By Sean Buchanan NEW YORK (IDN) – Like many of the world’s low-lying islands, Tuvalu, the South Pacific island whose highest point is less than five metres above the waves, faces the threat of being submerged under rising seas. “We must stop Tuvalu from sinking and the world from sinking with Tuvalu,” UN Secretary-General António […]
Women’s Peace Hut Develops into a Driver of Economic Growth
A UN Women News Feature This feature first appeared on May 7, 2019 with the headline A place of peace, reconciliation and growth. NEW YORK (IDN-INPS) – The air is dry and hot in Gao. Here, in the north of Mali, the temperatures rarely fall below 30 degrees even in colder months. Around 1 million […]
Cambodia, Recipient in 1993, Gives Back to UN Peacekeeping
By Santo D. Banerjee NEW YORK | JUBA, South Sudan (IDN) – “Cambodia received peacekeeping troops in 1993, and we feel that we have to contribute in the same way as other countries did when they worked in the UN mission in our country,” remembers Colonel Channy Vongvannak. “So, we understand that countries and people […]
Russia Targets Foreign Students to Boost Image Abroad
By Kester Kenn Klomegah MOSCOW (IDN) – The Russian Ministry of Higher Education, the Russian Rectors’ Association and Education NGOs have been on their heels to realize important tasks given them by President Vladimir Putin. As an integral part of educational reforms, he has stressed the importance of enormous initiatives and modernization efforts. He also […]
Experts Slate ‘Fortress Europe’ and Push-Back Policies
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 […]