By Jonathan Power* LUND, Sweden | 8 May 2024 (IDN) — Napoleon warned us that China was a sleeping giant best left, undisturbed. No longer. As is clear from the visit of President Xi Jinping to France this week, the giant is well awake, even happy to pay a ceremonial visit to Napoleon’s tomb, affirming […]
Africa: A New Study May Warn of Future Climate Tipping Points
By Martin H. Trauth, Asfawossen Asrat, and Mark Maslin* LONDON | ADDIS ABABA | 8 May 2024 (IDN) — Around five and half millennia ago, northern Africa went through a dramatic transformation. The Sahara desert expanded and grasslands, forests and lakes favoured by humans disappeared. Humans were forced to retreat to the mountains, the oases, […]
UN Peacekeepers Killed in Civil Wars – Where Nothing is Civil
By Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS | 7 May 2024 (IDN) —The UN’s peacekeepers and its humanitarian workers are increasingly victims of killings in war zones—in the midst of civil wars and military conflicts. As a former UN Secretary-General once famously remarked: there is nothing civil about civil wars, where hundreds have been killed mostly in […]
Gaza War: More Death and Despair for Rafah’s 700,000 Women and Girls
By UN Women NEW YORK | 7 May 2024 (IDN) — With the population of the southern city of Rafah, in Gaza, ballooning fivefold, from 250,000 to 1.4 million people, in just seven months of the war, the physical and mental health conditions for women and girls have been deteriorating rapidly, as new data collected […]
EU Will Not Promote Democracy with Patronising Speeches and Paternalistic Funds
By Jan Zielonka* This article has been issued jointly by Social Europe and IPS-Journal OXFORD | 7 May 2024 (IDN) — In a recent interview for the New Statesman, a former head of Israel’s internal-security service, Ami Ayalon, disarmingly confessed: ‘We have to assume we shall have a war with Hezbollah not because we want […]
Small Gains Seen in Africa for Environmental Journalists
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network NEW YORK | 6 May 2024 (IDN) — This year, World Press Freedom Day centred around the importance of journalists raising awareness of the global environmental crisis and its consequences. As they investigate climate change, pollution, deforestation, supply chain problems, illegal mining and animal trafficking, reporters have been facing […]
A Mixed Reception at Talks on an Anti-Pollution Plastic Treaty
By Simone Galimberti* KATHMANDU Nepal | 5 May 2024 (IDN)– The fourth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4), negotiating a draft treaty against plastic pollution, one of the growing environmental hazards, was held in Ottawa, Canada, 23-29 April. But how did the talks end? It depends. Certainly, you do not need to be an […]
UN Conference to Assist Small Island States to Defy Multiple Crises
By Ramesh Jaura BERLIN | 4 May 2024 (IDN) — “Charting the Course Toward Resilient Prosperity” is the overarching theme of the fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS4) to be held from 27 to 30 May 2024 in St John’s, Antigua and Barbuda at the American University of Antigua. The Conference has […]
The Gaza War Pushes More Than Half of Palestinians into Poverty
By J Nastranis NEW YORK | 3 May 2024 (IDN) — The seven-month-long Gaza war is thrusting nearly 1.74 million—more than 58 per cent—of Palestinians into poverty, plunging the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the State of Palestine by nearly 27 per cent or causing a loss of 7.1 billion US Dollar from a 2023 […]
WHO Fears Bloodbath If Israel Launches a Full-Scale Military Operation in Rafah
By Jaya Ramachandran GENEVA | 3 May 2024 (IDN) — The World Health Organization (WHO) has called for respecting “the sanctity of health care”, adding that “parties to the conflict have the coordinates of health facilities”. These must be actively protected and remain accessible to patients, health workers and partners. “The safety of health and […]