By J W Jackie RENO, Nevada, USA (IDN) – Nearly one-fifth of small businesses experienced either a hack, virus or data breach in 2019, according to data from B2B site The Manifest. While this proves that small businesses are indeed vulnerable to cyber attacks, it also serves as a warning to others that makes proper […]
COVID-19: Europeans Can Learn from Developing Countries
Developed Countries Should Change Their Mindset Viewpoint by Maru Mormina and Ifeanyi M. Nsofor* OXFORD | WASHINGTON (IDN) – Nine months into the pandemic, Europe remains one of the regions worst affected by COVID-19. Ten of the 20 countries with the highest death count per million people are European. The other ten are in the […]
Agribusiness Interests Hijack 2021 UN Food Systems Summit
Viewpoint by Anuradha Mittal * OAKLAND, USA (IDN) – This World Food Day (October 16) amidst the ongoing pandemic and the devastating impact of the climate crisis, a Food Systems Summit is being planned a year from now by the United Nations, to fulfil the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals. As the Summit takes […]
UN Agency Points to Linkages Between Human Trafficking and Forced Marriage
By Richard Jacobsen VIENNA (IDN) – A new UN report has documented the interlinkages between trafficking in persons and marriage, and specified steps for governments and other authorities to strike back. Published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the report points out that across the world, girls as young as 12 are […]
COVID-19 Highlights the Global Structural Dependence on Exploitable Labour
Viewpoint by Randall Hansen* TORONTO (IDN) – In November 2019, a federal government official visited the University of Toronto’s Munk School and asked its faculty to delineate coming global threats. We spoke of inequality, hunger, climate change, sanitation, and plastic pollution, among others. No one mentioned a microbe; a discussion of the threat of immunity […]
Fiji’s Tourism Workers Turn to Farming and Fishing As COVID-19 Ravages the Industry
By Kalinga Seneviratne SYDNEY (IDN) – The COVID-19 crisis has hit tourism-dependent Pacific Island countries severely. Fiji, the largest of these states, is feeling the impact badly, with laid-off workers of tourism-related industries, such as hotels and travel companies, turning to farming and fishing for survival. Because of its larger land mass and fishing grounds […]
UN Releases Special 2020 Broadcast Calling for Collective Action
By J Nastranis NEW YORK (IDN) – In a significant move to mobilise global support, the United Nations, Project Everyone and 72 Films are launching ‘Nations United – Urgent Solutions for Urgent Times’. A first of its kind film has been released September 19 on the UN YouTube channel and global broadcast networks. The importance […]
New UN Report Warns of Future Pandemics If ‘Business as Usual’ Continues
By J. Nastranis NEW YORK (IDN) – A new UN report has underlined the importance of biodiversity in addressing climate change, and long-term food security, and concluded that action to protect biodiversity is essential to prevent future pandemics. The fifth edition of the UN’s Global Biodiversity Outlook report, released on September 15, has warned: “The […]
The Great Green Wall Is Paving the Way Ahead to 2030
By Rita Joshi BONN (IDN) – The Great Green Wall (GGW) initiative has over the past 13 years restored close to 20 million hectares of land, according to a report released on September 7 at a virtual meeting of environmental ministers from Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Djibouti together with regional […]
Of Joyce, Univ. College Dublin and Sustainable Development
By Ramu Damodaran The writer is Chief of the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI), an initiative that aligns institutions of higher education with the UN. The following article was published on the UNAI website. NEW YORK (IDN) – An old college friend, Pramesh Ratnakar, shared with me William Butler Yeats’s recollection of his first meeting, […]