By Ronald Joshua GENEVA (IDN) – Experts with first-hand experience in the migrant and refugee crisis have underlined problems during their work on the ground, in coordinating rescue operations and aid distribution, or documenting and raising awareness of the situation caused by the current massive displacement of people worldwide turning into a politicized crisis of […]
WHO Forum on Medicines Calls for Fair Prices
By Ronald Joshua JOHANNESBURG (IDN) – Ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development, according to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) scheduled to be realized by 2030. Goal 3 cannot however be achieved as long as people have to pay for medicines out-of-pocket and fall into poverty. This […]
Moving Money for a Nuclear-Free and Eco Friendly World
By Jamshed Baruah GENEVA | BASEL (IDN) – While Fridays for Future protests underline a global dissatisfaction with the continuing failure of governments and industry to protect the climate, the setting of the Doomsday Clock hands to 2 minutes to midnight in January 2019 signifies a continuing high risk of a nuclear clash with disastrous […]
Call for UN Summit on Digitalization and Sustainability
By Rita Joshi BERLIN (IDN) – A new report has called on Germany and the European Union to convene a United Nations summit on ‘Digitalization and Sustainability’ in 2020 – 30 years after the UN Conference on Environment and Development, widely known as the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The central theme of the […]
Rich Nations Slash Development Aid to Neediest Countries
By Krishan Dutta PARIS (IDN) – “Donor countries are not living up to their 2015 pledge to ramp up development finance and this bodes badly for us being able to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals,” OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría has cautioned. The warning of the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development […]
Ocean Warming Blamed for Lack of Iceland’s Capelin
By Lowana Veal REYKJAVIK (IDN) – After five research expeditions in search of capelin, Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute (IMFRI) has decided not to recommend a quota for it this year, arguing that global warming is probably responsible for the lack of the fish. According to Thorsteinn Sigurdsson, head of the Pelagic Division at […]
UN Chief Calls for Urgent Action to Address Dangers Linked to Climate Change
By Caroline Mwanga NEW YORK (IDN) – Concerned about rising global temperatures and disastrous consequences, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called on Heads of State to attend the Climate Action Summit in New York on September 23, and achieve positive change. “Don’t come with a speech, come with a plan,” he said, adding: “This is […]
The Campaign Against Greta is an Index of the Loss of Values
Viewpoint by Roberto Savio* ROME (IDN | OtherNews) – Since the powerful march of hundreds of thousands of students in 1,000 towns against climate change, an unexpected campaign of delegitimation, ”demystification” and demonisation has started against Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenager who started the movement. After searching the media, social media and websites, this campaign can […]
The System, Youth and Democracy
Viewpoint by Roberto Savio* ROME (IDN | OtherNews) – If we ever needed proof of how the political system has become self-referential and unable to update itself, the latest student march in more than 1,000 towns is a very good example. Of course, politicians referred to it in declarations and, in a totally demagogic gesture, […]
‘Water for All by 2030’ Remains Little More than a Pious Wish
By Reinhard Jacobsen VIENNA (IDN) – More than 2 billion people live without safe water at home. One in four primary schools have no drinking water service, with pupils using unprotected sources or going thirsty. More than 700 children under five years of age die every day from diarrhea linked to unsafe water and poor […]