Obaga* NAIROBI Kenya | 12 April 2025 (IDN) — Nationwide outrage and public protests have erupted in South Africa after a mother began speaking out about the rape of her 7-year-old daughter, Cwecwe*. Frustration and anger over a lack of progress in the police investigation six months after initially reporting […]
NATO’s Forgotten Promise to Gorbachev
Breaking a Promise to Russia By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 1 April 2025 (IDN) — History and events have not been kind to Russia. Napoleon’s invasion, revolution, two world wars, Hitler’s invasion, Stalin’s communism, and, most recently, the expansion of Nato, have shattered the Russian people’s equilibrium and self-regard time and time again. At […]
Sewing Sustainability: The High Atlas Foundation’s Zero-Waste Initiative
By Bryn Galumbeck* MARRAKECH, Morocco | 1 April 2025 (IDN) — On 30 March, which marked the third annual International Day of Zero Waste, the international community recognized the urgent need to transform waste management and promote sustainable consumption and production. This year’s theme, Towards Zero Waste in Fashion and Textiles, highlights the pressing environmental […]
The Disability Sector Needs Bigger Voices
By Simone Galimberti* KATHMANDU, Nepal | 30 March 2025 (IDN) — If there is a realm that struggles to get attention and is always at risk of being left out of the most important conversations at the international level, it is disability. And yet, undeterred and determined to create lasting change, thousands of disabilities, experts, […]
The US, NATO, and Ukraine: The Politics of Strategic Flexibility
By Kartik Bommakanti* NEW DELHI | 30 March 2025 (IDN) — Washington’s decision to broker an end to the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war has caused heartburn and backlash from its European allies and Kyiv. The desire for strategic flexibility, which is as much a function of power as it is of agency, explains in part why […]